Plut. Alex. § 14. Herod. ii. 131. Pausanias supplies a list of the different kinds of wood used in the most ancient statues. viii. 17. 2. Footnote 1072: Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 3. 7. Footnote 1073: Id. v. 3. 6. Footnote 1074: Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 9. 8. Footnote 1075: Plut. Alex. § 14. ----- From the knotted wood of the fir-tree, tablets for painting or writing on were made, the inferior kinds of which were very common; but there was a superior and very beautiful sort used only by the opulent.[1076] ----- Footnote 1076: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 9. 7. ----- Another piece of furniture in all Greek houses was the chest or coffer[1077] in which money and plate, or costly garments, were deposited. Articles of this description were frequently manufactured of the finest and most aromatic woods, as cedar for example, and adorned on all sides, as well as on the cover, with numerous figures in relief, sometimes in gold or ivory, as in the case of the celebrated coffer of Cypselos preserved in the treasury at Olympia.[1078] Generally, however, they were made of humbler materials; sometimes veneered with thin planks of yew, which took a high polish. Persons of inferior means substituted for these, mallequins of fine basket-work, or plaited from the bark of cherry or linden-tree.[1079] We may here remark by the way, that bread-baskets were manufactured from willows and the twigs of chestnut-trees,[1080] cleanly peeled, and that in Egypt articles of this description were generally woven or plaited from the leaves of the date and doom-palm, and probably variegated in colour as they are at present. At the court, however, bread-baskets were at one period of gold, but fashioned so as to resemble the rush-baskets in use among the earlier Greeks.[1081] ----- Footnote 1077: Schweigh. Anim. in Athen. t. vi. p. 52. Schol. Arist. Eq. 1207. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. 310. Poll. vii. 79. Plat. Tim. t. vii. pp. 52. 61. Luc. Amor. § 39. Arist. De Mund. c. vi. Footnote 1078: Creuzer. Commentat. Herodot. Ægypt. et Hellen. i. § 7. p. 62, seq. Raoul Rochette, Cours D’Archéologie, p. 342, seq. Footnote 1079: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 10. 4-13. 1. v. 7. 5. Philost. Icon. i. 31. p. 809. Footnote 1080: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 15. 2. v. 7. 7. Common baskets too were made of the leaves of the dwarf-palm, Id. i. 6. 11, and various domestic utensils from the roots of the papyrus. Id. iv. 8. 4. Footnote 1081: Athen. vi. 15. ----- Lanterns, too, in the first instance, were of basketwork,[1082] though afterwards manufactured, as in modern times, with thin plates of horn or ivory.[1083] ----- Footnote 1082: Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 428. Footnote 1083: