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. [Illustration: 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. [Illustration: Fig. 167.—L.D. II. 19.] [Illustration: Fig. 168.] Lastly we may notice the base imitation of nature in copying the grain of wood, which we find done in the earliest times of the IVth dynasty, and continued down to the period of the Empire. Stones were also imitated by painting, and red granite is frequently copied in the earlier days, on the recessed doorways of tombs. In later times vases of valuable stone were imitated by painting over a pottery vase, and such cheap substitutes were commonly placed in the tombs. These base imitations are of æsthetic interest as showing in what a different manner the Egyptian viewed his materials from that of our standpoint. He stuccoed and painted over his hard stone statues; it was enough for him to know that the stone was hard and imperishable—he did not need to see it always exposed. The imitation of nature was the standpoint from which he started, and he had no objection to carry out that imitation with paint or otherwise; our abstract standpoint of an artistic effect which must never involve falsity, but which may have little or nothing to do with nature, was altogether outside of his æsthetic. CHAPTER IV _STRUCTURAL DECORATION_