Image Details

Cyprus Museum

Royal splendor. Covered with ivory, this wooden bed was discovered in an eighth-century B.C. royal tomb in Salamis, Cyprus. The Hebrew Bible contains several mentions of thrones and beds of ivory as symbols of extravagant luxury. Author Millard argues that these were not made completely of ivory, only that they were decorated with that prized material. Similarly, he reasons, King Og’s bed may have been plated with iron—a rarity at the time that rated a mention in Deuteronomy.