It is interesting to note that our English word ‘ebony’ is derived directly from the Ancient Egyptian word hbny which refers to a dark, if not black, timber. This hard, expensive wood was used for special furniture such as Tutankhamun’s chair, stool and bed. Pieces were also incorporated in the shrine doors as bolts, and were used for a gaming-board stand, legs of another chair and the framework of boxes. Even part of the doorframe into the burial chamber was of ebony (combined with pine and date palm). Thin sheets were used for inlay and as a veneer of high technical standard. However, the black guardian statues were painted, presumably to look like ebony, as were several other objects in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Botanically the Ancient Egyptian ‘ebony’ is a different timber from the tree in the genus Diospyros now known by that name. The dark wood found in Tutankhamun’s and other tombs came from Dalbergia melanoxylon, a member of the pea family. It occurs in dry wooded grassland south of the Sahara, from where it would have
A branch from the ebony tree Dalbergia melanoxylon.
(see pl 31)
Been exported to Egypt. It grows as a spiny shrub or tree 5-30 m (15-92 ft) high, often with several trunks, none of which is very thick. The heart-wood is purplish brown, verging to black. The leaves are compound with three to four pairs of small leaflets, and its pea flowers are small white and fragrant. Since the timber is immensely hard, one wonders how the Ancient Egyptians managed to work it and, in particular, how they made sheets of veneer from it. As the Egyptians were seeking a jet-black timber, the name ‘ebony’ later became attached to Diospyros species from tropical Africa, which have almost black wood and, even later, to Diospyros ebenum, from India and Sri Lanka, which is now the main timber known by that name.
World History
