rsonal ornaments and requisites.

"For furniture, various woods were employed, ebony, acacia or sont,
cedar, sycamore, and others of species not determined. Ivory, both of the
hippopotamus and elephant, was used for inlaying, as also were glass
pastes; and specimens of marquetry are not uncommon. In the paintings in
the tombs, gorgeous pictures and gilded furniture are depicted. For
cushions and mattresses, linen cloth and colored stuffs, filled with
feathers of the waterfowl, appear to have been used, while seats have
plaited bottoms of linen cord or tanned and dyed leather thrown over them,
and sometimes the skins of panthers served this purpose. For carpets they
used mats of palm fibre, on which they often sat. On the whole, an
Egyptian house was lightly furnished, and not encumbered with so many
articles as are in use at the present day."

The above paragraph forms part of the notice with which the late Dr.
Birch, the eminent antiquarian, formerly at the head of this department of
the British Museum, has prefaced a catalogue of the antiquities alluded
to. The visitor to the Museum should be careful to procure one of these
useful and inexpensive guides to this portion of its contents.

Some illustrations taken from ancient statues and bas reliefs in the
British Museum, from copies of wall paintings at Thebes, and other
sources, give us a good idea of the furniture of this interesting people.
In one of these will be seen a representation of the wooden head-rest
which prevented the disarrangement of the coiffure of an Egyptian lady of
rank. A very similiar head-rest, with a cushion attached for comfort to
the neck, is still in common use by the Japanese of the present day.

[Illustration: Chair with Captives As Supports. (_From Papyrus in British
Museum._)]

[Illustration: An Ivory Box.]

[Illustration: Bacchus and Attendants Visiting Icarus. (_Reproduced from
a Bas-relief in the British Museum._) Period: About A.d. 100.]

Greek Furniture.

An early reference to Greek furniture is made by Homer, who describes
coverlids of dyed wool, tapestries, carpets, and other accessories, which
must therefore have formed part of the contents of a great man's residence
centuries before the period which we recognise as the "meridian" of Greek
art.

In the second Vase-room of the British Museum the painting on one of these
vases represents two persons sitting on a couch, upon which is a cushion
of rich material, while