ANCIENT SEATING FURNITURE — HOUGH 517 



hon or object honored, much as cult images are seated and placed 

 in temples. 



Tiic placing of effigies of gods on bases or thrones may have a 

 bearing on seating furniture. This interesting phase was sug- 

 gested to the writer many years ago by the late Dr. Stewart Culin. 

 The more primitive images had no bases except in some cases a 

 necessary device to secure eciuilibrium. The square plinlli appears 

 to be the hi-st move toward the placing of images. Art and religion, 

 inseparably associated in a constructive way for a long period, were 

 the determinative causes of the development of placement. 



Seats required in occupations form an interesting series of objects. 

 The only American occupational scat is a 3-legged stool upon which 

 the Eskimo hunter sits while fisliing through the ice. The seat 

 is a light, well-made piece of joined work. Occupational seats per- 

 haps present the first diversification of seating furniture, of which 

 our great variety is the culmination. 



The general distribution of chairs in civilized countries shows 

 one of the notable developments of modern progress. From the 

 simple benches and stools of the seventeenth century there has come 

 a great variety of seating furniture satisfying every need for art, 

 luxury, taste, convenience, and practical use. 



It is suggested that development of seats, aided by art and 

 invention, was fostered by the increasing delicacy and complexity of 

 the costumes of men and women. It is likely that the modification 

 of seats beyond the simple stool was mainlj^ through the factor of 

 fashion except in the special uses mentioned. This is plainly seen 

 in the head rest ^® originating in response to fashion in hair 

 dressing. 



In spite of modern vaunted progress, it seems that the efforts of 

 the present age go little beyond that displayed in the furniture of 

 ancient Egypt except in materials and mechanical arts. The indus- 

 try, however, has grown to enormous proportions. The outstanding 

 invention of our age is the ancestorless rocking chair. Folding 

 chairs which seem to be consonant with modern invention have an 

 ancient hi-story, it being Iniown from surviving specimens recovered 

 in Europe that Roman generals carried iron folding chairs into the 

 field. A drawing on a Greek amphora of about 500 B. C, in the 

 United States National Museum represents a figure seated on a 

 folding chair of metal. (PI. 24.) A Greek black-figured plate of 

 the sixth century B. C, in the IJoyal Ontario Museum of Archeology, 

 Toronto, Canada, shows Dionysos and Poseidon seated on such 

 chairs with Athene standing between them.*° 



"F. Griu'lincr, Kopfl.nnke. i;iliiiol..«l(!i. Bniid. Ill, pp. 1 H. L. Ipzi^'. iUM. 

 *> Itull. Royal Ontario Museum of Arcb., January, 1029 (frontiupiecc). 



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