Chairs. We sit on them every single day. We spend an average 8 to 9.5 hours with them every day; (probably more than the time you spend with your lover). Yet we never really give much thought about chairs. Do you know that:
- According to Witold Rybczynski in his book about chairs Now I Sit Me Down, chairs have a 5,000-year-old history.
- The first identified chair dated back to the period around 2700 B.C. as depicted in a sculpture found in the Aegean Sea. History points to the Egyptians as the ones who started using chairs. The ancient Egyptians used chairs as a status symbol reserved for the elite because during that time “commoners” sat on the ground, mattresses or at the most, stools.
- Chairs in the Philippines came with the cross when Magellan arrived in the Philippines and together with Humabon attended a mass. Prior to this, ranking chiefs sat on mattresses, mats or directly on the ground.
- Guinness Book of records for the largest long armed chair (“butaka”) is found in Isabela, Philippines.
- The word chair comes from the Latin word “catherdra” which means something like “sit” and “down”. The Tagalog word for chair is “salungpuwet” which was coined around 1950s to provide a native equivalent for the widely-used word “silya” which was originally Spanish. It is a combination of two words = “pangsalo” at “puwet” which means “catch” and “butt”.
In the modern times, the chair has evolved into something beyond just to “catch the butts” of tired humans. They have become works of art, décor or even health aides.
In this photo series, you will see the many faces of the “lowly” chair.
Matthew 25:31-32 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;
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