The Stor)i of Egypt 51 The very furniture which these great men used in their houses The furniture was put into these tombs. Many beautiful things, like chairs men^ofThe covered with gold and silver and fitted with soft leathern cush- ^^^l^ ions (Fig. t^t^^ beds of sumptuous workmanship, jewel boxes and perfume caskets of the ladies (Fig. 34), or even the gold-covered chariot in which the Theban noble took his after- noon airing, thirty- three or thirty-four hundred years ago, have been found in these tombs and may now be seen in the National Museum at Cairo. This city of Thebes with its majestic temples and monu- ments and its vast cemetery is thus a great chapter in that vast historical vol- ume of the Nile which we are read- ing — it is the chapter which tells us the impressive story of the Egyp- tian Empire. This cemeter^ discloses to us also how much further the Egyp- Religion in ^ .J the Empire tian has advanced in his religion since the days of the pyramids of Gizeh. Each of these great men buried in the Theban ceme- tery looked forward to a judgment in the hereafter — a judg- ment at which he would be called upon to answer for the Fig. 33. Armchair from the House of AN Egyptian Noble of the Empire This chair with other furniture from his house was placed in his tomb at Thebes in the early part of the fourteenth century B.C. There it remained for nearly thirty-three hundred years, till it was discovered in 1905 and removed to the National Museum at Cairo (p-Si)
