Furniture Part

24.9.00.100

Information

Two thin bronze caps (drums) for the foot of a chair, the upper edges turned over, the lower straight. Corrugated horizontally. Section semicircular. From the Egypt Exploration Fund 1899-1890 excavations directed by Arthur Mace at Abydos, North Cemeteries, Cemetery D, tomb 44. The feet of chairs, stools and beds were often encased with metal drums, like these, to protect them against wear and damage. This technique was first employed during the Old Kingdom. Usually an annealed copper alloy sheet, which was both ductile and malleable, was worked around the pad or hoof of the leg by hammering and beating. The incised decoration of the hoof would have then been engraved onto the drum. Where the sheet overlapped at the joint it would be pinned together and to its wooden core.