Columns

Antiquity All significant Iron Age civilizations of the Near East and Mediterranean made some use of columns. Egyptian In later Egyptian architecture faceted cylinders were also common. Their form is thought to derive from archaic reed-built shrines. Carved from stone, the columns were highly decorated with carved and painted hieroglyphs , texts, ritual imagery and natural motifs.

Egyptian columns are famously present in the Great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak ( c. 1224 BC ), where 134 columns are lined up in sixteen rows, with some columns reaching heights of 24 metres. One of the most important type are the papyriform columns. The origin of these columns goes back to the 5th Dynasty .

They are composed of lotus (papyrus) stems which are drawn together into a bundle decorated with bands: the capital, instead of opening out into the shape of a bellflower , swells out and then narrows again like a flower in bud. The base, which tapers to take the shape of a half-sphere like the stem of the lotus, has a continuously recurring decoration of stipules.