American Mcgee's Alice Easter Egg - Alice - Thief Connection

Whilst playing the level "Pool of Tears" In Alice, follow the flow of water UPSTREAM until you cant go any further (the river just disappears off the map, this is not visable without cheating). This is the stream that flows into the main pool (The one with the crying statue of Alice). Look around and you will see what looks like a stone slab carved into the following symbol, standing upright in the ground, like a tomb stone.

__ __ __ __
| |__| |__| |__| |
|____ __ ____|
| |__| |
| _ _ |
| |
| |

I have posted a screenshot at :

http://homepage.mac.com/tom_roberts/.Pictures/alice1.jpg

The interesting thing about this is that the exact same object, in the exact same size, orientation texture etc. appears in the first level of the game "Thief II : The Metal Age". It is located behind a wall of wooden crates, I forget exaclity where, and is next to a small, glowing, purple mushroom. The Thief games were published by Looking Glass software. The Symbol, Mushroom, and name of the publisher all seem to be references to Alice, even though the Thief games were published several years earlyer. I cant explain this but there is clearly to much here to be coinsidence.