The decoration of walls and ceilings in no wise resembled such scenes or designs as we find in the tombs. The panels were whitewashed or colour- washed, and bordered with a polychrome band. The ceilings were usually left white; sometimes, however they were decorated with geometrical patterns, which repeated the leading motives employed in the sepulchral wall- paintings. Thus we find examples of meanders interspersed with rosettes (fig. 21), parti-coloured squares (fig. 22), ox-heads seen frontwise, scrolls, and flights of geese (fig. 23). [Illustration: Fig. 21.--Ceiling pattern from behind, Medinet Habû, Twentieth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 22.--Ceiling pattern similar to one at El Bersheh, Twelfth Dynasty.] I have touched chiefly upon houses of the second Theban period,[2] this being in fact the time of which we have most examples. The house-shaped lamps which are found in such large numbers in the Fayûm date only from Roman times; but the Egyptians of that period continued to build according to the rules which were in force under the Pharaohs of the Twelfth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties. As regards the domestic architecture of the ancient kingdom, the evidences are few and obscure. Nevertheless, the stelae, tombs, and coffins of that period often furnish designs which show us the style of the doorways (fig. 24), and one Fourth Dynasty sarcophagus, that of Khûfû Poskhû, is carved in the likeness of a house (fig. 25). [1] Many of the rooms at Kahun had vaulted ceilings. [2] Seventeenth to Twentieth Dynasties. 2.--FORTRESSES. Most of the towns, and even most of the larger villages, of ancient Egypt were walled. This was an almost necessary consequence of the geographical characteristics and the political constitution of the country. The mouths of the defiles which led into the desert needed to be closed against the Bedawîn; while the great feudal nobles fortified their houses, their towns, and the villages upon their domains which commanded either the mountain passes or the narrow parts of the river, against their king or their neighbours. [Illustration: Fig. 23.--Ceiling pattern from tomb of Aimadûa, Twentieth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 24.--Door of a house of the Ancient Empire, from the wall of a tomb of the Sixth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 25.--Façade of a Fourth Dynasty house, from the sarcophagus of Khûfû Poskhû.]