The plaiting of rushes to make a mat was probably one of the earliest industrial occupations, and the chequer one of the most primitive and universal of patterns. If we look at the surface effect of the necessity of the construction, the crossing of one equal set of fibres by another set at right angles, with the interlacement, a series of squares are produced, which alternate in tint if the colour of one set is darker than the sets which cross it (see illustration). Emphasize this contrast and we get our chequer, or chessboard pattern, which, either as a pattern complete in itself, as in plaids and tartans, or as a plan, or effect motive in designing is, as I have said, perhaps the most universal and imperishable of all patterns, being found in association with the design of all periods, and still surviving in constant use among designers.
MATTING.
Let us follow the primitive rush mat a little further, however. As it lay on the primitive tent or hut floor its edges would take the sort of form shown on the following page. In ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, and Greek architecture we constantly find carved patterns used as borderings and figures, of the type given in the Assyrian example. Now, comparing this with the primitive matting, the suggestion is very strong of the probability of derivation of motive of patterns of this type from the same constructive source originally. In some instances, as on the enamelled tile from Assyria, the border reverses itself, but with the Greeks it finally took the upright direction, as in the Anthemion or honeysuckle border forms; but, however afterwards varied and enriched by floral form, its structural origin in plaited work is always to be traced, and it seems to gain from it a certain strength and adaptability.
PRIMITIVE RUSH MAT AND ASSYRIAN BORDER.
ASSYRIAN INCISED BORDER.
Another type of ornament may be traced to the constructive necessities of wattle and wicker work, so much used by primitive man in the structure of his dwellings, and in primitive objects of use and service.
ASSYRIAN ENAMELLED TILE.