Republishing a Wooden Chair in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (Je 56353 - Sr5253)

Abstract

This research aims to republish the wooden chair currently in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (JE 56353 - SR5253) and define its function as a birth chair. it was described in the database registers as a (latrine seat/birth chair), that was found in the Tomb of Khnemôse (no.253), in a necropolis at el-Khokha site – Thebes, dated to the eighteenth dynasty; these two registered functions which are completely different were given to the wooden chair by M. Pillet (1952) the first to mention this chair providing only some basic information of it as a piece of funerary furniture found in the tomb. Depending on an analytical and comparative discussion of the chair’s material and shape and other latrine seats of the eighteenth dynasty; and some other birth chairs from Egypt through the Ptolemaic, and Roman periods, and with some parallel scenes from outside of Egypt through the Hellenistic and Roman eras; to conclude it is most likely to be a birth chair than to be a latrine seat.