Easter Egg Peeking Out of a Backpack

The backpack is drawn large, with a carry handle, two shoulder straps and a zippered front pocket with a pull tab. Its main zipper is open across the top. Inside sits an oversized Easter egg decorated with bands of wavy lines and rows of round dots. A five-petal flower rests against the egg on the left, and two pointed leaves stick out of the bag on both sides, which makes the scene look like the end of a springtime egg hunt.

Egg Decorating Around the World

People decorated eggs long before Easter existed: engraved ostrich eggshells about 60,000 years old have been found in South Africa. Later, eggs became a Christian symbol of new life. In Ukraine and nearby countries, artists decorate eggs with a wax-resist method, drawing lines in melted beeswax and dipping the egg in dyes from light to dark.

Natural materials give surprisingly bright dyes. Onion skins turn eggs golden brown or deep red, beet juice makes them pink, turmeric gives yellow, and red cabbage, oddly enough, dyes white eggs blue. Egg hunts and egg rolling are popular Easter games as well; in the United States, children have rolled eggs on the White House lawn in most years since 1878.