The entablature comprised an architrave of two or three flat bands crowned by fine mouldings; an uninterrupted frieze, frequently sculptured in relief; and a simple cornice of great beauty. In addition to the ordinary bed-mouldings there was in most examples a row of narrow blocks or _dentils_ under the corona, which was itself crowned by a high cymatium of extremely graceful profile, carved with the rich “honeysuckle” (_anthemion_) ornament. All the mouldings were carved with the “egg-and-dart,” heart-leaf and anthemion ornaments, so designed as to recall by their outline the profile of the moulding itself. The details of this order were treated with much more freedom and variety than those of the Doric. The pediments of Ionic buildings were rarely or never adorned with groups of sculpture. The volutes and echinus of the capital, the fluting of the shaft, the use of a moulded circular base, and in the cornice the high corona and cymatium, these were constant elements in every Ionic order, but all other details varied widely in the different examples. [Illustration: FIG. 29.--SIDE VIEW OF IONIC CAPITAL.] +ORIGIN OF THE IONIC ORDER.+ The origin of the Ionic order has given rise to almost as much controversy as that of the Doric. Its different elements were apparently derived from various sources. The Lycian tombs may have contributed the denticular cornice and perhaps also the general form of the column and capital. In the Persian architecture of the sixth century B.C., the high moulded base, the narrow flutings of the shaft, the carved bead-moulding and the use of scrolls in the capital are characteristic features, which may have been borrowed by the Ionians during the same century, unless, indeed, they were themselves the work of Ionic or Lycian workmen in Persian employ. The banded architrave and the use of the volute in the decoration of stele-caps (from στηλη = a memorial stone or column standing isolated and upright), furniture, and minor structures are common features in Assyrian, Lycian, and other Asiatic architecture of early date. The volute or scroll itself as an independent decorative motive may have originated in successive variations of Egyptian lotus-patterns.[8] But the combination of these diverse elements and their development into the final form of the order was the work of the Ionian Greeks, and it was in the Ionian provinces of Asia Minor that the most splendid examples of its use are to be found (Halicarnassus, Miletus, Priene, Ephesus), while the most graceful and perfect are those of Doric-Ionic Attica. [Footnote 8: As contended by W. H. Goodyear in his _Grammar of the Lotus_.] [Illustration: FIG. 30.--GREEK CORINTHIAN ORDER. (From the monument of Lysicrates.)]