common vessels of pottery or bronze.  For making fire there were fire-sticks, and the bow-drill for using them (figs. 255 and 181); children’s toys were even then found in great variety though of somewhat quaint construction.  There were dolls with wigs and movable limbs, made in stone, pottery, and wood (fig. 256); figures of men, and animals, and terra-cotta boats, balls of wood and stuffed leather, whip-tops, and tip-cats (fig. 257).

[Illustration:  Fig. 255.—­Fire-sticks, bow, and unfinished drill-stock, Twelfth Dynasty; Illahun, Kahun, and Gurob, W.M.F.  Petrie, Plate VII., p. 11.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 256.—­Remains of two Twelfth Dynasty dolls; Kahun, Gurob and Hawara, W.M.F.  Petrie, Plate VIII. p. 30.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 257.—­Tops, tip-cat, and a terra-cotta toy boat, Twelfth Dynasty; Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara, W.M.F.  Petrie, Plates VIII., IX., p. 30.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 258.—­Chest]

[Illustration:  Fig. 259.—­Chest.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 260.—­Chest.]

The art of the cabinet-maker was nevertheless carried to a high degree of perfection, from the time of the ancient dynasties.  Planks were dressed down with the adze, mortised, glued, joined together by means of pegs cut in hard wood, or acacia thorns (never by metal nails), polished, and finally covered with paintings.  Chests generally stand upon four straight legs, and are occasionally thus raised to some height from the ground.  The lid is flat, or rounded according to a special curvature (fig. 258) much in favour among the Egyptians of all periods.  Sometimes, though rarely, it is gable-shaped, like our house-roofs (fig. 259).  Generally speaking, the lid lifts off bodily; but it often turns upon a peg inserted in one of the uprights.  Sometimes, also, it turns upon wooden pivots (fig. 260).  The panels, which are large and admirably suited for decorative art, are enriched with paintings, or inlaid with ivory, silver, precious woods, or enamelled plaques.  It may be that we are scarcely in a position justly to appraise the skill of Egyptian cabinet-makers, or the variety of designs produced at various periods.  Nearly all the furniture which has come down to our day has been found in tombs, and, being destined for burial in the sepulchre, may either be of a character exclusively destined for the use of the mummy, or possibly a cheap imitation of a more precious class of goods.

The mummy was, in fact, the cabinet-maker’s best customer.  In other lands, man took but a few objects with him into the next world; but the defunct Egyptian required nothing short of a complete outfit.  The mummy-case alone was an actual monument, in the construction of which a whole squad of workmen was employed (fig. 261).  The styles of mummy-cases varied from period to period.  Under the Memphite and first Theban empires, we find only rectangular chests in sycamore wood, flat at top and bottom, and