A dining room chair

I've been wondering about the origins of everyday artifacts in my home.

Take the chair. I have six dining room chairs in Danish Modern style in my home. Quite a popular style a few years ago I'm told. I've tried to find out something about the origin of my chairs. They are simple in style, made of solid teak or rosewood, with a seat with a simple attached cushion. No arms, but a back tilted a little with two slats. I haven't found anything specific. I did find out that Danish Modern got its start during the war, when designers were seeking a way to shape a rational and bright future. To me it is a very warm, inviting, and unpretentious style, but today Modern seems to have become the very opposite: quite stark and pretentious. Anyway, Edgar Kauffman, Jr., a style guru in postwar New York City is responsible for introducing the designs to America, where they caught on quickly with young moderns. Seems that the young moderns weren't actually that radical since they liked the idea that they didn't have to defend their choice to their parents and in-laws, because of the traditional materials and craftmanship (I guess they weren't into the idea of sit-ins (see below) either). A zenith for Danish Modern was reached by the mid 60s, but by then the designs had become part of Western consciousness, and the chairs themselves are collectibles today.

The chair must be one of the most successful artifacts of all time. I've never been to a house without a chair, and never not been offered to have a seat - in a chair - unless someone wanted to get rid of me.

Chair design hasn't changed in over 4600 years. My chairs look pretty much like the oldest existing chair, give or take an armrest: that of Queen Hetepheres I of Ancient Egypt. Her chair was unearthed (and reconstructed from the gilding; the wood had turned to dust) from a tomb in Giza and dated to 2600 BC.

It's strange that there seem to be no earlier examples of chairs. There would have been a lot of tired feet and bums. And surely the chair didn't spring into existence complete with resplendent gilding. There are actually earlier illustrations and carvings of people using chairs, but ancient nomadic culture had no need for chairs - of the day, whatever they might have been. The folding portable beach/picnic chair had to wait a few millenia to evolve so wasn't available in the local shops. So there's a gap in the fossil chair record. What environmental change led the stool to evolve into a chair, if that was indeed the route?

It's also strange that it took so long for the chair to really catch on. Up until the Renaissance the great masses were still not allowed apparently to nail a back or arms to their stools. Perhaps Queen Hetepheres had more influence than just good taste in furniture. Being mother of Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid, she must have had a bit of clout when it came to establishing the Secret Society of Chair Enthusiasts - sworn to hide and protect the chair from the masses.

Even the etymology of chair reveals its cultural pedigree (as etymology so often does). The word chair comes from the ancient Greek kathedrā (kata-, down + hedrā, seat), which is also the origin of cathedral, the principal church of a bishop, that holds his seat or throne. And of course, even today a chair is a leader.

The chair hasn't been successful in all environments. Many cultures don't use chairs, preferring instead the ground, floor, rugs, mats, or cushions. But the chair has been so successful in Western cultures that it has set up a feeling in me, and probably most people, as strong as an instinct that it is wrong (dirty?, uncultured?) to sit on the floor. And so it is counterculture to sit on the floor and to have sit-ins. Or perhaps it's not an instinct but a physical need for comfort, presuming our Western bodies have evolved and changed to need chairs. In either case, the future of chairs is assured. I'm not sure what could replace them.

So, I've been unable to find out precisely how the chair evolved. The oldest existing chair was already perfectly adapted to its environment, and apparently the environment hasn't changed that much in 4600 years. Still, there have been some stunning adaptations in the chair. I think my favourite example is the swivel chair, specialized for the office space - and impressing foreign dignitaries. Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, invented the swivel chair. I can see him now, spinning around behind the Oval Office desk in front of a stunned leader of another nation. That would say power! This didn't last long. General George S. Patton apparently said "No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair."

Scandinavian furniture (read IKEA or the older incarnation Danish Modern) might seem popular, but the pinnacle of chair evolution must be the monobloc chair that adorns almost every patio in the world. Every 70 seconds a new monobloc comes into existence by a single press, and even the presses have multiplied around the world (in Russia, Taiwan, Australia, Mexico, USA, Italy, France, Germany, Morocco, Turkey, Israel, and China). At $3 a piece, they've found their niche and they aren't moving.

Other key adaptions include the comfy chair, the recliner, the folding chair. What is your favourite chair?

So, how did the chairs get into my house? Something made an ancient Egyptian decide that chairs were indispensable, eventually the secret couldn't be contained, and now we can't imagine life without them. For dining, it's unthinkable to not sit in a chair. I must have chairs.

Links:
Chair of Hetepheres
History of Egyptian Furniture
monobloc chairs
Scandinavian Modern

Next post: the pencil.

Rules of the game

A common definition of an artifact is "an object produced or shaped by human craft, especially a tool, weapon, or ornament of archaeological or historical interest." [American Heritage Dictionary @ answers.com]

Of course, they also add that an artifact is "an inaccurate observation, effect, or result, ..." which might end up being more accurate here.

Archaeologists take a broad view: An artifact is "any object which has been modified, fashioned, or manufactured according to a set of humanly imposed attributes, including tools, weapons, ornaments, utensils, houses, buildings, etc. Artefacts are the basic components of material culture." [Archaeology Dictionary @ answers.com] I guess when you're faced with such an overwhelming paucity of actual data to study in your chosen field you have to take a broad view. I like that last bit about material culture though and I see no reason why modern man-made things aren't also artifacts under these definitions.

I'll be concerned with household artifacts. By that I mean man-made items that are typically found and used within a normal home - my home. But I think I need a few more rules to clarify what I mean. I actually mean mass-produced objects rather than one-offs such as artwork. Types of object rather than instances (so a book as a type is an artifact, whereas The Selfish Gene is an instance and won't be catalogued separately). And I mean movable objects (that can be moved by a single person). From simple to complex, from common to obscure, I don't mind. Let's see how that goes.

One last rule, more to keep my time commitment down, is to choose the next artifact to investigate at the end of writing a posting.

And a disclaimer. I’m not an archaeologist. Just an amateur observing and cataloguing a house.
This is for fun so don’t expect any semblance of objectivity.

With the rules of the game set, we move on to the first substantive post, finally!

Next post: the dining room chair.

An idea

I heard the other day that 95% of the things in a typical home have come by sea on a container ship. Actually, in my case, at one time, is was all of the things. When I moved my family to the UK 8 years ago, a quarter-container worth of things was shipped across the ocean. All of our possessions in an 8 x 8.6 x 10 foot block! Doesn't sound like much. I think we could fill the whole container now. Possessions multiply.

Anyway, I've been wondering about all these artifacts - man-made things - that fill my home and my life. They're all things that I wanted at one time. Most are functional, many beautiful, some fun, a few useless, and the odd one indispensable. But they all somehow got into my life. How did they do this? And the ones I don't care for anymore? They're still here too. Why is it so difficult to part with things? Maybe it's not so hard. There are two kinds of people: packrats and ebay addicts. In both cases, the things live on.

Artifacts have a hold on me. They resist disposal. Of course, the strange thing is that I could get by without most of them, but who wants to (in the First World)? I mean, if pressed, I could play "desert island artifacts", but let's leave that for another post.

Artifacts seem to have a hold on everybody. Artifacts are like insects: they've been successfully surviving in almost every environment on the earth, which has humans of course, and they are very plentiful. Could the total mass of artifacts be greater than the total mass of insects? They've been more successful in the First World than in the Third World, but everybody has artifacts.

Man changes artifacts. But is man really in control of the process, or are we merely part of the blind reproductive mechanism of artifacts. If you didn't know that a human designer was involved, could you think that artifacts evolved through mutation and natural selection similar to biological organisms?

Artifacts change man. They enable the human population to increase, which raises the demand for more artifacts. So, they fuel, and perhaps even create, consumerism and globalization.

Back to my home. The cargo container ship made we realize my fascination with how artifacts are made, and how they affect our lives. The idea of this blog is to do a bit of amateur neo-archaeology (an oxymoron?) on the artifacts I know best - the ones in my home. I want to explore how everyday household things have evolved over time, mutated, selected for the changing environment, and reproduced. So, I intend to go through all the artifacts in my home one at a time. Will a coherent picture emerge? I don't know, but at least I'll be able to work out how much cash I would make on ebay, and then move to a desert island.

Next entry: the rules of the game.

Links: The 20-Ton Packet, Wired 7.10