Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/129

 The Column. Fk;. 46. — IJeiiicii- tary form of Kgyplian oolomn. Chipiczi Fif.62. Fig. 47. — Element tary form of Persian coluoui. Cbipiei, FiK.63. much as he pleases, and crowd with minor ornaments the part that interposes between the shaft and the capital properly so called, yet dissimilarity and diversity of origin will show through it all. Even in such instances where Egyptian workmen have been required to lend their ser- vices to the erection of the building, and have actually introduced this or that shape, because most familiar to them, the Iranian column, elegant daughter of a forest tree and support of a timber loft, will always preserve a very difierent aspect from that of the Egyptian pillar. The same impression is carried away by the study and comparison of the bases. Of these a solitary specimen belongs to a column believed on all hands to be incligcnous and older than the relations between Persia and the Delta (P ig. 11), but whose resemblance to the Egyptian is very remarkable. To find an explanation for it. I^owever, we need not have recourse to the imitation theory. The base in question, found at Pasaigadx, is no more than a cushion interposed Ijttween the base of the wood support and the humid soil. From the earliest dawn of plastic in- stinct, a circular shape was given to the cushion so as to bring it in harmony with the pillar. Nothing in Egypt reminds us, even at a distance, of the second type of base found here side by side with the first ; it consists of a fluted torus and hexagonal plinth, which crops up again in a certain class of edifices of a later period (Fit^. 48). The shape has been compared with that of an archaic base exhumed at Samos but without going so far, we shall find countless examples of Fig. 48.— Base from the porch of the Gmbie, Pasargadae. Profile and section. Flandis and CosTE, Peru ancientu, nu« cLxxvu. Digitized by Google
 * DiEULAFOY, I'Ar/ antiqutt torn. i. pp. 44, 45.