Support for a chair leg

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Made of tamarisk wood once covered with silver leaf, this is part of a block that was meant to be placed under one of the four legs of a chair. Three sides of the block were decorated with figures of bound captives, their bodies contorted to fit into the trapezoidal spaces. Each time the occupant sat on the throne that would have rested on this block, they would have magically crushed the enemies of Egypt beneath them. Remains of the textile and paste/plaster layer beneath the silver leaf are still visible on parts of the block.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art