So, last night I watched the movie Prince of Egypt. I love that movie. It’s a great film, with wonderful music, beautiful animation and I highly recommend it. However, with three classes about the history of furniture under my belt, I am taking it upon myself to bring a particularly heinous bit of bad historyfrom that film to light: this chair.

That chair is meant to be the throne of Ramses II in the film. There’s a number of things wrong with it: its size/shape, its lack of decoration, and the material it's made out of.

For the most part, chairs in ancient Egypt, even thrones, weren’t that huge. Most of the chairs I’ve been able to find were fairly average sized, but highly decorated. They also weren’t that shape. Here is a good example of what an actual ancient Egyptian throne from around that time period looked like. That throne belonged to Tutankhamen. It’s made of wood, and highly decorated with gold, silver, and inlaid with many precious stones. Here is a another one of King Tut’s Thrones. Like the previous throne, it is made of wood and covered in gold, silver and precious gyms. This one also has legs shaped like animal legs, which was typical for chairs during this time period. It also has images of the king’s wife serving him while he sits on an ancient Egyptian chair.

Now, this was a pretty egregious example of bad history, but don’t let it deter you from watching the film. While it may play fast and loose with chair history, it’s still an excellent film.