In Europe and Asia all trace of this primitive stage has ceased to exist. The development and continuity of ideas and customs, the traditions of style and craftsmanship carried on through many centuries of the world’s history have obliterated the early or primitive style of ornament, chosen first for its significance or emblematic character. Some remarkable examples of pottery and woven textile fabrics have been recently found in the ancient cemeteries of Peru--relics of the Incas--long anterior to the Spanish conquest. Many fine examples of these woven textiles of cotton and wool are now in the South Kensington museum, forming the Smithies collection, and, as in the ornament of Polynesia, floral forms are entirely absent, the ornament consisting of conventional representations of the human figure, with the owl, condor and the toucan, mingled with the wave scroll and the fret, elements doubtless chosen for their significance. Many beautiful illustrations could be chosen from the history of ornament, showing this continuity and persistency of line and form and its remarkable influence upon contemporary and succeeding races. Perhaps the form and enrichment of the Architectural Capital offer one of the most interesting and instructive fields of study in the history and evolution of architecture. The remarkable persistency of the capital as a distinctive feature in architecture may be traced through many centuries, though differentiated by climatic conditions and racial influences, yet still preserving a remarkable similarity of form and enrichment among the various nations of the earth. The function of the capital is to sustain and transmit to the columns the weight of the entablature or archivolt, and the beauty and appropriateness of the capital depends:-- First, upon this functional treatment of strength; Second, upon the beauty of profile or mass; Third, upon the enrichment and proportion of the capital. The dignified Doric capital of the Greeks illustrates these functions and conditions by its perfect adaptability, simple functional strength, beauty of profile, appropriateness of enrichment and proportion and harmony of parts, qualities which are essential to beauty of architecture. In the Parthenon, B.C. 438, we have the finest treatment of this capital--a treatment full of dignity, reserve, and unison of profile (plate 6). The many examples of the Doric Order in Greece and her colonies attest to the esteem in which this order was held by the Greeks. The Indian capital (plate 24) exhibits the same functional treatment by the use of brackets or modillions, which undoubtedly are a survival of a wooden construction, and which are typical of Eastern architecture. [Illustration: EGYPTIAN CAPITAL FROM PHILÆ.]