headed column dating from ancient times, as at Deir el Baharî; but this
order is best known in buildings of the Ptolemaic period, as at Contra
Latopolis, Philae, and Denderah. The shaft and the base present no special
characteristics. They resemble those of the campaniform columns. The
capital is in two divisions. Below we have a square block, bearing on each
face a woman's head in high relief and crowned with a naos. The woman has
the ears of a heifer. Her hair, confined over the brow by three vertical
bands, falls behind the ears, and hangs long on the shoulders. Each head
supports a fluted cornice, on which stands a naos framed between two
volutes, and crowned by a slender abacus (fig. 71). Thus each column has
for its capital four heads of Hathor. Seen from a distance, it at once
recalls the form of the sistrum, so frequently represented in the bas-
reliefs as held in the hands of queens and goddesses. It is in fact a
sistrum, in which the regular proportions of the parts are disregarded. The
handle is gigantic, while the upper part of the instrument is unduly
reduced. This notion so pleased the Egyptian fancy that architects did not
hesitate to combine the sistrum design with elements borrowed from other
orders. The four heads of Hathor placed above a campaniform capital,
furnished Nectenebo with a composite type for his pavilion at Philae (fig.
72). I cannot say that the compound is very satisfactory, but the column is
in reality less ugly than it appears in engravings.

[Illustration: Fig. 72.--Campaniform and Hathor-headed capital, Philae.]

[Illustration: Fig. 73.--Section of the hypostyle hall at Karnak to show
the
arrangement of the two varieties: campaniform and lotus-bud columns.]

Shafts of columns were regulated by no fixed rules of proportion or
arrangement. The architect might, if he chose, make use of equal heights