COLUMN (from Lat. columna. column. con nected with AS. ho/m, island). A pillar or post, usually cylindrical in form, made of any mate rial, such as wood, stone, brick, or iron, and used as a support, either real or apparent. In the historic architectural styles the column has held a most important position, often determin ing both aesthetic and constructive forms. It is in connection both with the arch and the architrave. Strictly speaking, a column should consist of a shaft, circular in plan, and sur mounted by a distinct capital, and it should rest on a base. Exceptionally. as in the Doric style, the base is omitted. Throughout antiquity the column was used mainly as a constructive mem ber, and only exceptionally as a decorative fea ture: but in the Middle Ages the column formed a large part of the rich system of decora tion. Normally, columns stand free and singly, at regular intervals. supporting a superstruc ture, hut there are many variations of such a type. (I) The half or three-quarter column, en gaged in a pier or wall. came into use at quite an early date—in Egypt, for example—entered the domain of architecture permanently in the Roman style, and has been common ever since. (2) The grouping of columns by twos or even threes hard ly obtained generally until the Middle Ages, when it was a special feature of cloisters. (3) The simple circular plan was changed for a cluster of shafts in many styles—Assyro-Baby Ionian, Egyptian, and especially medbeval, when the grouped columnar pier was most character istic. (4) Honorary columns were quite uncon nected with any structure, and were at first en tirely religious in significance, like the two col umns in front of the Temple of Jerusalem (Jakin and Boaz), those in connection with Phonician and other Oriental and even I'elasgie sanctua ries. and the many erected in Hellenic coun tries surmounted by figures or symbols of the gods. Afterwards they were used to com memorate the achievements of men, especially by the Romans, who surmounted them with hon orary statues, the most famous being those of Trajan, Marcus Aurelius. and Antoninus Pius in Rome, of Arcadius and Theodosius in Constanti nople, of Pompey in Alexandria, and the Ven dome column in Paris The shafts of columns were sometimes mono liths, of a single piece. or built up of superposed drums, or with a core of different material from the face. The first was the favorite form of the Romans, the second of the Greeks, the third of the Assyro-Babylonians and Etruscans. of whom the former sheathed a wooden core with metal, while the latter did it with terra-cotta—a method not unknown to the early Greeks. The materials almost universally used throughout historic times have been stone and marble. It is idle to speculate as to the origin of the stone or brick column and whether it goes back to a wooden original. It is certainly true that in the
history of Greek architecture the wooden column was a primitive form, as is attested in the Temple of Hera at Olympia, as well as in lit erary traditions.
Columnar architecture played a very subor dinate role in the vaulted Assyro-Babylonian style, and appears only in lighter and smaller structures, such as shrines, in antis, and in deli cate second-story superstructures, where the shafts were often carried on the hacks of sphinxes or lions and surmounted by proto-Ionic or bulbous capitals. The proportions approach more closely to the Hellenic than in Egypt. The Egyptians were the first to utilize columns on a grand scale, especially in the great hypostyle halls of their temples, as early as the Eleventh Dynasty (c.2500 B.C.) . They used a great vari ety of designs and proportions, so that they can hardly be said to have had orders or canons of proportions, though the shafts were almost in variably heavy, their height varying only from about three to five times their diameter. The shaft usually rest• upon a plain, low, circular base, in the form of a plinth, immediately above which it often takes on a pronounced swelling or entasis. Its surface, even when a smooth cylin der, is almost always decorated with brilliantly colored and rare riliero ornaments, in the form of hieroglyphs, patterns, or religious symbols. Often, instead of a smooth cylinder, the shaft is in the form of a bunch of palm or lotus stalks, banded together at intervals by bands of rings, and surmounted by a palm or lotus flower cap ital, or campaniform capital, on which a square plinth is utually superposed. Another form of shaft, popular only in the middle period and best seen in the tombs at Beni-Hassan, is the polygonal derivative of the square pier, with sometimes as many as Di or :32 sides, which sug “ests the fluting of the classic column. The - material used is invariably stone, and the con struction is by drums. The Oriental series closes with the Persian column, which is later than the Greco-Ionic and was formed under combined Egyptian, Assyrian, and tonian influences. The great columnar halls of the Persian royal pal aces rivaled the temple halls of Egypt, but pro (hived a totally opposite effect, because the columns were slender and tall (60 to 70 feet), fluted like the Greek, instead of painted and carved, and widely spaced, instead of crowded. The simple Greek type, evident in shaft and base, was not followed in the elaborate three-staged capital—animals, volutes, and campaniform bulbs—evidently inspired by Assyro-Babylonian models. The columns were of stone, but, unlike the Egyptian, the lintels they supported were of wood, which made the slender proportions and wide spacing possible.