A chest is one of the oldest types of furniture. Assuming, any box with a lid can be considered a chest, then it has been around since the Neolithic era. The first reliable mention of such furniture dates back to the 15–12 centuries BC. It is known that ancient Egyptians used chests. From them, chests were passed to ancient Greece and Rome, and by the early Middle Ages half of the world was using chests: all over Europe, Asia and Russia. They were spread by nomadic tribes and armies of conquerors. Each country or culture adapted and modified chests to their needs. By doing so, this item of furniture gained national traits.
A lot can be said about the use cases of the chest because in addition to storing and transporting household items, clothes and tools, the chest also possessed ritualistic significance. The Adyghe widely used chests (pkhuante) in wedding ceremonies. On the day the daughter-in-law moved into her husband’s house, she was accompanied by two women from her mother’s side. They brought the pkhuante chest intended for the husband’s eldest aunt. It was called “a chest to please the sister-in-law”.
It was filled with small things: soap, stockings, handkerchiefs and special colored threads (“nyseudan” — threads for the daughter-in-law). The length of these threads had to be equal to the distance between two diagonally opposite corners of the room. The chest was opened by the elder sister-in-law. She took the threads and unwound them, measuring their length with her elbow. The women accompanying the young wife also received threads which, according to Adyghe beliefs, brought happiness to those who kept them as a keepsake. A few threads were left for the wife’s mother. They symbolized friendship between the two families.
Mukhtar Aslanovich Meretukov, historian and ethnographer, made an observation:
