[HN Gopher] Building a Theban Lattice Stool
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Building a Theban Lattice Stool
Author : spython
Score : 154 points
Date : 2021-09-26 11:02 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (woodenfossils.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (woodenfossils.wordpress.com)
| malleefowl wrote:
| How was this project writeup found? I'd love more info on the
| author/woodworker, or about online communities that discuss work
| like this.
| paulhart wrote:
| Probably this MetaFilter link:
|
| https://www.metafilter.com/192756/Copying-a-mid-century-stoo...
| spython wrote:
| Yes, and that post comes from Metafilter Projects where the
| author posted it himself:
| https://projects.metafilter.com/5949/Copying-a-mid-
| century-s...
| smusamashah wrote:
| An aside question. Does Egypt or other countries sell these
| artifact to Britain to put in museums? Also why would the prefer
| giving rare artifacts to another country instead of displaying
| them in their own museums?
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| Egyptian here.
|
| Many taken during the British occupation. But throughout
| history, just stolen/smuggled out. Egypt was also occupied by
| the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, and French. And aside from
| the occupations, there's a pretty vibrant smuggling trade.
|
| Egypt keeps trying to repatriate these artifacts but with very
| limited success (https://english.alaraby.co.uk/analysis/egypt-
| wants-its-stole...). As an Egyptian it's both
| interesting/frustrating to find museums outside Egypt with more
| stuff than many museums in Egypt. For instance, it was a little
| intriguing when visiting the Vatican museum, to find they had a
| pretty large Ancient Egyptian collection for some reason.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Sorry if this comes across as rude, but are modern Egyptians
| related in any way to ancient Egyptians? If not, it would
| seem that their possession of ancient Egyptian artifacts is
| no more justified than any other modern people.
| leto_ii wrote:
| I would say the parent author has been too polite in their
| response.
|
| Your comment is offensive and nonsensical. Why on earth
| would genetic relations matter in any way for something
| like this? As far as I know basically nowhere on Earth is
| it possible to trace direct genetic lineages back thousands
| of years to some specific ancient population living in the
| same area.
|
| Perhaps things are different in Australia, or other
| isolated places, but I think pretty much anywhere in
| Eurasia + Africa you will get an endless flow and mixing of
| populations, cultures, religions etc. With this in mind,
| it's safe to say that your view would justify all kinds of
| imperialist atrocities.
|
| I think at any given moment in time what matters is whether
| the population currently inhabiting that place voluntarily
| and democratically decided to relinquish/sell certain
| artifacts. Whether that population is genetically related
| to the people who created the artifacts is irrelevant.
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| Not rude, but I think a little naive. Because it's not just
| DNA.
|
| Egyptians (and our Egyptologists) think we are related to
| Ancient Egyptians, despite that over the years, African,
| North African, European, and Asian DNA has mixed in. Some
| Western scholars disagree.
|
| But that's not the point.
|
| I grew up in an apartment where on a clear day, you could
| look West and see the step pyramid at Saqqara. I drove in a
| street parallel to the aqueduct on my way to my
| grandmother's house each week. I passed Saladin's citadel
| regularly driving through the city. My high school
| graduation picture was on the first step of the Great
| Pyramid.
|
| So I could give f_uck all whether I'm related by DNA to the
| people who built those. It's part of my heritage.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Up until the end of the pagan Roman period Greeks and
| Egyptians didn't mix much - so it's pretty plausible that
| the gene pool was around when the Arabs invaded. I would
| like to know which Western scholars disagreed.
|
| I recently read the book "Sunset Oasis" by an Egyptian
| author which was the basis for a TV series too apparently
| which was a good take on this.
| zemnmez wrote:
| I think most of these artefacts come from british occupation of
| egypt while it was a vassal of the ottoman empire, the
| zeitgeist of which basically started when napoleon started
| studying and abducting ancient artefacts into france to support
| his revanchist ideals of the ancient world
| legitster wrote:
| Some of them were straight up stolen, but (my understanding) is
| that most artifacts are just sold by locals who don't really
| understand or appreciate the value.
|
| So a lot of what the Egyptian government is trying to do is
| educate their own people on the importance and value of
| artifacts and to not just sell them to tourists for a song and
| dance.
| mrVentures wrote:
| I was hoping for poop
| tunesmith wrote:
| Navigation appears broken to me, here's a one-pager of all the
| entries:
| https://woodenfossils.wordpress.com/category/woodwork/theban...
| OJFord wrote:
| This is excellent.
|
| I just want to point out though that the submitted URL is not a
| permalink. For now it's nice that it means all installments in
| this blog post 'series' are listed one after the other, but it
| won't make sense once there are any future posts that may have
| nothing to do with stools or Egypt.
|
| Here's the first post permalink:
| https://woodenfossils.wordpress.com/2021/09/21/building-a-th...
|
| Also,
|
| > Geoffrey Killen made a very useful observation about EA2476 on
| pg 44 of Egyptian Woodworking and Furniture "Some of these
| (lattice braces) are tenoned into mortises in the horizontal
| elements while others are simply wedged into position." I'm not
| sure exactly what he meant by "wedged" in this instance but it
| got me thinking...
|
| I would read that as meaning no joinery - put in at a relaxed
| angle and then biffed into position ('wedged') a sort of press
| fit so that it's held there by its own compression.
|
| TFA author's take on it (the 'stub tenon') seems better though.
| dang wrote:
| Changed from https://woodenfossils.wordpress.com/. Thanks!
| thih9 wrote:
| spython or mods, could we update this submission and point to
| https://woodenfossils.wordpress.com/2021/09/21/building-a-th...
| ?
|
| As of now it still links to https://woodenfossils.wordpress.com
| .
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| That's a strange fix to request after the comment
|
| >> For now it's nice that it means all installments in this
| blog post 'series' are listed one after the other, but it
| won't make sense once there are any future posts that may
| have nothing to do with stools or Egypt.
|
| Surely the right link would be https://woodenfossils.wordpres
| s.com/category/woodwork/theban... ?
| netcan wrote:
| Amazing. I want one.
| maxwell wrote:
| This is really cool. I was looking into latticework for a UI
| experiment the other day and was struck by the design of this
| stool from a few dynasties earlier:
|
| https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544800
|
| Apparently lattice stools were the most popular type in ancient
| Egypt.
| pkphilip wrote:
| That type of design is called a Charpoy style. You can find
| these quite commonly in India and neighbouring countries.
| https://www.google.com/search?q=charpoy+stool
| coldcode wrote:
| Amazing work, joining history and wood working (yes it's a pun).
| I wonder how comfortable that would be.
| a2tech wrote:
| With my big ass those corners would dig in and probably make me
| hate sitting down almost immediately.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Perhaps this type of furniture was not designed to be used as
| is but rather to have a pillow or some kind of mattress on
| top.
|
| I wish we had more furniture like this - it could last much,
| much longer than the expensive "integrated" stuff we have to
| put up with today...
| aasasd wrote:
| I have a more specific problem with it: I know for sure that
| the upturned edge would make my legs fall asleep. At least if
| the stool is not so low that my knees would point toward the
| sky.
| legitster wrote:
| Such an interesting and complex shape to make, all just in
| imitation of the natural design of the much cheaper woven seat.
|
| There is something touching about how 3000 years earlier, the
| wealthy were not above their affections!
| [deleted]
| serrel wrote:
| It seems perfect for a cushion.
| samstave wrote:
| Exactly. That stool is designed for a cushion.
|
| AWESOME stool though.
| melenaos wrote:
| There was zero child safety back then. These edges look like they
| have taken many children to the infirmary.
| aflag wrote:
| I think you're probably joking, but although we don't know
| where this stool comes from exactly (at least it's not stated
| in the british museum's website), it's far more common for
| furniture that used to ornate palaces and sacred places to
| survive rather than common household items. So, I think it's
| likely that no children were playing around such objects.
| Koshkin wrote:
| It would seem to me that common household items could have
| been even more - much more - dangerous than this. (Also,
| children used to spend most of their time outside - a
| significantly more dangerous environment by any measure.)
| aflag wrote:
| That could be the case, but I've never heard about any
| studies about child safety in ancient Egypt. Though I'd
| like to read that. I really enjoy learning more about how
| the common folk lived in ancient times, what they thought
| about, what kind of conversations they had. Unfortunately,
| we do not have that much to go off of :(
| jhgb wrote:
| > Also, children used to spend most of their time outside -
| a significantly more dangerous environment by any measure
|
| Considering the Nile and the ever-present schistosomiasis,
| this is almost certainly painfully true.
| jhgb wrote:
| I imagine that due to scarcity of wood in Ancient Egypt and the
| very limited availability of such "high-end" chairs, you didn't
| have to worry about the overwhelming majority of Ancient
| Egyptian children.
| Grakel wrote:
| I'm sure their mummy could patch them up.
| ddalex wrote:
| this isn't reddit
| [deleted]
| sqqqqrly wrote:
| How did we possibly survive as a species with corners like
| that.
| xwdv wrote:
| There used to be even weaker versions of us that never
| propagated.
| Koshkin wrote:
| It is the fittest that did.
| marcodiego wrote:
| A good modernization would be to spherize those corners.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's a joy reading about how a great craftsman does this kind of
| work. I'm surprised nobody seems to be manufacturing a chair like
| this.
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(page generated 2021-09-26 23:00 UTC)