[Illustration:  Fig. 268.—­Inlaid-chair, Eleventh Dynasty.]

The bed is surmounted by a kind of canopy, under which the mummy lay in state.  Rhind had already found a similar canopy, which is now in the Museum of Edinburgh[72] (fig. 265).  In shape it is a temple, the rounded roof being supported by elegant colonnettes of painted wood.  A doorway guarded by serpents is supposed to give access to the miniature edifice.  Three winged discs, each larger than the one below it, adorn three superimposed cornices above the door, the whole frontage being surmounted by a row of erect uraei, crowned with the solar disc.  The canopy belonging to the Thirteenth Dynasty bed is much more simple, being a mere balustrade in cut and painted wood, in imitation of the water-plant pattern with which temple walls were decorated; the whole is crowned with an ordinary cornice.  In the bed of Graeco-Roman date (fig. 266), carved and painted figures of the goddess Ma, sitting with her feather on her knee, are substituted for the customary balustrades.  Isis and Nephthys stand with their winged arms outstretched at the head and foot.  The roof is open, save for a row of vultures hovering above the mummy, which is wept over by two kneeling statuettes of Isis and Nephthys, one at each end.  The sledges upon which mummies were dragged to the sepulchre were also furnished with canopies, but in a totally different style.  The sledge canopy is a panelled shrine, like those which I discovered in 1886, in the tomb of Sennetmu at Kurnet Murraee.  If light was admitted, it came through a square opening, showing the head of the mummy within.  Wilkinson gives an illustration of a sledge canopy of this kind, from the wall paintings of a Theban tomb (fig. 267).  The panels were always made to slide.  As soon as the mummy was laid upon his sledge, the panels were closed, the corniced roof placed over all, and the whole closed in.  With regard to chairs, many of those in the Louvre and the British Museum were made about the time of the Eleventh Dynasty.  These are not the least beautiful specimens which have come down to us, one in particular (fig. 268) having preserved an extraordinary brilliancy of colour.  The framework, formerly fitted with a seat of strong netting, was originally supported on four legs with lions’ feet.  The back is ornamented with two lotus flowers, and with a row of lozenges inlaid in ivory and ebony upon a red ground.  Stools of similar workmanship (fig. 269), and folding stools, the feet of which are in the form of a goose’s head, may be seen in all museums.  Pharaohs and persons of high rank affected more elaborate designs.  Their seats were sometimes raised very high, the arms being carved to resemble running lions, and the lower supports being prisoners of war, bound back to back (fig. 270).  A foot-board in front served as a step to mount by, and as a foot-stool for the sitter.  Up to the present time, we have found no specimens of this kind of seat.[73]