CHAPTER II
GEOMETRICAL DECORATION
The Line.
One of the simplest and the earliest kinds of ornament that we find is the zigzag line, which occurs on the oldest tombs, 4000 B.C. So simple is this, that it might be supposed that every possible variety of it would be soon played out. Yet, strange to say, two of the simplest modifications are not found till a couple of thousand years after the plain zigzag had been used. The wavy line in curves instead of angular waves is not found till the XVIIIth dynasty, or about 1500 B.C.; while the zigzag with spots in the spaces is equally late, and is generally foreign to Egypt.
1.—VI. dyn., L.D., II. 98.
2.—IV. dyn., Mery, Louvre.
3.—V. dyn., Ptah-hotep, Perrot XIII.
The plain repeated zigzag line is used down to late times, but generally with variety in colour to give it interest. From the earliest times this was symmetrically doubled, so as to give a row of squares with parallel borders; or with repeated zigzag borders in alternate light and dark colours. This same type lasted onward to the XIXth dynasty (belt Ramessu II. C.M.X.), and is found, with the addition of spots in the outer angles, in the foreign dress of Shekh Absha, at Benihasan, in the XIIth dynasty.