Among animals a favourite in decoration was the ibex, but it was not introduced till the XVIIIth dynasty. It often appears on the finger-rings of Akhenaten’s time, and later upon the funeral tent of Isiemkheb, ingeniously adapted to fill a square space.
The bull or young calf was more frequently introduced; on the wooden boxes and trays it is shown as bounding in the meadows, and it is continually used in the groups of the painted pavement at Tell el Amarna.
Birds are also a common subject for decoration, though only dating from the same period as the other animals. Besides the symbolic or sacred use of the hawk and vulture, the very secular duck was a favourite bird. On the great pavements of Akhenaten it appears above every group of plants.
Fig. 165.
On rings it is often engraved fluttering above its nest; and in the decadence of Egyptian art in the XXth dynasty the incongruous idea was adopted of birds, eggs, and nests all upon a ceiling.
The natural ceiling pattern adopted from the early days of Egyptian art was of golden stars on a deep blue ground; not a dark daylight blue, as in modern imitations, but a black night blue. These are always five-pointed stars, with a circular spot, usually of red, in the centre.
Fig. 166.
It is noticeable that the Egyptian views a star as surrounded by long streamers of light; because to a long-sighted person, or any one with proper spectacles, the stars appear as points of light without radiations. Hence it seems as if the Egyptians were short-sighted people from the early ages.