10 Things You Didn"t Know About Dining Chairs

Whilst we can't exactly say that cave men used chairs, the humble dining chairs has certainly had it's place in history since very near the beginning.
Egyptian art work depicts pharaohs sitting on elegant chairs in their courts with their wives and family, and when the pyramids were discovered and the treasures unearthed, many decorative chairs were found amongst the gifts for the dead to be taken into the after life- so clearly a good dining chair was important! Throughout history we have used chairs and it was in the 1700's that we started to upholster our chairs and put cushions and decorative fabrics on them to make them more comfortable for us and look a bit more interesting.
Up until this point chairs had been hard wood with no cushioning for the person sitting there.
So, in keeping with these facts, here are 10 things you probably didn't know about dining chairs.
1- Six chairs were found in Tutankhamen's tomb when Howard Carter discovered it and by far the most spectacular was a wooden one that was completely covered in gold and silver with winged serpents decorating it and Queen Ankesenamun blessing her husband.
2- Slaves would transport Chinese nobles on sedan chairs in the 12th century and carry them around.
3- In the 16th century common people were finally able to have their own Dining Chairs and they ceased to be a status symbol and were for anyone who could afford them.
4- The six dining chairs that Charles II used at the Taunton Assize in 1685 were recently auctioned with a reserve of £15,000! 5- France is the most popular country for buying antique dining chairs and their timeless designs are revered all over the world for their style and beautiful craftsmanship.
6- At an art exhibit a designer called Steve Mann designed a chair that had spikes on the seat.
To sit in the chair you would need to swipe your credit card on a machine to buy a seating license which would retract the spikes for a set amount of time! 7- In 1926 Mart Stam designed the Cantilever chair which had no back legs and relied on structural support to help it stand, and there was a legal battle over who owned the patent on it which lead to a court battle! 8- In the Tudor era, chairs were very rare and most people sat on benches for meals.
The only dining chairs had very tall, straight backs which made you sit very rigidly and though meant as a status symbol were very uncomfortable! 9- Design drift created a range of Plexiglas dining chairs which had misty shapes put into them with laser which made it appear as though a ghost was sitting on the chairs! Spooky.
10- There are standards agencies in place to ensure that chairs conform to a certain level of standards and monitors things like length of time you can sit on them, exact leg strength and chair back strength to ensure they're ok for sale.