96 History of Art in Antiquity. Persian column, we are unable to resist the temptation of asking whence it came, if the expression be allowed, e.g. where it started into being ; how far it is original, and to what extent the artists who invented it derived their inspiration from older types and foreign models ; in a word, we desire to have light thrown upon the singular gracility of its shaft and the very special forms of its base and capital. It has been proposed to recognize the Egyptian support, not excepting its most finished types, as derived from the rock-cut pillar upon which rested the roof of the hypogaeum. The theory is not at all improbable. By its light we can see it grow, and note how, by a series of cunning touches, the massive pier lost its rudeness, was disengaged, and finally transformed into the noble dignified column seen at Luxor and Kamac. Yet even in those edifices that rank as the master-pieces of Egyptian art, it always retained proportions that remind us of its origin and primitive physiognomy. Its sturdy and somewhat thickset aspect was rendered necessary to enable it to carry the burden of enormous architraves and stone lofts which the builders of the Delta put upon it.* The most superficial glance at the Persian column reveals the fact of a different point of departure (Fig. 38). If, even in the grandiose edifices erected* by the Achaemenidae, it never upliolds aught but timber, we cannot admit its having fulfilled a different rdle and borne heavier material at any time previous to that date in the architecture of which it forms an integral part ; consequently we can look back to the day when lofts and supports of the simpler buildings were of the same materia], and when the latter were no more than trunks of trees. Some notion may be gained of the primitive support under notice, the rude ancestor of the elegant column at Persepolis and Susa, from that upon which rests the flat roof of the annexed illustration (Fig. 39). It is from a village of M;izinderan, a province adjoin- ing on the Caspian, occupied for awhile by Aryan tribes ere they spread on the Iranic plateau. There is a striking resemblance between the entablature of this habitation and that of the Persepolitan palaces, such as we understand it, and as shown in our restoration. The column lends itself to a like comparison. Thus its wood crowning member has a very marked salience beyond the shaft, and extends right and left on a line with the ' Hist, of Artf torn. ii. pp. 545-552. Digitized by Google
