These tombs and the mummy cases they contain are often decorated with symbolic ornament, as well as with geometrical designs and those suggested by the national flora. The compartments of ceiling decorations have scarabs in their centres, and upon the mummy cases it is occasionally substituted for the uræus-crowned disk in the centre of a huge pair of extended wings. Beneath it, figures of Isis or Nephthys, the guardians of the tomb, are found (Fig. 287). The effect is similar to that of the winged globes which are found upon cornices. In the latter the disk which represents the sun is red, and stands boldly out from the green of the two wings. The latter, again, are relieved against a striped ground, on which bands of red, blue, and white are laid alternatively. Thanks to the happy choice of these colours, the result is excellent from a decorative point of view, and that in spite of its continual repetition and the simplicity of its lines. [Illustration: FIG. 286.--Specimens of ceiling decorations. From Prisse.] [Illustration: TOMB OF PTAH-HOTEP CEILING AND UPPER PART OF WESTERN WALL Drawn in perspective to a scale of one fifth] [Illustration: FIG. 287.--Painting on a mummy case. _Description_, vol. ii. pl. 58.] [Illustration: FIG. 288.--Winged globe. From Prisse.] Among the original motives to be found in these paintings, there is yet another which deserves to be named for its uncommon character, we mean those tables for offerings which are shown loaded with vases and other objects of a like nature. As if to mark the importance of the funerary gifts, the stems of these tables are made so lofty that they rise high above two trees, apparently cypresses, which grew right and left of their feet (Figs. 289 and 290). The Egyptians made use of the afterwards common decorative motive of alternate buds and open blooms of lotus, but they entirely failed to give it the lightness and elegance with which it was endowed by the Greeks. Their buds were poor and meagre, their flowers heavy, and the general design not without stiffness.[359] [359] LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part iii. plate 62. PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art Égyptien_, atlas, plate lettered _Frises Fleuronnées_.