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Jamie Buxton
06-27-2009, 10:13 AM
There's an exhibit opening here about King Tutankamun. The publicity for it includes a picture of a chair found in his tomb. (pic below) This chair is three thousand years old! So does anybody know what construction techniques were used then?

John Keeton
06-27-2009, 10:25 AM
Jamie, not sure what construction techniques WERE used, but I am pretty sure they did not include Titebond III and a Domino!!

Good thread, though, and I look forward to seeing if there are some informed responses!

Mike Henderson
06-27-2009, 10:35 AM
I don't know the answer but my guess would have to be pinned mortise and tenon joinery. The reason for that guess is that they probably didn't have great glues back then so they would need some mechanical attachment for the joint.

Additionally, M&T is the primary joinery used on chairs today and I expect the Egyptians discovered its advantages for chairs, also. The Egyptians were just as smart as we are.

But that's just a guess.

Beyond that, they had bronze tools which would work about as well as our steel ones.

Mike

Jamie Buxton
06-27-2009, 10:38 AM
A related question is what wood tools they had three thousand years ago. They must have had chisels. Dunno about planes. Dunno what they did about sawing. They had bronze, I think, but no steel.

Sam Takeuchi
06-27-2009, 11:04 AM
Tadaaan (http://books.google.com/books?id=Vj7A9jJrZP0C&pg=PA355&lpg=PA355&dq)

That should give you some idea about ancient woodworking tools and techniques. A couple pages down, there's a section on joints, but missing a crucial page or two. Even then there should be a good bunch of info.

If you do a search on glue, there are interesting stuff there, also.

Have fun!

David Keller NC
06-27-2009, 11:06 AM
I know for certain that some of the pieces of woodwork found in Tut's tomb employed dovetail construction, though I'm not certain about the chair joinery methods.

I do know from books that the egyptians had bronze saws that look similar to Roman and early medieval saws - that is, no cut teeth per se, but a wrought wavy line on the cutting edge that performed a similar function.

Wes Grass
06-27-2009, 1:05 PM
Looks like they used corner brackets on some of it ;-) Probably solid gold.

I saw this the last time it was on display. Absolutely amazing. Don't miss seeing it.

David Myers
06-27-2009, 3:01 PM
I saw the exhibit a few months ago when it was here in Dallas.

There are several artifacts that would interest this audience. These include some scale models of Nile Barges, some carved spoons (one in particular of a nude female was very well preserved), and several pieces of furniture.

Of the furniture, I particularly enjoyed Tut's childhood chair and footstool, and a small ornate table. Close inspection of this table by a truly knowledgable woodworker (in other words, not me) would probably shed some light on the techniques used to construct it.

Along these lines I think this exhibit would be well worth a piece in PW or FWW.

Jamie Buxton
06-27-2009, 4:41 PM
...Tadaaan (http://books.google.com/books?id=Vj7A9jJrZP0C&pg=PA355&lpg=PA355&dq)
...


Wow. That's quite an interesting article.

One thing which surprised me was the mention of pull saws in ancient Egypt. I had the idea that only the relatively-modern Japanese had them.

Greg Crawford
06-27-2009, 4:58 PM
Plus on Jamie's comments. I was also amazed about the plywood used to build coffins. They mentioned bridle joints and mortise and tenon joinery. I wonder if they can tell how the chair is constructed by just looking? If not, I wonder if they've ever x-rayed it? I wonder if the caretakers of the chair even think of such things?

george wilson
06-28-2009, 10:29 AM
Mike,would you please explain how bronze tools would work as well as steel ones? I've often wanted to test an original bronze tool to see just how hard they were. Fooling around with alloys back in the 70's,I was doing some brass casting. Read that 20% of lead in brass would be very hard,I mixed up some,and cast a small plane from it. Sure enough,the brass was so hard a file wouldn't cut it,though brass with 10% lead in it is very easy to machine. I didn't determine if the 20% lead brass had any mechanical strength. No doubt it was crystaline.

I've wondered if bronze tools could have been made hard enough to hold up without constant sharpening.

Sam Takeuchi
06-28-2009, 10:45 AM
While I was reading up on ancient Egyptian tools, I found archaeological stuff that was explaining how copper saws were used to cut stones to cut them to precise dimension. It had pictures of saw marks on pyramid stones as well. I can't find the page now, but it's there...somewhere.

That's some tough saw, but must've taken ages to cut through stones. But then, I doubt they had any labor shortage, I wouldn't be surprised if poor ol' chaps had an unfortunate task of sharpening tools all day long.

Mike Henderson
06-28-2009, 10:45 AM
You got me on that one, George. I was wrong. I based my comment on something I read about the development of the iron age. The question was "Why did our ancestors move to iron when bronze worked as well?" Note the difference - iron, not steel. So my comment about bronze being as good as steel was not correct.

But I do think our ancestors would have been able to do very good woodworking with bronze tools because wood is not hard compared to bronze.

Mike

Stephen Shepherd
06-28-2009, 11:58 AM
A couple of images from The International Book of Wood, published by Simon & Schuster, 1976.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii105/shepherd1857/Egyptianchair.jpg

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii105/shepherd1857/Egyptianjoinery.jpg

Stephen

Wes Grass
06-28-2009, 3:38 PM
Most copper alloys harden by cold working. Bronze is no exception. They were able to harden bronze tools by hammering them, and then a final grinding to sharpen.

How hard? I don't know, haven't been able to find any numbers. But some of the modern alloys, like aluminum bronze or Ampco metal, can be in the 40's Rockwell C scale as bar stock. Certainly hard enough to be used for cutting wood.

Eric Larsen
06-28-2009, 4:25 PM
They used a lot of brass pegs as dowels, and a lot of panel-in-groove construction.

I wasn't really into woodworking when I lived in Egypt, but I was always amazed at how durable their goods were. I was able to see many wood pieces close-up at the Egyptian Museum, but not that chair sadly (it's seems to be part of a permanent traveling collection.

My guess is that wood was allowed to season in well-ventilated buildings for a few years before being worked. Coupled with the fact the humidity and temperature levels haven't changed there in 4,000 years, durable goods tend to have a longer shelf life.

I think Mike hit it on the head. The ancient Egyptians were easily as smart as we are today. It took the equally-clever Macedonians (and later super-clever Romans) to subjugate them.

While their woodworking is "nice," I'm still in awe of their masonry skills. The documentaries don't do justice. The temple of Hatshepsut is easily the most impressive man-made thing I've ever seen:

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/0018a/0018a592.jpg

Some day I'll go to Agra and Angkor and compare. But, for sheer "gee-whizitude" I don't see anything ever beating Hatshepsut's temple. I think it's one of the most amazing things we as a species have created. And it's nearly 4,000 years old. (1800 BC, IIRC).

george wilson
06-28-2009, 5:36 PM
Obviously ancient people did very nice wood and metal work. How long it took them to do it is the question.

Copper alloys can be work hardened by hammering it down.Eventually it will reach a maximum point of hardening,and will crack. The Japanese did not know how to make a steel spring. That is why they kept making matchlocks even into the 19th.C..The matchlock has a rather weak spring that they could make from hammering a strip of brass.It just kept the cock out of the flashpan,until pulling on the trigger pulled it down,and set the gun off.

I wonder if anyone has ever tested ancient bronze axes,etc. to see what the alloy was?

Even if bronze could be hammered to 40 rockwell,I doubt that it would have the wear resistance of steel at the same hardness. Hardness isn't everything.Wear resistance is very important. It is why we have lots of steel alloys like A2,D2,HSS,etc..

michael osadchuk
06-28-2009, 7:31 PM
....from the readings I've recently done on the construction of the pyramids, there is a lot of archeological findings of copper chisels, in various states of size and sharpness, that were used in shaping the stonework...... the conclusion was that copper was the best metal material they had at the time and that resharpening would very frequent......

....some of the newest books on the construction of the pyramids have very good information on construction methods and the kind of social organization used in the building.... surprisingly, the estimate of time to build even the biggest pyramids, was less than a decade (compared to Notre Dame church in Paris, which took close to two centuries)....

michael

Jim Nardi
06-28-2009, 8:45 PM
I am sure some Phd student has written a paper on the subject. There are probably quite a few reference books on the subject.

Dean Karavite
06-28-2009, 11:17 PM
Is the same exhibit we had in Philly a year or so ago? It may be. It was amazing. Some people were disappointed because the famous gold mask was not there (perhaps reading about it first would help), but that, I understand, will never leave Egypt again. Far too valuable and risky. Alas, if I had been as interested in woodworking (or hand tools) back then I could have paid more attention, however, I swear think I actually recall looking at and thinking about the joinery of that chair!

It may be coming near you:
http://www.kingtut.org/home