Ancient furniture

It is described as a kind of wood used to make beds, bedframes, furniture legs, chairs, foot-stools, baskets, containers, drinking vessels, and other prestigious goods.

[6] The upper class in Sumeria would use leather, cloth strips, carefully woven reeds to form the sleeping platform.

The source mentions the footstool, claiming that it is "for bathing, portable, for the worker, for the barber, for the road, for the seal cutter, for the metal-worker, for the potter."

Beds are described as "to sit on, to lie on, of reeds, with oxen-feet, with goat's hair, stuffed with wool, stuffed with goat hair, of Sumerian type," and "of Akkadian type" Babylonian wills often mention important pieces of furniture, such as chests to store textiles, clothing, beds, chairs and stools.

[29] Reeds and palm branches were common materials used to make cheap everyday products such as mats, screens, boxes, containers, baskets, and colanders.

Metal, especially copper, was used to make cooking pots, mortars, and iron implements in mills The Babylonians were highly specialized in carpentry and "cabinet-making": they would export furniture to the Assyrians and other civilizations.

The seat of the chair was made of string mesh composed of triple stands of linen cords interwoven into a herring bone pattern.

[34] Another chair found in the Tomb of Tutankhamen was likely made of cedar wood and it had feline legs placed on a drum covered in gold sheet and set upon bronze pads.

[37][44] Other beds consisted of a simple frame standing on short legs, with a network of lacing to support a mattress pad of folded linen.

This wood was primarily used to create chests, statues, musical instruments, tables, chairs, beds, and footstools for the royals and upper elite.

This wood was popular amongst the Egyptian Royalty, and it was used to make roof timbers, coffins, wagons, frames, and tenon joints.

During the Fourth Dynasty Syrian timber, elm, ash, sycamore, and Lebanese cedar began to be imported from Syria.

Other places that wood could be imported from was the Eastern Taurus, Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, Amanus, Anti-Taurus, Pontus, and Zagros Mountains.

Metal like ivory, copper, wickerwork, glass beads, gold, silver, turquoise, malachite and stone were used to decorate furniture.

Pull-saws had increased accuracy, provided greater ease of movement, made cutting large timber logs easier, and had superior workability.

[54] Inside ancient Dilmunite houses storage jars, painted pots, fine chisels, and copper have been found.

Ancient Greek furniture was typically constructed out of wood, though it might also be made of stone or metal, such as bronze, iron, gold, and silver.

Wood was shaped by carving, steam treatment, the lathe, and furniture is known to have been decorated with ivory, tortoise shell, glass, gold, or other precious materials.

The Greek folding stool survives in numerous depictions, indicating its popularity in the Archaic and Classical periods; the type may have been derived from earlier Minoan and Mycenaean examples, which in turn were likely based on Egyptian models.

The foot of a bronze bed discovered in situ in the House of the Seals at Delos indicate how the "turned" legs of a kline might have appeared.

Both slaves and emperors used it, although those of the poor were plain, while the wealthy had access to precious woods, ornamented with inlay, metal fittings, ivory, and silver and gold leaf.

The fulcra of elaborate dining couches often had sumptuous decorative attachments featuring ivory, bronze, copper, gold, or silver ornamentation.

Roman benches, like their Greek precedents, were practical for the seating of large groups of people and were common in theaters, amphitheaters, odeons and auctions.

was tremendously destructive to the region, the pyroclastic surges that engulfed the town of Herculaneum ultimately preserved the wooden furniture, shelves, doors, and shutters in carbonized form.

[94] Their preservation, however, is imperiled, as some of the pieces remain in situ in their houses and shops, encased in unprotected glass or entirely open and accessible.

Upon excavation, much of the furniture was conserved with paraffin wax mixed with carbon powder, which coats the wood and obscures important details such as decorations and joinery.

Houses of the poor would also have basins, stone jar-stands, querns, palettes, flat dishes, a brass drinking vessel with a spout, a lamp, jars, mortar, pots, knives, saws, axes, and ivory needles and awls.

Some rural shrines and other religious objects found in ancient houses are: a tripod basalt offering bowl, a zoomorphic figurine head, a carved ivory panel depicting a griffin, and terracotta masks.

All of these materials suggest that the kinds of religious activity these people would have engaged in involved offering food and drink to the gods in return for blessings.

King Solomon had a chair made with armrests and a throne that was six steps higher than the floor and laid with ivory carvings and plated in gold.

Images from the Standard of Ur
A plaque from Ancient Assyria
A chair found in Tutankhamen's tomb
Tutankhamen's throne
Ancient Egyptian tables. Based on sculptures from Thebes.
Egyptian carpenters making furniture
Seals from Dilmun
Dilmunite Pottery
Block IV from the east frieze of the Parthenon, with images of seated gods, ca. 447–433 BCE
A Greek symposium
Relief with Persephone
Carbonized bed from the Casa del Tramezzo di Legno in Herculaneum
Reconstructed triclinium or dining room, with three klinai or couches
A Roman dining couch, from a tomb
A Byōbu
A fusuma
A tansu
Lacquer box with inlaid mother of pearl peony decor, Ming Dynasty, 16th century
Maya ceramic. Possibly depicting the God L
Pucará de Tilcara