Fig. 318—Rectangle, triangle, and serrate spurs
Fig. 319—W-pattern; terminal crooks
Fig. 320—W-pattern; terminal rectangles
The design in [figure 317] is rectangular, showing a key pattern at one end, with two long feathers at the opposite extremity. The five bodies on the same end of the figure are unique and comparable with conventionalized star emblems. The series of designs in the upper left-hand end of this figure are unlike any which have yet been found on the exterior of food bowls, but are similar to designs which have elsewhere been interpreted as feathers. On the hypothesis that these two parts of the figure are tail-feathers, we find in the crook the analogue of the head of a bird. Thus the designs on the equator of the vase ([plate cxlv], a), which are birds, have the same crook for the head, and two simple tail-feathers, rudely drawn but comparable with the two in [figure 317]. The five dentate bodies on the lower left-hand end of the figure also tell in favor of the avian character of the design, for the following reason: These bodies are often found accompanying figures of conventionalized birds ([plates cxliv], [cliv], and others). They are regarded as modified crosses of equal arms, which are all but universally present in combinations with birds and feathers ([plates cxliv], a, b; [cliv], a), from the fact that in a line of crosses depicted on a bowl one of the crosses is replaced by a design of similar character. The arms of the cross are represented; their intersection is left in white. The interpretation of [figure 317] as a highly conventionalized bird design is also in accord with the same interpretation of a number of similar, although less complicated, figures which appear with crosses. Thus the three arms of [plate clx], a, have highly conventionalized bird symbols attached to their extremities. In the cross figure shown in [plate clviii], d, we find four bird figures with short, stumpy tail-feathers. These highly conventionalized birds, with the head in the form of a crook and the tail-feathers as parallel lines, are illustrated on many pottery objects, nowhere better, however, than in those shown in [plates cxxvi], a, and [clx], e. [Figure 318] may be compared with [figure 317].