96 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. link between the shaft and the architrave which almost exactly corresponds to the Greek abacus. This quadrangular member was advantageous in two ways ; it prevented any incoherence between the diameter of the shaft and the depth of the architrave, and it supplied an unchanging element to the composition.^ The persistence of this square abacus helps to call our attention to the continual changes undergone by the shaft which it surmounts. The slight inclination of the sides gives to the latter the effect of a cone, and the contrast between its almost circular top and the Fig. 72. — Octagonal pillar ; Ikni-Hassan. Fig. 73. — Sixteen-sided pillar ; flated. rio-ht-ano-les of the abacus helps us to remember that the square pier was its immediate progenitor. The conical form of the pillars at Beni-Hassan, their want of a well-marked base, their sixteen flutes, the square abacus inter- posed between their shafts and the architrave, made, when taken together, a great impression upon the mind of Champollion. He thought that in them he had found a first sketch for the oldest of the Greek orders, and that the type brought to perfection by the builders of Corinth and Paestum had its origin in the tombs of ^ Chipiez, Hisfoire critique des Origiiies et de la Formation des Ordres Grccques, p. 44.
