Finish every Egyptian wall, gate and shrine with a torus roll and, above it, a deep cavetto (the gorge) curving outward under a flat band.
Rules · Columns · Capitals · Ornament
The column is a plant
Model the column on a plant of the Nile (a papyrus stem or bundle, a bundle of lotus, a palm trunk), bound at the neck with five bands, standing on a round base disc and carrying a small square abacus.
Egyptian columns are petrified vegetation: the papyrus that grew in the marshes of the Delta, the lotus of the river, the date palm. Bundle columns keep the lobed section of several stems tied together; the capital is the flower, open or in bud. The abacus is usually smaller than the capital and set back, so that the architrave seems to float above the flower.
The proportions are stout, typically five to seven lower diameters, because the columns carry stone architraves and roof slabs.
Related rules
In a great columned hall make the columns of the central aisle taller than the rest, and fill the difference in height with stone grilles, so that light enters high up over the side aisles.
Give the columns of the tall, clerestory-lit central aisle open papyrus capitals and those of the lower aisles closed buds.
Cut a shaft with sixteen shallow flutes or facets, give it a square abacus and a low round base: the “proto-Doric” column of the Middle Kingdom rock tombs at Beni Hasan.
Cut the obelisk from a single block of granite, square in section, tapering to about two-thirds of its base width, capped by a pyramidion, and about ten times as tall as it is wide; set them in pairs before the pylon.
height ≈ 9–11 × base width
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The column is a plant”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/egyptian-plant-columns. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.