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At the beginning of the Old Kingdom, which opens with the 3rd dynasty (2686-2613BC), we see major advances in building and the associated trade of carpentry. The quality of royal furniture made during this period can be seen in those examples discovered by the American Egyptologist George Reisner, in the 4th dynasty tomb of Queen Hetepheres (c 2600 BC) at Giza. When he opened the tomb, he found that the wooden elements from which the furniture had been made had rotted away to powder. However, it proved possible to reconstruct much of the Queen's furniture by studying the positions of the gold sheaths, which had encased the furniture, and the inlays that had fallen free and lay on the tombs floor. Hetepheres' furniture consisted of two armchairs, bed frame, bed canopy, carrying chair and two boxes. What Reisner and his team achieved, from what appeared to be a pile of unrelated fragments of gold and faience, is remarkable for it has given us a small but superb collection of early furniture which rivals Tutankhamun's which was manufactured over a thousand years later.
The furniture manufactured in the royal workshops were not very different in design to that used by the middle classes. However, they were exquisitely embellished with gold sheet, inlaid with coloured stones and faience or veneered with ebony and ivory. They were also adorned with the uraeus and the symbols of kingship. Other pieces are inlaid with thousands of slivers of coloured wood in either marquetry or parquetry patterns. In the tomb of Yuya and Tuyu (c 1400BC), the parents of Queen Tiy and the wife of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC), was discovered a small armchair made for Princess Sitamun. The illustrious examples of furniture discovered in the Tomb of Tutankhamun ( 1336-1327 BC) ( see Furniture Preserved in Museums ) show the outstanding quality of design and construction achieved by 18th dynasty carpenters. For more information about Ancient Egyptian Furniture click each Link below, then use your Web browser's Back Button to return to this page.© Geoffrey Killen 2003
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More is known about
furniture in Egypt than
anywhere else in the ancient world. By the New Kingdom, Egyptian furniture was
highly prized and was often sent as tribute to the rulers of neighbouring countries.
Fragments of Egyptian furniture have been excavated at sites around Western
Asia.
Many Predynastic burials in the Nile valley
have the body
placed on wooden
poles and covered with a matting made of plant fibre while some burials are found in
primitive wooden boxes. By the unification of Upper and Lower
Egypt we find bed frames were in common use with many examples being found in 1st
dynasty (3100-2890 BC) tombs. The quality of these bed frames ranged from conveniently shaped
branches that were lashed together, to sophisticated examples made from
rounded poles that were jointed together and supported on finely carved bovine
shaped legs. 
We
see the introduction of the wooden box at the end of the Old Kingdom. They were
manufactured with flat, gable, barrel and shrine shaped lids. Some were very
large and were designed with a pair of poles that enabled the box to be carried by a
team of porters. In one tomb scene we see such a box being carried by fourteen
men. During the Middle Kingdom we find boxes were customised to hold cosmetics.
Many were designed like crates to hold small alabaster jars which held perfumed
oils. Other boxes have been found to contain mirrors, kohl containers,
combs and even a pair of slippers! A box made for Sithathoriunet (c 1800 BC) was
decorated with gold fittings and bezels
in which were set polished carnelian stones.
Other elaborate boxes held jewellery, these were usually inlaid or veneered with
sheets of ivory or exotic timbers bought from lands south of Egypt. Scribes even had
boxes in which they stored their writing implements and palette. Their boxes
were usually painted to imitate the stringing and veneered panels found on more
ornate boxes. 
Important directional changes in Middle Kingdom furniture can be seen
by studying the large collection of stelae which are preserved in the Egyptian
Museum, Cairo. These Middle Kingdom stelae show that tables were widely
used for the display of vases or holding water pots. Many are low with straight
legs and have a single stretcher strung below the table top. We also see that
Egyptian carpenters were constructing splay legged tables which had cavetto
cornice mouldings below the edge of the table top. Slender vase stands were made
from thin strips of timber braced with cross and angled struts. They were
fitted with a shaped collar which held the round base of a single vase. They were
covered with a gesso foundation before being painted to imitate carnelian and
faience inlay. Those chairs made during the Middle Kingdom had either short
backs over which was draped a cover or cushion or they had backs of full height.
Such chair backs were curved and made from angled slats of timber. We see that
they stood on slender gazelle-shaped legs. Often chairs were painted to simulate
animal skin which were painted with a technique which resembles cow skin and was used on an arrow
quiver case which is preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. 
By the New Kingdom, the homes of officials and nobles would have been
furnished with a wide range of furniture, the most common of which would have been
the stool. Egyptians used a large number of different types of
stool. The most commonly used
were lattice stools that were made from thin struts of timber with angled
braces supporting a double cove seat. Round legged stools appear in some of the
more important Theban tombs. The majority of legs from these stools were hand
rounded although there is a small corpus of material which have legs that appear
to be turned ( see