More is known about woodworking in Egypt than anywhere else in the ancient world. By the New Kingdom, Egyptian woodworking had reached its zenith with examples of woodworking such as furniture being highly prized and often sent as tribute to the rulers of neighbouring countries.
Many Pre‐dynastic burials in the Nile valley have the body placed on wooden poles and covered with 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, Plate 1, in common use with many examples being found in 1st dynasty (3100–2890 BCE) 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 (Petrie 1913, Pl. VIII–IX).
Bed frame, 1st Dynasty, Metropolitan Museum of Art, MMA 12.187.52.
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References
Killen, G. P. Furniture – Chapter 15, The Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World. Ed. B. M. Fagan. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004. 71–5.
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Petrie, W. M. F. Tarkhan and Memphis V. London. British School of Archaeology in Egypt, 1913.
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Winlock, H. E. The Treasure of El Lahun, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1934. pp. 12–17.
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Killen, G.P. (2008). Woodworking in Egypt. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8945
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