Child’s Chair of Tutankhamun

This solid chair is an everyday piece of furniture that was found in the room called the “Antechamber” in the tomb of Tutankhamun. It has been suggested that the king used it when he was a child.

It is made of ebony inlaid with ivory and embellished with gold panels on the arms that are pictures of ibexes and desert plants. The joints are pinned with copper rivets covered with gold. The legs are in the form of lions’ legs and terminate in lions’ paws with ivory claws.

This chair is an excellent example of the construction of ordinary chairs in Egypt; the back is curved and slopes slightly backwards; it is supported by three vertical slats; the seat is made of five carved slats fastened to the frame with mortise and tenon joints.

The funerary paraphernalia was immense, as the world came to know, but this so very special chair is going to take central stage in this paper.

Its conservation status being quite good, as if it was left inside a mere couple of days before the tomb was opened, was surprisingly rudely placed inside the antechamber of KV 62, below one of the ceremonial beds—The Lioness Bed—along with several other items such as the Black Shrine-shaped box on sled (object Carter 38), or the extraordinary Chest of ivory, ebony, and red wood (object Carter 32), as examples.

Despite its rude deposit and its long sleep for more than c. 3200 years it arrived at the twentieth century in perfect condition, ready to be carefully analyzed. This chair is one of six chairs found inside KV62.

From the Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62), Valley of the Kings, West Thebes. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 62033