Vatican Museums

This bed represents an extremely rare intact royal specimen of a type otherwise known only through its representation, sculpted in the tufa, in the architecture of tombs from the same period. It is made up of six hollow cast bronze feet, bound together by a robust frame of cast bronze bars, to which a dense series of metal strips, woven to form a diagonal network with excellent elastic properties, is attached with rivets. The bed was used during funeral rites to enable the display and mourning of the deceased, and was then transported on a specially-constructed funerary cart with iron-rimmed wheels. In the tomb it was surrounded on three sides with figurines of weeping mourners made of black bucchero clay.