I believe it's a camel saddle. Seems it was a popular "ethnic" decorator item a few years back. People put a camel saddls bag, stuffed like a pillow on top and called it a foot stool.
Linda C

Thank you!

Yep! LindaC is correct!

It is indeed a camel saddle.

Alexa

Ours came with a tooled leather "seat" (top piece) made to fit with holes that fit neatly over those caps. But it is old and worn, so out in garage in the "what do I do with this" pile.

Any other info? Thanks, Sandy (a newbie to this forum)

We have an old camel saddle that I am looking at having repaired - it belonged to dh's family when he was a kid, and he remembers them all "riding" on it, so it is a little worse for wear. Mine has a tooled leather seat (in poor condition) that I am considering having slipcovered.

When I was looking for information on mine, I found a site with some great pictures on it. Most of them are a little over the top, but they would make a great conversation starter!

Carrie

Here is a link that might be useful: Camel Saddles - B&A!

Thanks, Carrie. Loved the BA shots. They cleaned up well. May be worth putting some time into. I've always wondered if they were real saddles. Seems that hard wood with someone sitting on top would make for a testy camel! Sandy

I have one of these funky camel saddles as well. Mine came from Ethiopia, brought back to the USA by a friend in the 1960's when she was in the Peace Corp there. She believed it was an antique then (but who knows haha).

Mine is a little different from the ones I see in most of these pictures. It has a lot of brass plates nailed to the legs embossed with Nubian royalty (kitchy huh? :-) and the brass caps are embossed with stylized wheat sheafs. The seat is badly died red leather stuffed with some smelly raw wool. Otherwise the leather thongs and wood look the same.

And yes! They REALLY do use these as camel saddles! They're a nice height and make great little footstools.

I searched for this thread so that I could show a picture of our newly repaired and recovered camel saddle stool. The legs were repaired, and I had the leather cushion recovered (the original leather is still intact underneath). Dh's dad purchased the stool when he was in the Air Force in France in the early 60's.

Carrie