Egg-and-dart

Egg-and-dart or Egg-and-tongue is an ornamental device often carved in wood, stone, or plaster quarter-round ovolo moulding, consisting of an egg-shaped object alternating with an element shaped like an arrow, anchor or dart. Egg-and-dart enrichment of the ovolo molding of the Ionic capital is found in Ancient Greek architecture at the Erechtheion and was used by the Roman.Lucy T. Shoe, Profiles of Greek Mouldings 1936, supplemented by Shoe, "Greek Mouldings of Kos and Rhodes", Hesperia 19.4 (October - December 1950:338-369 and illustrations) This design motif has been common in the classical architecture of Europe since the Renaissance.<!--This is just not true:As a mass-produced architectural motif at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, it can, when seen along side dentils (tooth-like blocks of wood in rows) be used to date a building to the Edwardian period which began with the death of Queen Victoria in 1903.-->

In popular culture

Don Henley of the rock group The Eagles in "Waiting in the Weeds", on their 2007 release, Long Road Out Of Eden, makes reference to "the tide's eternal tune, the phases of the moon, the chambers of the heart, the egg-and-dart." The allusion is apparently in keeping with the song's theme of life's ongoing and dependable...
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