(Lat. columna), a pillar to support a roof or other part of a building. It is more usually applied to ancient architecture, the columns of Gothic buildings being usually termed pillars. Still, this distinction of terms is not universally observed. A column generally has a base, shaft, and capital. The proportions vary with the style of architecture, and the size and purpose of the building. It was frequently merely an architectural ornament, and was used in all cultivated ages. Those employed by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Persians may be taken as the best and most classical examples of antiquity. (See PILLAR).

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1. Egyptian columns may be classed in eight orders, as in the accompanying wood-cut, where, being drawn to the same scale, their respective dimensions are shown. For, though columns of the same order vary very much in different buildings, an average proportion may be assigned to them, which, indeed, is all that can be done in those of Greece, though they varied less than in Egyptian architecture. In point of antiquity, the first was certainly the square pillar; then the polygonal and round fluted column of the second order; and soon afterwards the third and fourth came into use. But the fourth and fifth. though used long before, were not common till the 18th dynasty, and the fourth assumed a larger size than any other, as at Karnak and Luxor. The sixth, though mostly in Ptolemaic and Roman temples, dates at least as early as the 18th dynasty; as does the eighth, which is, in fact, the square pillar, with a figure attached, and the evident original of the Caryatide of Greece; but the seventh is limited to the age of the Ptolemies, and has an endless variety in the form and ornaments of its capital. It was, however, quite Egyptian, and in no way indebted to Greek taste for its introduction. Of the same kind were the columns described by Athenaeus (v. 103), with circular capitals, set round with rose-like ornaments, or with flowers and interlaced leaves, some of which were made of the long tapering form used in their houses, to which he also alludes. There was also a pilaster surmounted by a cow's head (Wilkinson's Anc. Egyptians, 2:285, 286, abridgm.).

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