Fig. 76.—Pattern from the ceiling of a tomb, Necropolis of Thebes, Eighteenth Dynasty; from Coffey, after Prisse d’Avennes.
In Fig. [76] we have a ceiling design in which the lotus is very apparent both in flower and bud; the rosettes, like spiders’ webs, may possibly represent the leaves of the lotus (Fig. [70]), and we have the same interlocking but discontinuous spirals that occur in Fig. 74.
A different treatment of the same motive is seen in Fig. [77], but here only the lotus flowers and the interlocking scrolls are employed. Below each flower is a fan-like portion apparently tied on to the former; this may have some significance or it may be merely a convenient method of finishing off the flower.
Fig. 77.—Pattern from the ceiling of a tomb, Necropolis of Thebes, Eighteenth to Nineteenth Dynasties; from Coffey, after Prisse d’Avennes.
In these old Egyptian designs the rosette is often associated with the lotus and lotus derivatives, as in Fig. [74]; and it may happen, as in Fig. [78], that the former is the most prominent motive. The lotus is here represented solely by the black triangles which occupy the angles of the quadrangular spaces which contain the rosettes; at all events there is good evidence to support this view.
The angularisation of the last pattern gives us Fig. [79], which many people would imagine to be Greek, although, as a matter of fact, it is ancient Egyptian. The rosettes and the angled scrolls alone persist. We cannot speak with certainty as to the reason for the modification of the scrolls, but it is probable that it resulted from an attempt to copy such a painted design as Fig. [78] in textiles, and the pattern metamorphosed by the new conditions was painted on the tomb ceilings along with its more flowing progenitor. For further examples of analogous transference of designs from one technique to another, and their consequent transformation, the reader is referred to p. [112].