text: Decorative uses Meanders are common decorative elements in Greek and Roman art. In ancient Greece they appear in many architectural friezes, and in bands on the pottery of ancient Greece from the Geometric period onward. The design is common to the present-day in classicizing architecture, and is adopted frequently as a decorative motif for borders for many modern printed materials.
  Labyrinthine meanders in China
  The meander is a fundamental design motif in regions far from a Hellenic orbit: labyrinthine meanders ("thunder" pattern ) appear in bands and as infill on Shang bronzes (), and many traditional buildings in and around China still bear geometric designs almost identical to meanders. Although space-filling curves have a long history in China in motifs more than 2,000 years earlier, extending back to Zhukaigou Culture () and Xiajiadian Culture ( and ), frequently there is speculation that meanders of Greek origin may have come to China during the time of the Han dynasty () by way of trade with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. A meander motif also appears in prehistoric Mayan design motifs in the western hemisphere, centuries before any European contacts.
  Uses in contemporary art
  Meanders and their generalizations are used with increasing frequency in various domains of contemporary art. The painter Yang Liu, for example, has incorporated smooth versions of the traditional Greek Key (also called Sona drawing, Sand drawing, and Kolam) in many of her paintings.