Body, Cosmos and Eternity: New Trends of Research on Iconography and Symbolism of Ancient Egyptian Coffins 9781784910020

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity New research trends in the iconography and symbolism of ancient Egyptian coffins Edited by

Rogério Sousa

Archaeopress Egyptology 3

Body, Cosmos and Eternity New research trends in the iconography and symbolism of ancient Egyptian coffins

Edited by

Rogério Sousa

Archaeopress Egyptology 3

Archaeopress Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED

www.archaeopress.com

ISBN 978 1 78491 002 0 ISBN 978 1 78491 003 7 (e-Pdf)

© Archaeopress and the individual authors 2014

Cover illustration: Coffin A from KV 63 (front view). Courtesy of Susan Osgood.

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Contents Foreword������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� v Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ vii

Part I : Studies on Coffin Symbolism From skin wrappings to architecture ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1 The evolution of prehistoric, anthropoid wrappings to historic architectonic coffins/sarcophagi; separate contrasts optimally fused in single Theban ‘stola’ coffins (±975-920 BC)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1 René van Walsem Figs. 1-2 After DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: figs. 6a-b. Fig. 3 After IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: fig. 236. Fig. 4 After DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 8,1. Fig. 7 After KUHLMANN, 1996: fig. 14. Figs. 5-6 After HEINRICH, 1957: figs. 105-106. Fig. 8 After DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 9. Fig. 9 After FIECHTER, 2001: 91. Fig. 10 After DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 24. Fig. 11 After DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 29,1. Fig. 12 After HAYES, 1935: fig. 16. Fig. 13 After LACAU, 1904: pl. 10. Fig. 14 After LACAU, 1904: pl. 15. Fig. 15 After IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: fig. 347. Fig. 16 Photographs: top left: Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta; top right: Cairo Egyptian Museum; bottom: Louvre (AF 1666 E 13030), Paris. Fig. 17 After DESROCHES NOBLECOURT, 1976: 166. Fig. 18 Photograph Museum of Antiquities, Leiden and after THAUSING, GOEDICKE, 1971: pl. 8=68. Fig. 19 Photograph Museum of Antiquities, Leiden. Fig. 20 After WALSEM, 1997: pl. 143. Fig. 21 Photograph Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Fig. 22 After HORNUNG, 1976: 58-59; After PIANKOFF, 1964: 14-15. Fig. 23 After WITTKOWER, 1971: fig. 1a.

Permeable containers: Body and cosmos in Middle Kingdom coffins����������������������������������������������������������������������� 29 Rune Nyord Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5



Object frieze on the back side of the inner coffin of Gemniemhat, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, ÆIN 1585. Photo: Ole Haupt, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The purification ritual with sieve, jar and two ankhs as represented in two dimensions in the 18th Dynasty tomb of User (TT 21). Davies, 1913, pl. 21. Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society. Diagram showing the distribution of D1 hieroglyphs with and without colour emphasis on the coffin of Bekheni, Cairo Museum, CG 28012. Drawing: Henrijette Vex Nyord. Vignette of East and West standards bearing offerings from the front side of the inner coffin of Senebtisi (L2Li). Gauthier, J.-E.; Jéquier, G., 1902: pl. 23. Courtesy of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. Diagram of internal/external relations implied by the coffin decoration. Drawing: Henrijette Vex Nyord.

Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents: social place, reuse, and working towards a new typology of 21st Dynasty coffins�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 45 Kathlyn M. Cooney Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Fig. 12 Fig. 13 Fig. 14 Fig. 15 Fig. 16 Fig. 17 Fig. 18 Fig. 19

Coffin of Nodjmet (Cairo CG 61024). Coffin of Panedjem I (Cairo CG 61025) Inner coffin of Nesykhonsu (Cairo CG 61030) Inner coffin of Isetemkheb (Cairo CG 61031) Inner coffin of Djedptahiuefankh (Cairo CG 61034) Coffin of Sutymes (Louvre N2609-11) Mummy board of Tabakenkhonsu (Turin 2226 DSC_1421) Photographer Neil Crawford Coffin of Amenemipet (BM EA 22941) Coffin set of Butehamen (Turin C2237) Inner coffin of Tjenetentiuhereru (Louvre 13034-35) Outer coffin of Ikhy (Vatican 25035 DSC_4641) Photographer Neil Crawford Coffin of an anonymous woman (BM EA 24907) Louvre AF 9593 Anonymous coffin (Florence 2157 GYU_0860) Photographer Remy Hiramoto Anonymous coffin (Florence 2157 DSC_2783) Photographer Neil Crawford Coffin of Meretenahet (Vienna AS 6066) Anonymous coffin (Copenhagen 3912) Anonymous coffin: lid (Vatican 25022 DSC_3286) Photographer Neil Crawford Anonymous coffin: lid DSC_3246 Photographer Neil Crawford

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Fig. 20

Anonymous coffin (Berlin 9679)

Representations of passage in ancient Egyptian iconography����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 67 Éva Liptay Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig.4 Fig. 5 Fig.6 Fig. 7

Junker, 1943: Abb. 13 Junker, 1940: Abb. 9 Niwiński, 1999: fig. 32. Courtesy of Andrzej Niwiński Niwiński 1989: fig. 42. Courtesy of Andrzej Niwiński Niwiński 1995: fig. 55. Courtesy of Andrzej Niwiński Niwiński 1999: fig. 76 Niwiński 1995: fig. 100

Crossing the landscapes of eternity: parallels between Amduat and funeral procession scenes on the 21st Dynasty coffins1������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 81 Cássio de Araújo Duarte Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7



Brussels E 5881. Photos by the author. Leiden AMM 18-h. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. London EA 22941. © Trustees of the British Museum London EA 22942. © Trustees of the British Museum Mougins MMoCA489. Courtesy of the Mougins Museum of Classical Art. Athens ANE 3422 Drawing by the author Berlin 580001 Drawing by the author.

‘Spread your wings over me’: iconography, symbolism and meaning of the central panel on yellow coffins������������ 91 Rogério Sousa Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8



Coffin´s components (after the outer coffin of A 136) Drawing by the author. Central panel. Inner coffin of Khonsu (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Drawing by the author. Central panel. Outer coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Drawing by the author. Central panel. Mummy-cover of Diukhonsuiry (A.49, Cairo Egyptian Museum) Drawing by the author. Central panel. Inner coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Drawing by the author. Central panel. Coffin of Shedsutauepet (A 110, Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa) Drawing by the author. Central panel. Mummy-cover of Padiuamun (A 87, Cairo Egyptian Museum) Drawing by the author. Central panel. Inner coffin of Tjenetipet (A 119, Cairo Egyptian Museum) Drawing by the author.

Resurrection in a box: the 25th Dynasty burial ensemble of Padiamunet��������������������������������������������������������������� 111 Cynthia May Sheikholeslami Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Fig. 12 Fig. 13 Fig. 14 Fig. 15 Fig. 16 Fig. 17

Padiamunet’s Canopic Equipment (Luxor Museum J75). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Ptah-Sokar-Osiris Figure of Padiamunet (after Ancient Egyptian Art, 1952: 39) Padiamunet adoring the divine assessors (Book of the Dead spell 125) on the box of his middle coffin (Luxor Museum J845); notice the lighter areas of colored plaster used to fill and smooth the wooden surface Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Face of Padiamunet from the lid of his middle coffin; missing sections of the red wax have been restored with red coloring (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Padiamunet at the door of the hall of judgement (Book of the Dead spell 125 vignette detail) from the box of his middle coffin (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. The goddess Nut inside the vaulted lid of the qrsw of Padiamunet, with figures of the goddesses of the hours of the night (left, with stars on their heads) and day (right, with sun disks on their heads) flanking her outstreched body (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Head end of the lid of the qrsw of Padiamunet with the rising sun in the center and the emblem of the east on the left and of the west on the right above the figures of the birds and jackals (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. The day barque of the sun god on the eastern side of the lid of the qrsw of Padiamunet (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Padiamunet adoring the text of the second hymn from Book of the Dead 15 and the arriving day barque of the sun god on the lid of his qrsw sarcophagus (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no.52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. The night barque of the sun god on the western side of the lid of the qrsw of Padiamunet (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Head end of the western side of the box of the qrsw of Padiamunet with the false door panel and Imsety in his shrine (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Vignette of Book of the Dead spell 125 on the exterior of the box of Padiamunet’s middle coffin (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Detail of the head and shoulders of the lid of the middle coffin of Padiamunet (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Vignette of Book of the Dead spell 54 on the lid of Padiamunet’s middle coffin (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Detail of the face of Padiamunet on his inner coffin lid showing the remains of the red wax covering over the carved wooden face with details of the eyebrows and beard rendered in black wax (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Luxor Museum J346). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Lid of the inner coffin of Padiamunet (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Luxor Museum J346). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. Pedestal base with ankh-was-neb decoration on the inner coffin of Padiamunet (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Luxor Museum J346). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami.

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Gods at all hours: Saite Period coffins of the ‘eleven-eleven’ type������������������������������������������������������������������������� 125 Jonathan Elias Carter Lupton Table 1 Table 2 Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Table 3 Fig. 5

Divine Processions on Coffins of Eleven-Eleven Style Examples of Eleven-Eleven Coffins and Sarcophagi MPM A12064. The Coffin of Djed-hor, Lid. CT scan image of the head of mummy MPM A10264, showing trepanation in summit of the cranium (1). MPM A10264. Texts from Coffin’s Right Side. MPM A10264. Texts from Coffin’s Left Side. Concordance of Gods and Day-Hours on the Ahmose Fragment from Tell el-Baklieh Ahmose Fragment from Tell el-Baklieh, from Naville 1894, Plate III.

Part II : Studies on Museums’ Collections and Archaeological Finds Continuity in times of transition: �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 137 the inner coffin of the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es in Vevey (Switzerland)���������������������������������������������������� 137 Alexandra Küffer Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8

Lid of the inner coffin of Gem-tu-es. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo pmimage. Right side of the coffin, showing the missing parts of lid and case next to the head. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo pmimage. Detail of the face on the coffin lid. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo pmimage. Detail of the lid, showing the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo pmimage. Interior of the coffin lid, featuring the genealogy of Gem-tu-es. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo pmimage. Interior of the coffin case, featuring the genealogy of Gem-tu-es. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo pmimage. The exterior of the coffin case, sculpted as pillar in the middle part. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo pmimage. The mortal remains of Gem-tu-es kept in a glass vase. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo: pmimage.

Egyptian coffins in Portugal����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 145 Luís Manuel de Araújo Cercueils jaunes des XXIe et XXIIe dynasties dans les collections Françaises������������������������������������������������������������ 149 Alain Dautant Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10

Carte de répartition des collections égyptiennes dans les musées français. En gris, collection égyptienne En gras souligné, cercueil égyptien des XXIe/XXIIe dynasties Document d’envoi du lot nº 1. Liste des cercueils rédigée par Émile Brugsch, en 1893, au Musée de Gizeh (Archives nationales de France, AN F/17/17240) Numéros des listes A, B et numéros dans le Journal d’Entrée du Musée de Gizeh. Les ensembles figurant sur le document d’envoi du lot n°1 attribués à la France (d’après DARESSY, 1907: 4-14). Couvertures de momie: (A) Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, H 2322 (dépôt du Louvre E 10637), couverture de l’ensemble A 8 de Djedkhonsouiouefânkh de la seconde cachette de Deir el-Bahari. (B) Chartres, © Musée des Beaux-arts, 6924. (C) Perpignan, Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, sans n° inv. (D) Le Mans Ensemble Bab el-Gousous JE 29629 du prêtre pur d’Amon et scribe du domaine d’Amon Neskafaâ. Amiens, Musée de Picardie, 1893.763.1. Le défunt Neskafaâ, ḥs(y) sȝ n ḥs(y)w, sš n pr Jmn, est en adoration (A) de PtahSokar et (B) de Rê-Horakhty. (C) Sur le fond de la cuve, le registre inférieur est subdivisé en trois tableaux. (D et E) Son titre w‘b n Jmn inscrit sur le bord du couvercle. Ensemble Bab el-Gousous A 36 de la chanteuse d’Amon, Nedjemmout. Boulogne-sur-Mer, Musée-Château. (A) Titres de Nedjemmout sur la cuve. (B) Inscriptions sur le pied du couvercle. (C) Vue latérale du chevet. Ensemble Bab el-Gousous A 89 d’une chanteuse d’Amon. Clermont-Ferrand, © Musée Bargoin. (A) couverture de momie, 3128; (B) couvercle, 3127; (C et D) cuve, 3126. Ensemble Bab el-Gousous A 25 de Bakenkhonsou. Marseille, Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne. (A) Inscription hiératique sur le pied du cercueil externe (Inv. 5171 Centre de la Vieille Charité). (B) Inscription hiéroglyphique sur le pied du cercueil interne de Bakenkhonsou (Inv. 5195, Conservatoire du Patrimoine des Musées). Cercueils de type stola: (A) Cercueil de Djedhoriouefankh (Mougins, © Musée d’Art Classique, MMoCA.610). (B) Cercueil ‘Arrhenius’ (Mougins, © Musée d’Art Classique, MMoCA.489). (C) Cercueil de Djedmout (La Rochelle, Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, H.3.594). (D) (Roanne, Musée Déchelette, D991.19.20 ; dépôt du Musée d’Aix-lesBains). (E) (Roanne, Musée Déchelette, D991.20.1 ; dépôt de Bourg-lès-Valence). Fragments de cercueils. (A) Bordeaux, © Musée d’Aquitaine, Mesuret 8595. (B) Bourges, © Musée du Berry, 1908.33.26. (C) Chartres, © Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1989.240.1. (D) Paris, Drouot, Lot n°150 vente du 17/01/2009 © Pierre Bergé. (E) Quimper, © Musée Archéologique Breton, 9. (F) Paris, Drouot, Lot n°26 vente du 01/12/2011 © Pierre Bergé. (G) Paris, Drouot, Lot n°198 vente du 29/10/2008 © Tajan.

Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway): the modern history of the collection and a reconstruction of the ensembles������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 167 Anders Bettum Table 1.

Lot 14 after Daressy 1907.

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Table 2. Table 3. Table 4. Table 5. Table 6. Table 7. Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Table 8.

Lot 14 after Niwiński 1988 Lot 14 after Aston 2009 Lot 14: Coffins and mummy-covers in the museums in Oslo, Stockholm and Uppsala JE-numbers in Doc 1D matched with A and B-numbers The outermost coffins of the ensembles listed in Doc 1D Conclusions from the study of the archive material The head end of this coffin case wall was restored in 1924. The modern boards (above the joint) are slightly thicker than the originals (below the joint), and the inclination of the curve of the head has been restored at a steeper angle, effectively making the coffin at least 5 cm shorter than it once was. NME 892, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm). Evidence of reuse: This mummy-board, inscribed for the lady Nesypernub, has evidently been reused by a man. Three of the most distinct gender markers have been altered superficially: The fingers have been cut off to give the impression of closed fists and the ear studs in relief have been removed/painted over. Immediately above the circular dents of the ear studs, a pair of protruding ears have been painted on the wig. NME 895, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm). The name ‘Ankhsenmut’, spelled with the vertical ‘s’. NME 892, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm). The outer coffin of Khonsumes (A121). NME 890, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm). Evidence of reuse: The outline of a djed-pillar can be seen at the center of this foot-board. The motif was part of the standard repertoire of coffin decoration from the 18th to the early 21st Dynasty. By the mid 21st Dynasty, to which this coffin has been dated, foot-boards were no longer painted. NME 890, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm). Evidence of reuse: Whereas the edge on top of the side walls has a lip to receive the lid, the edge of the wall surrounding the head, which is noticeably higher than the side walls, does not. It is also worth noting that the floor of the coffin is painted, but the interior walls are not. The coffin appears to have been pieced together from sections of at least two old coffins. This mummy-cover is a splendid example of the ‘parish-coffins’ used in the mid 21st Dynasty, where open slots were left in the texts for the name of a future owner or owners to be filled in. C47714c, the Museum of Cultural Heritage (Oslo). The foot piece of this coffin lid has broken off, and the two vertical text columns interrupted before the name of the deceased was introduced. The text is the same in both columns, but in the left hand column, a tighter writing and a few cm more of preserved plaster tells us that this also was an anonymous ‘parish-coffin’: there is no name at all, only an open slot to be filled in for the next owner. The titles, ‘mistress of the house, songstress of Amun-Re’, are part of the original, permanent inscription. VM 152, the Victoria Museum, Uppsala. Lot 14 reconstructed

The coffins of the priests of Amun: a socio-economic investigation on Bab el-Gasus cachette�������������������������������� 187 Elena Paganini Coffins without mummies: the Tomb KV 63 in the Valley of the Kings�������������������������������������������������������������������� 197 Rogério Sousa Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5



Coffin A (drawn in situ). Courtesy of Susan Osgood. Coffin A (reconstruction made from available measurments). Courtesy of Susan Osgood. Coffin A (front view). Courtesy of Susan Osgood. Coffin A (leff facial profile, drawn after excavation and conservation). Courtesy of Susan Osgood. Coffin A (digital hypothetical composition made from post conservation drawings of fragments). Courtesy of Susan Osgood.

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Foreword This volume, edited by my friend and colleague Rogério Sousa, is part of the scholarly ferment which has wheeled around the subject of ‘coffin’ during the last twenty years. Its magic and religious evaluation identifies it from time to time as body container, but at the same time substitute body for the deceased, a maternal womb in which the regeneration will occur, a microcosm, tomb, funerary temple, as well as a conduit to the dead, a powerful tool activated by means of the Opening of the Mouth ritual. The history of the study of coffins has from time to time given special attention to a single aspect, such as elements of style, typological investigation, iconography, identification of texts and their variants, their prosopography. The application of the most modern analytical techniques in the study of material goods has unquestionably opened new horizons for reflection and revolutionised the approach to archaeological data: ‘The study of ancient Egyptian material and technology is a vibrant one’.1 One cannot disguise the fact that the coffin was linked to an important industry which involved not just the deceased and his or her family, but also the entire community. The process which led to the construction of a coffin and, in a second phase, its decoration and ‘architectonisation’,2 represents a cultural dynamic fundamental for the very survival of ancient Egyptian society. No separation can be made of these two phases, equally ‘creative’, in the production of what the Egyptians regarded as the most important object manufactured for burial. Up until now we have lacked a real understanding of the procedure of coffin manufacture in its complexity, as also the location of the workshop where the coffins were produced. The Vatican Coffin Project, which at the moment sees the collaboration of the Vatican Museums with the Riksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden and the Louvre Museum, is part of this new range of study, looking to evaluate the craft traditions: the craftspeople were those appointed to ‘translate’ and transpose the philosophy of life and death also on the sides of a coffin. At this point, are we speaking of ‘artists’, ‘artisans’, or ‘craftsmen’? Different workshops certainly existed, does this mean that each of them worked for their own commissions? The identification of the species of wood used for the coffins of the Third Intermediate Period, carried out by Victoria Asensi Amoros as part of the Vatican Coffin Project, has added an important step forward determining the continuity of use, and the introduction or abandonment of certain species; and also to understand the dynamic inside the workshop of the re-use of wooden materials. Numerous experiments on the construction of a coffin, using ancient techniques and the reconstruction of ancient Egyptian pigments have also produced interesting results. The Sarcophagus Project of the Armenian Egyptology Center has worked for years on this aspect. The funerary arts are first and foremost material products, which have a precise social and economic value, besides their symbolic, magical and religious values. Kathlyn Cooney’s research into ‘the cost of death’ has recovered a fundamental aspect of this question, the socio-economic aspects of crafted material culture: Egyptian art as commodities.3 Why, how, where, when and at what price were funerary objects produced, and what value did they have for the Egyptians themselves? Cooney’s research has also confirmed a vast scale of the re-use of coffins during the 21st Dynasty. Modern investigative techniques, such as Terahertz technology and CT-scanning, are able to confirm her intuitions and observations. This aspect of re-use and recycling cannot be underestimated and opens up a whole series of new reflections on the social and economic value of funerary art within Egyptian society. Running parallel to this during the past few years has been great activity in the study of the coffins in museum collections. A deeper understanding of these objects from the symbolic and religious point of view, united with that of their construction and painting technique will also open new perspectives for their conservation and restoration. NICHOLSON,P. T.; SHAW, Ian, eds. (2000) - Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge: University Press, p. 1. WALSEM, R. van (1997) - The Coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden. Technical and Iconographical/ Iconographical Aspects. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten, p. 358-361. 3 K. M. COONEY, The Cost of Death. The Social and Economic Value of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Art in the Ramesside Period, EU 22, Leiden 2007. 1 2

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The First Vatican Coffin Conference has thrown light on just how much scientific investigations on coffins are being conducted alongside textual-iconographical study in museums scattered throughout the world, from the British Museum to the National Museum in Warsaw, from the Civico Museo di Storia e Arte in Trieste to the collection at Tulane University in New Orleans, from the Museo del Vicino Oriente of the Sapienza University of Rome to the Fitzwilliam Museum, from the Lyon collection to the McManus Museum in Dundee, just to name a few. I would like also to mention the Swiss Coffin Project, as well as the collaboration between C2RMF and the Egyptian Department of the Louvre Museum on the studies of coffins and cartonnage cases, and also the collaboration between the Laboratorio di Diagnostica of the Vatican Museums and the Rijksdienst voor Culturele Erfgoed in Amsterdam with the Egyptian Department of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden for the study of the coffins from the Bab el-Gasus cachette. This cachette is also the subject of study of The Gate of the Priests Project, directed by Rogério Sousa. The aim is the reconstruction of the original composition of the tomb. It is an international project held in the University of Coimbra, which sees the collaboration of the University of Leiden, the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, the University of California – Los Angeles, and the Vatican Museums. Projects for the identification and collection of coffins scattered through minor collections are also important. We remember the Egyptian Coffins Project in the Provincial Collections of the United Kingdom Project (ECPUK) of Aidan Dodson and the cataloguing of coffins in the minor collections of France by Alain Dautant. It is obviously not possible here to cite all the projects, including those being undertaken by individual scholars, which contribute to the expanding horizon of coffin studies. The winning formula is however that of ever greater international collaboration, and that on a global scale with teamwork marked by regular meetings for honest comparisons. The most recent studies have simply further underlined the complexity of the argument: ‘The history of the central component of the funerary equipment has still to be written’.4 Alessia Amenta Vatican Museums

4

van Walsem, op.cit, p. 6.

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Introduction In February 2013, the Symposium Body, Cosmos and Eternity: the Symbolism of Coffins in Ancient Egypt convened at the historical building of the University of Porto to debate conceptual frameworks underlying the contemporary study of Egyptian coffins. Egyptian tomb structures always revolved around two main sets of concerns: while intending to create a magical context for the protection of the corpse, they also aimed at the social and cosmic integration of the deceased. Rising from the close association with the depiction of the mummified body, the anthropoid coffins soon absorbed a rich mythological imaginary related to the constellation of Nut, the mother goddess of the sky supposed to give birth to Osiris, and evolved continuously, integrating larger and more complex sets of beliefs, mirroring the increasingly bolder use of coffins in the funerary rituals. It was this complex set of beliefs involving the coffin as body container and, at the same time, a microcosmos where the introduction of the deceased in the realm of eternity was minuciously depicted, that I proposed to explore in this series of symposia. In spite of their archaeological importance, the study of Egyptian coffins has remained greatly overlooked during most part of the 20th century. Dr Andrzej Niwiński, Dr John Taylor and Dr René van Walsem figure amidst the first authors who began the scientific study of Egyptian coffins. Dr Andrzej Niwiński´s remarkable contribution for the perception of the yellow coffins as an extremely valuable documentary corpus speaks for itself. His exhaustive inventory of objects showcases how the dispersion of the Egyptian antiquities by museums all over the world presents such serious problems for the systematic study of coffins. Dr John Taylor on the other hand has been focused on the coffins of the 22nd25th Dynasties, thus broadening up quite significantly the documentary corpus undergoing systematic analysis. Last but not the least, Dr René van Walsem´s views on the architectonisation of coffins have greatly contributed to reveal the importance of our conceptual framework to understand the development of coffin decoration in terms of a coherent system of information fully exploring the limits of its own complexity. His methodological procedures, based on consistent terminology and rhythm of description, provide a solid ground for the description of coffins. These remarkable contributions have been the core of contemporary research on Egyptian coffins and became an important source of inspiration for the scientific community as a whole. During the last decades, studies on Egyptian coffins have known a considerable growth, particularly those concerning the publication of catalogues. Dr Alessia Amenta, who kindly accepted to write the ‘Foreword’ of this book, gifted us with an excellent overview of the new trends of research on coffin studies. During the last decades, contributions from technical and socio-economic studies have paved the way to raise the awareness of the scientific community for the complexity of the social aspects revolving around coffin production. Having been responsible for the documentation and publication of the coffins of Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa (Eighth Lot of Bab el-Gasus) I realized how important it is for the future research on Egyptian coffins, particularly those dating to the 21st Dynasty, to ground the description of these objects on theoretical concepts. In fact, the discussion on the concepts and methods is crucial for the future of coffin studies. The team involved in the first edition of the symposium included colleagues actively engaged in the exploration of these questions, as Dr Rune Nyord, Dr René van Walsem and Dr Kathlyn Cooney, each one developing new conceptual frameworks or methods for studying Egyptian coffins. On the other hand, the symposium also aimed at the presentation of studies on specific collections, objects or archaeological finds. Contributors such as Dr Alain Dautant and Dr Luís Manuel de Araújo presented studies on this field. With the three editions of the Symposium Body, Cosmos and Eternity I do hope that it had contributed for the debate on iconography and symbolism of Egyptian coffins. The results of this experience encouraged me to go further ahead with an editorial project specifically concerned with this subject. The idea to create a publication specifically dedicated to the emerging trends of research in this particular area imposed itself quite naturally. With this goal in mind I have addressed to other colleagues working in this field of studies, inviting them to join our Project. Dr Éva Liptay, Dr Cássio de Araújo Duarte, Dr Cynthia May Sheikholeslami, Dr Jonathan Elias, Dr Carter Lupton, Dr Alexandra Küffer, Dr Anders Bettum and Elena Paganini gracefully accepted our invitation and contributed to this volume with studies that fully illustrate the diversity and vitality of contemporary research in this particular field of Egyptology. Following our original purpose the studies of this volume are presented in two main parts. The first part is dedicated to the studies related to the symbolism or social significance inherent to the use of coffins, while the second part is dedicated to the studies on museums´s collections, archaeological finds or coffins’s description.

vii

I am deeply indebted to all contributors who generously gave me the opportunity to publish the results of their research, as well as to the University of Porto and to CITCEM who gave me the financial and institutional support for the organization of the three editions of the Symposium. I am also grateful to Dr David Davison who supported this publication from the very first moment. The editor, Rogério Sousa

Part I : Studies on Coffin Symbolism

I

René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture

From skin wrappings to architecture The evolution of prehistoric, anthropoid wrappings to historic architectonic coffins/sarcophagi; separate contrasts optimally fused in single Theban ‘stola’ coffins (±975-920 BC) René van Walsem Leiden Institute of Area Studies and School of Middle Eastern Studies (Leiden University) Abstract This article traces the roots of the ‘archtectonisation’ found on the ‘stola’ coffins of the Third Intermediate Period in Thebes. It investigates the various phases, shapes and original and/or metaphoric meanings of the various media isolating the dead body’s ‘inner’ or ‘safe’ space from the ‘dangerous’ or ‘inimical’ exterior space, making a sharp distinction between pliable materials (skins and cloth), soft non-pliable (wood) and hard non-pliable (stone, metal) materials, resulting in a consistently distinctive terminology for the resulting ‘containers’, namely the terms coffin (made of soft non-pliable material), respectively sarcophagus (made of hard nonpliable material). Concerning the interpretation of the niched articulations found on both coffins and sarcophagi during the early Old Kingdom, it becomes obvious that the Egyptological term ‘palace façade motif’, or srx is untenable and should probably be exchanged for ‘enclosure wall motif’. From the early to later 6th Dynasty, the pure architectonic character of the coffins/sarcophagi starts to be ‘mitigated’ by the appearance of a pair of eyes on the exterior of the wooden coffins only (never on the stone outer sarcophagus), a phenomenon that can best be described by the term ‘anthropoisation’. From the Middle Kingdom, the eyes are omnipresent and are often, but not necessarily always, combined with the ‘enclosure wall’ motif, Egyptologically also known as a ‘false door’. This anthropoisation ultimately leads to the development of the entirely anthropoid=mummiform coffin within the architectonic outer coffin. From here, during the New Kingdom, the development leads via the royal architectonic outer sarcophagus with multiple anthropoid inner coffins to the sets of anthropoid coffins only used by the private elite, especially the clergy of the temple of Amun, represented, for example, by the Bab el-Gasus material. The rather modest number of architectonic attributes on these coffins, finally, results in the rich repertoire of architectonic attributes on the ‘stola’ coffins of the late 21st-early 22nd Dynasties, in a most effective balance with the anthropoid attributes, enabling the coffin to combine the functions of a royal and a private tomb, as well as of a funerary temple. Shortly after, this apex of harmony between architecture and anthropomorphism was dissolved and the architecture reduced to a much more marginal position. Yet its presence down to the very end of the Ancient Egyptian culture demonstrates how deeply the architectonic shape and its potential meanings was ingrained in the Egyptian cultural mind.

Although my contribution to the Symposium Body, Cosmos and Eternity: the Symbolism of Coffins in Ancient Egypt, at the University of Oporto on 22 February 2013, was entitled ‘Architectonisation’ and ‘divinisation’ on Third Intermediate Period ‘stola’ coffins, this paper will concentrate on the architectonic issues.

lid’], i.e. 230 individual set parts (see pp. 377-384), that these mummy-shaped coffins functioned on a number of levels: 1. as a container for a mummy (in certain cases, such as Djedmonthu’s serving as a micro-cosmos [decoration on inside of head-end of box]2), 2. as a private tomb [ceiling decoration on inside head-end of box, like the coffin of Djedmut in the Vatican],3 3. as a royal tomb (Amduat scenes, figures from the ‘Litany of Re’),4 4. as a (mortuary) temple [royal offering scenes directly copied from temple scenes].5

In this light, I would like to draw your attention to my contribution to the Proceedings of the First Vatican Coffin Conference in Rome, 19-22 June 2013,1 which opens as follows: In my dissertation The coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden. Technical and iconographical/iconological aspects, published in 1997, I have demonstrated that, irrespective of the anatomically excellent construction of this anthropomorphic coffin, there are many features which reveal that it was ‘architectonisized’ (see pp. 358-361). It turned out, especially by comparing the data on 129 more or less complete coffin sets [a complete set consists of five components: an outer coffin plus lid; an inner coffin plus lid and a ‘plank

Since the chain motif (cf. n. 1) has turned out to be merely a cheetah or leopard tail, the complete skin of which could be used as roofing material for a primitive stick shelter, it seems worthwhile taking a closer look at the opposition ‘architectural’ ‘anthropoid’ and its pragmatics.6 WALSEM, 1997: 264-269, figs. 15-17. WALSEM, 1997: 270, 272, 358. WALSEM, 1997: 246-252, 359. 5 WALSEM, 1997: 196-201; 202-203; 204-208; figs. 9-10; 275-295; figs. 18-25. 6 For the term see WALSEM, 2006 and 2007: 29. 2 3 4

1 WALSEM, The ‘chain’ motif. A decorative architectonic element with prehistoric roots on the lid of some ‘stola’ coffins (forthcoming).

1

Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Figs. 1-2 - After DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: figs. 6a-b.

However, it is first necessary to properly define the concept ‘architectonisation’:

2. Specific intrinsic architectonical decoration motifs (for example various cobra, block, Xkr, mAat-feather friezes and the cavetto cornice motif),9 and/or 3. Specific large/larger iconographic compositions originating in temple and/or private/royal tomb architecture (for example the coffin owner directly offering clothing, ointment or large papyrus bouquets to deities, excerpts from the last four Amduat hours, and figures from the Litany of Re).10

1. The manifestation of truely architectural components in 2-dimensional, relief-like fashion (e.g. the ‘palace façade’ decoration on Old Kingdom sarcophagi)7 or in 3-dimensional shape (for example the imitation of the Djoser enclosure wall as a pedestal for the sarcophagi of Senusret III, Queen Weret II, Amenemhat III and Queen Aat),8 and/or

111-114; ARNOLD, 1987: 33-34, fig. 12-13, pl. 13; 44, fig.18, pl. 18a, c; cf. also n. 117. 9 WALSEM, 1997: pls. 143, 163-166. 10 WALSEM, 1997: pls. 8-9, 15, fig. 20; pls. 11-12 and below here p. 21 and 23.

DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pls. 23-25, 27-30, 32-34. ARNOLD, 2002: pls. 19a-20a,c, 21b, 28-29; 80, fig. 25, pls. 20b, 61 65; for similar sarcophagi of (anonymous) individuals, see pls. 104-106, 7 8

2

René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture ‘Architecture’, defined as ‘a three-dimensional combination of a geometrically stylized creation and synthetic organization of space (unit/s)’, actually finds its most fundamental and intimate origin in living human beings, who through ‘brain waves’ got the idea to isolate the body from excessive external, potentially threatening if not dangerous influences such as heat, cold and/or moisture by putting an animal skin on their backs, later followed by pieces of woven cloth.11 Covering some or all of the body with an isolating medium by definition splits or defines the total volume of undefined space into two components: inner (=personal=wished-for=including) and outer (=impersonal=unwished-for=excluding) space.

the rectangular mats that were also used alongside the skin and textile coverings, or instead of them.14 The next logical step, more or less synchronous with the former, was the construction of a rectangular box containing the corpse, now completely free-standing in a slightly larger burial pit, with the subsidiary gifts placed inside the box, again within direct reach of the deceased (Figure 2).15 Thus an independent and transportable container for corpses was created. The outward appearance of these containers was initially very simple, as is demonstrated by a 1st Dynasty example from Tarkhan, now in the British Museum.16 It consists of vertical planks on the long sides and horizontal ones on the short sides, with the corners strengthened by an extra vertical plank flush with the slightly protruding corner planks of the long sides. Neither the flat lid, consisting of longer planks, nor the walls show any decoration that might suggest a secondary/metaphoric meaning/function other than a purely practical way of ‘storing/containing’ and/or transporting a corpse.

The inexorable wish to protect the living body against unwished-for external, potentially damaging influences evolved into the equally inexorable, emotionally based wish to also protect the beloved deceased against direct contact with an additional negative intrusive factor: the sand in which the grave was dug and that was thrown back on the corpse in order to protect it against various predators and scavengers. It is not too far-fetched to assume that prehistoric man knew the smothering=killing effect of sand, so by covering the head as well with a skin or a sheet of textile, it was encompassed into the personal space12 and could thus (theoretically) continue to breath. It is obvious that if skins were used for both a living and a dead body, this pliable material would more or less follow the outward contours of the human body, and thus take on a natural anthropoid shape, very clear in the cases listed in n. 12.

Soon after there was another, really major, innovation consisting of transforming the flat lid into a low barrel vault ending in raised rectangular sections at the short sides, and by further changing at least one of the long sides into a number of niches, created by a panelling of protruding and receding rectangular wall sections of various widths and heights. Two larger niches were outfitted with a number of horizontal bars imitating doors. The usual term, Egyptological not ancient Egyptian, for this architectonic motif is ‘palace-façade’ (Figures 3-4),17 often used indiscriminately alongside the ancient Egyptian term srx.18 The entire shape is thus very reminiscent of the national pr-nw shrine of Lower Egypt.19 However, neither designation, palace façade or pr-nw, is suitable: a palace (or its façade) is not a national shrine, and a national shrine cannot be a palace or have a palace façade. The only basic

In other words, ‘coffin architecture’ in its earliest phase manifested itself in an anthropoid shape. The next phase concerns the transition to the geometrical=architectonic shape(s) for the protection of the corpse. The fact that the corpse in a skin was separated from the sand only by the thickness, or rather ‘thinness’, of the skin, suggesting that the sand was still more or less ‘suffocating’ the deceased, almost as if he/she was buried in direct contact with it, made – around the 1st Dynasty – the following step logical: the construction of a wooden rectangular lining directly against the sand walls of the burial pit, keeping the sand at bay and simultaneously creating a relatively spacious ‘room’ in which additional grave goods could be stored as well, within direct reach of the deceased, instead of being engulfed by the surrounding sand in the older burial fashion (Figure 1).13 The sharp rectangular shape was most likely inspired by

DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 2 shows a rectangular mat on which the body wrapped in textile was laid to rest. 15 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: fig. 6b. 16 TAYLOR, 2001: 217, fig. 157. 17 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 195, fig. 236; DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 153-4, C 8, pls. 8-9. For horizontal bars on a real door, see id., pl. 10,2 (these appear in the 3rd Dynasty ‘translated’ into stone in the subterranean corridors of Djoser’s pyramid complex: LAUER, 1976: pl. 101); EMERY, 1961: pls. 24a and 25b (24a in situ), shows a coffin with wide panels without horizontal bars, so it is not completely certain that these also refer to doors. 18 This concerns the square or vertical rectangular design, crowned by a falcon and consisting of an empty square or rectangular upper part in which the king’s ‘Horus name’ was written, the whole resting on an architectonically niched base. The most impressive example remains the 2nd Dynasty srx of King Wadjet in the Louvre (ALDRED, 1980: 41, fig. 11). Since the Egyptian word srx means ‘to make known’, i.e. the king’s name, (ALLEN, 2004: 64), the different terms should not be used indiscriminately or equated with each other (as Kemp does, KEMP, 2006: 83, inset) because, notwithstanding their (superfluously) common niched palace façade motif, the srx as a unit is only known in royal contexts and never in conjunction with a sarcophagus (!), while the palace façade motif, in very differently detailed varieties (see below pp. 11-12) is found on the non-royal, sarcophagi only. Although I completely agree with Allen that the upper part of the srx represents ‘…a rudimentary ground-plan …’, already mentioned as ‘…the entire ground-plan…’ in ALDRED, 1980: 15, I do not agree that it was of the palace, but rather that it represents the enclosure wall of the palace, see below p.8-9; cf. also n. 43. 19 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 195. 14

It is quite logical that during prehistory the preparation and use of animal skins as clothing preceded the difficult technique of weaving textiles, cf. LUCAS, 1959: 46, who even suggests a Paleolithic origin of skins, although the earliest realia date to the Tasian/Badarian periods with an explicit earliest dating range of c. 5500-2649 BC (DRIEL-MURRAY, VAN, 2000: 307). It is a pity that neither Lucas nor Vogelsang-Eastwood (VOGELSANG-EASTWOOD, 2000) give explicit dates for the supposedly oldest specimens of woven textiles. 12 Two excellent examples are illustrated in DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pls. 1,3 and 2. 13 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: fig. 6a. 11

3

Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 3 - After IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: fig. 236.

Fig. 4 - After DONADONIROVERI, 1969: pl. 8,1.

4

René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture

Figs. 5-6 - After HEINRICH, 1957: figs. 105-106.

Fig. 7 - After KUHLMANN, 1996: fig. 14. sound scientific conclusion that can be drawn is that from this point on the box/container may be unambiguously shaped as an architectural entity with one or two doors. What exactly this entity represents, or of what it is supposed to be a model, may be tentatively established by considering the following points.

The next step will have been to close the body off completely from the external forces of nature by ‘building’ around it four ‘walls’ – but of what kind of material? The most obvious material would have been the omnipresent papyrus, which bends easily and thus explains the barrel vault of the wooden container lids, imitating the smooth bending of the material when used to construct a roof. These still rather simple ‘dwellings’ needed at least one moveable ‘side wall’, originally most likely swivelling at one corner of the wall, later, after extending the length of the wall, by constructing a separate element, from then onwards to be called a ‘door’, in order to allow people to enter or leave this ‘house’. The different architectonic elements found in reed architecture are still used by the Marsh Arabs in Iraq. Kuhlmann has studied these and they are known by the name ‘Serif-style’.21 Not only the barrel shape of the roof is found there,22 but also niches of varying widths and heights, together with the doors (Figure 7),23 and so they can be explained and understood using the Iraqi examples.

If we assume that it is a model of a real architectonic entity, four interpretations are theoretically possible concerning what it may represent beyond the purely utilitarian function of a container for corpses: 1. 2. 3. 4.

a house for ordinary people, a house for the elite, a palace/royal dwelling place a shrine or temple.

It is quite logical that, apart from wrapping his body in pliable skins etc. as protection against certain natural forces, prehistoric man needed and thus invented more rigid and extended protection. At first this must have taken the shape of very simple shelters with at least three open sides, consisting of sticks covered with large leaves (if available) and/or waterproof skins. Examples of how these might have looked can be found, for example, on seals from the Uruk Period in Mesopotamia (Figures 5-6).20

It is thus obvious that the Egyptian wooden architectonic containers originated in reed architecture, that is, in the with our evolutionary sketch of the most fundamental shelter/housing constructions, also mentioning animal skins (op. cit., 49, 51). 21 KUHLMANN (1996). 22 KUHLMANN, 1996: figs. 1, 3a, 8, 10, 13, 14c, 16b. 23 KUHLMANN, 1996: figs. 1, 8, 13, 14c.

20 Figs. 5-6 are identical to figs. 2-3 (left) in WALSEM, (2014, forthcoming); HAYES, 1953 (I): 49-52 shows striking similarities

5

Body, Cosmos and Eternity most basic human architectonic entity: the private house. All other forms of dwellings – castles, estates, palaces, temples, churches, town halls, hospitals, university buildings, hangars, garages, stables etc. – also ultimately originate in that most primary human building, the private house – irrespective of the original material(s) and place(s) in the landscape. The primary aim to protect the family was subsequently extended to other categories of living or dead needing protection.24 Thus protection is the deepest and most common denominator of all the building types just mentioned, originating in the private house. Therefore, the wooden containers are a kind of model, or rather refer to a stylized private house – the plain rectangular space in the containers is very reminiscent of the inner shape of a living room in an average simple dwelling.

A very important fact to be noted here in respect of the opposition anthropoid and architectonic is that in the house container (Figure 8),25 the wrapped human body is more or less rectangular, following the shape of the internal room of the box. In other words, the corpse has been ‘architectonised’ into a kind of oblong ‘block’ by the method of wrapping, resulting in no or hardly any clash between an architectonic exterior and an anthropoid interior object, i.e. the corpse. In the author’s opinion, the problem of this antagonism and the ways to deal with it was one of the main driving forces behind the evolution of the various shape and decoration typologies that are reflected in more than three millennia of coffin/sarcophagus26 production in ancient Egypt. The undeniable house model coffins suggest that the early Egyptians may have considered the coffin as a substitute for the deceased’s real house during his/her life on earth. However, we do not know whether it was envisaged merely as a container to lay the dead at rest and protect their mortal remains against the dangerous exterior world, or that they believed they made a real continuation of life – in whatever new modus existendi – possible. Mainstream Egyptology tends to believe the latter, but there is not a shred of unequivocal evidence that this was the case, and certainly nothing based on a generally homogeneous, culture-encompassing, funerary ideology. For what does the box with the flat roof and plain side ‘walls’ of n. 16 from Tarkhan represent? Apparently not a house. In short, we are dealing with at least two formally distinct coffin shapes, quite logically referring to two different funerary concepts, and thus revealing an already diversified funerary ideology in early Egypt. This is further underscored by the pottery oblong or round ‘bathtub’ sarcophagi and the ‘pot burials’ dating from the very early Old Kingdom into the 3rd Dynasty from, for example, Gebelein and Beni Hasan.27 Only irresponsible fantasy can interpret these shapes (just take the very prosaic and purely functional shape of the handles on the lids) as different from mere containers to protect the body inside, which, nota bene, in the quoted cases are without any burial gift(s).

This does not necessarily mean that there is nothing more to be said about the four types of building listed above. In a prehistoric egalitarian society the ‘houses’ will have been more or less of the same size and quality, without revealing social strata. However, as soon as such a society evolves into a ranked society, with an emerging elite, the situation arises where certain individuals have more power to make an increasing number of people work for them, which, together with greater access to more costly materials, logically results in larger, more elaborate and valuable houses. It also means that it is primarily the elite who will have access to the precious wood needed for the containers of their future corpses. If the coffin refers to a house, it is logical that it will refer to an elite house which is larger etc. than the ‘average’ or ‘modal’ house (it may have two doors!). However, it is still just a somewhat bigger house and nothing more, continuing to have its ultimate roots in the simplest of shelters. Since an ordinary house or its funerary model is meant for human use, the containers definitely cannot be interpreted as a shrine or a model of a shrine of any kind. Although, as said above, shrines have their origin in civilian living houses as well, they are a separate category because they are designed to shelter/house divine powers. Following the same line of reasoning, it is nonsense to use the term palace façade to refer to the side with doors, suggesting, at least to people unversed in Egyptology, that the ordinary dead person ultimately usurped royal status by imitating a ‘palace’, overlooking the consequence that in the Hereafter everybody would end up as a ‘king’ – where and who are then the subjects of these kings?

In the early Old Kingdom, a difference has to be made between royal sarcophagi (royal coffins have not survived DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pls. 8-9,2-3. These terms are used very loosely in Egyptology, although they should be carefully differentiated in order to avoid confusion. Since WEBSTER’S, 1976 (vol. 3): 2015, defines the etymology as: ‘(lithos) sarcophagus’, lit. flesh-eating stone, and although it further defines a sarcophagus as ‘a coffin (it. RvW.) made of stone, often ornamented with sculpture, and usu. placed in a church, tomb, or vault’, it is obvious that most stress lies on the (hard) stone, therefore it is logical to use the word ‘sarcophagus’ only for all corpse/mummy containers of hard material, i.e. stone (Cheops’ sarcophagus), metal (Tutankhamun’s golden container) and pottery (‘slipper coffins’). For a splendid example for a child, see D’AURIA et alii (1988), colour pl. [cat. no.] 112; 160, no. 112 and 160-161, no. 113. The term ‘coffin’, then, should be reserved only for wood and basketry containers (an excellent example in DONADONIROVERI, 1969: pl. 3), while the term ‘cartonnage’, should be used only for the covers or cases of light material consisting of several layers of linen (early) or papyrus (late), glued with gesso and other adhesives, see D’AURIA et alii, 1988: 166-167. 27 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pls. 4-5; 6-7 and IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 194, fig. 235. 25 26

Notwithstanding the transformations a real palace may undergo to make it a large and precious architectonic entity – accentuating the extremely high position of a real ‘king’ – it is still a ‘special house’, but in a separate category because it is not meant for normal civilian functions but for semi-divine royal ones. Thus it also follows that the ‘house container’ should never be associated with the term ‘palace’. 24

The same statement in HAYES, 1953 (I): 51-52.

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René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture

Fig. 8 - After DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 9. 7

Body, Cosmos and Eternity from this period) and private sarcophagi/coffins when considering their formal evolution and what it may stand for. Donadoni-Roveri lists15 royal sarcophagi, the oldest being that of Sekhemkhet, successor of Djoser, and the last one ascribed to pharaoh Ity (?) of the 6th Dynasty.28 It is striking to notice that until Menkaure, not a single royal sarcophagus shows any architectonic detail such as a door, and/or palace façade, and/or a vaulted lid. A most peculiar and unique case is Sekhemkhet’s sarcophagus, with its opening on a short side and closed by a portcullis which may have been inspired by portcullises found by Emery in the 1st and 2nd Dynasty tombs at Saqqara.29 Although the exact shape of Sekhemkhet’s portcullis30 is not found among any existing large portcullises in real tombs, it is quite possible, if not likely, that it was created for this particular case without any reference to ‘real’ architecture.

identical complex palace façade units of protruding and receding niche motifs, each with a central door, and on the short sides only one unit. The lid, however, shows a unique concave cavetto cornice, originating from the flexible protrusions of a vegetal/reed ‘wall’.38 Since the motif is not found in originally civilian reed housing (nor in ‘Serif’ architecture) and/or palace façades on non-royal sarcophagi, and is most strongly associated with the façade of the sH-nTr shrine or ‘divine booth’,39 it is a bit rash to state that this is the first royal sarcophagus showing the palace façade motif and thus that it represents a ‘model’ of the palace. The point is – as far as the author is aware – that never and nowhere else is the palace façade motif found with the sH-nTr shrine. Therefore, although at first sight it seems logical to consider this sarcophagus as referring simultaneously to both a ‘palace’ and a ‘shrine’, these types of buildings are functionally too different and contradictory to be telescoped into one shape, within which the royal corpse was supposed to ‘dwell’(?), ‘live’(?), ‘rule’(?) intermittently(?). What do we actually know about the concrete ideas concerning the royal Hereafter in the mid-late 4th Dynasty?

The next sarcophagus, of King Nebka (?), has an elliptical interior, while the exterior is a rectangular box, its rim flush with the pavement slabs, making its exterior invisible. After removal of some slabs during the excavations, it turned out to be completely undecorated.31 However, the lid shows an entirely elliptic exterior, with two handling protrusions on each long side.32 This combination of rectangular plus elliptic shapes makes this sarcophagus a unique specimen without any architectural features – the lid in particular is reminiscent of the lids of the clay ‘bathtub’ sarcophagi mentioned above.

Therefore, it is safer to seek a solution with the least problems and intrinsic contradictions. Near the end of my paper on the chain motif (cf. n. 1), taking into consideration archaic representations of the pr-wr shrine and the palace façade motif on sarcophagi and coffins with the pr-nw vaulted lid on top of them, my final conclusion on the motifs is:

Cheops’ sarcophagus is just a plain box, therefore it is most likely that the missing lid was a plain undecorated slab as well.33 Only a few fragments survive of his successor Djedefre’s sarcophagus, one of which is curved,34 so it is impossible to get a proper idea of its shape,35 but no architectural references were noticed on the remains. Chefren’s sarcophagus is definitely a plain box, although its closing mechanism is unique.36

The lozenge and square shaped motif running from the roof [added observation: of the pr-wr, RvW] till the bottom of several representations (Figure 7, bottom left), suggests that the basic, hatched strip of the wall with the door is not part of the per-wer itself, but rather represents the protecting and isolating, originally reed fence around it, as reconstructed for the late prehistoric Naqada III cemetery at Hierakonpolis (Figure 8). Since, seen from the outside, the fence obliterates part of the per-wer building by overlapping, the latter was drawn on top of the fence, in the way as discussed by Schäfer.40 Its consequence is that the ‘palace façade’ on sarcophagi and coffins is not a palace but a translation from reeds into mud brick of the fence or wall of an habitation plot, without specifying whether it concerns a single house/homestead, a village, a city (think of the White Wall of Memphis, reproduced in Djoser’s complex, which no Egyptologist has ever identified as a palace wall, simply because we find the ‘palace’ dummies inside that wall), a palace complex or a temple. This is also how Lacau and Chevrier envisaged the original situation of Hatshepsut’s ‘Chapelle Rouge’ in Karnak.41 [added observation: which is of the sH-nTr type, like Menkaure’s lid profile, RvW.]

Menkaure’s sarcophagus (now lost) is the great exception with an undeniably architectural shape and motifs (Figure 9).37 The box is framed by a torus moulding, showing its bindings and running vertically and horizontally along the edges of the sides which, on the long sides, show three IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 103-108. IKRAM, DODSON, 103, A1, fig. 14a; EMERY, 1961: 143, fig. 84; pls. 11, 16; LEHNER, 1997: 80-81. 30 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: fig. 14a; IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 246, figs. 332-333. 31 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 103, A 2; CAPART, 1930: fig. 24. 32 CAPART,1930: fig. 22, 24; BARSANTI, 1906: 286, fig. 10; pl. 3. 33 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 104, A 3. 34 It may be part of a handling protrusion of the plain lid, as seen on a sarcophagus found in the satellite pyramid at Djedefre’s complex in Abu Roash, see VALLOGGIA, 2011 (vol. 1): 63, 65, 67-68; (vol. 2): figs. 250-251. The satellite pyramid was most likely meant for a queen, and the sarcophagus is very similar to that of Hetepheres (see below), op. cit., 63, n. 244. 35 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 104, A 4 and VALLOGGIA, 2011 (vol. 1): 10. 36 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 104-105, A 5, fig. 13b; IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 247, fig. 335. 37 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 105, A 6, fig. 14b; SCHMIDT, 1919: 33, figs. 202-203; IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 247, fig. 336; FIECHTER, 2001: 91. 28 29

BADAWY, 1948: 35-37, fig. 41. BADAWY, 1948: 47-50, fig. 49; GARDINER, 1957 (sign list, O 21). 40 SCHÄFER, 2002: 123, fig. 93,c; 144, fig. 129; 170, fig. 161a-162. 41 LACAU, CHEVRIER, 1977: 34, fig. 5. 38 39

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René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture

Fig. 9 - After FIECHTER, 2001: 91.

Now we can summarize: the barrel-vaulted sarcophagi lids with protruding end walls and covered with a leopard skin represent the per-nu shrine of Lower Egypt, while the skin refers and represents the per-wer shrine of Upper Egypt, and the niched box represents the encircling temenos wall. In short we are dealing with originally three separate architectural entities, telescoped or nested into the single funeral artefact of the sarcophagus/coffin (Figure 9). The ‘tusks’ or ‘horns’ of the per-wer shrine are nothing else than the ‘rafters’ of the reed serif-style buildings as discussed in Kuhlmann.42

settlements in which all kinds of buildings were/could be located.43 In the tomb and/or similarly shaped sarcophagus, this was logically simplified or reduced to a single building (only one deceased was buried in it after all) with a vaulted roof, slightly or more prominently protruding above the Excellent hieroglyphic examples of those enclosure walls, viewed from above, are found on the obverse side of the late Naqada III/Early dynastic ‘Libyan’ or ‘Cities’ ceremonial palette and on the reverse side of the Narmer palette. For the former see WENGROW, 2006: 209, fig. 9.14, showing very realistically more or less square ‘plans’ of different sizes, which obviously represent settlements, each consisting of a mix of collections of differently shaped and distributed squares – undoubtedly referring to various architectonic units (‘houses’, etc. reminiscent of the reconstruction of the ‘palace’ (gate) of Hierakonpolis and its internal architectonic units in KEMP, 2006: 82, fig. 26; cf. also n. 18) – and ‘hieroglyphs’, surrounded by thick enclosure walls with slightly curved contours with sharp or rounded corners and consisting of protruding and receding buttresses. For the latter see WENGROW, 2006: 42, fig. 2,1, lower section, which shows a buttressed oblong empty enclosure wall with sharp corners. The interpretation of this last sign as a representation of a ‘storehouse’ in ROMER, 2013: 224 is an interesting suggestion but too narrow. 43

This also implies that the niched 1st-2nd Dynasty tombs excavated by Emery at Saqqara do not refer to or represent ‘palaces’, but rather the niched enclosure walls of 42 KUHLMANN, 1996: 117; fig. 1, 125; fig. 8; 133, fig. 14=here fig. 6, bottom left, and especially, 136, fig. 16.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity surrounding wall as reconstructed in Müller.44 All in all, the preceding discussion justifies the introduction of a new term for the palace façade design: enclosure wall motif.

is also highly unlikely that the results reflect a standard, homogeneous set of speculations on funerary ideology54 – that is, if it is true, as assumed by Egyptology, that in funerary/royal architecture the chosen forms and layout are a material expression of immaterial ideas. Although this is a legitimate approach, it also should prevent going beyond as accurate as possible a description if relevant data for a factual interpretation are lacking. This implies that the heterogeneous pre-standard pyramid complexes must simply be accepted without really understanding the ideological processes involved.

Thus, Menkaure’s sarcophagus lid may represent the top/ roof of a sH-nTr shrine within an enclosure wall, i.e. the box, simultaneously invalidating the interpretation of the niched motif as a palace façade. If, however, one sticks to the interpretation of the niched motif as representing a ‘real’ ‘palace façade’, one introduces a new type of palace roof, represented by the lid, but so far never found in association with archaic palaces. Therefore, the first possibility seems more plausible, for the ‘new’ shape of the royal dwelling as a sH-nTr may reveal a shift towards a more ‘divine’ status of the king after death, which was considered to be better expressed through this shape than the previous shapes of the royal sarcophagi; but we shall never know for certain.45

In this light it is quite obvious that the evolution of the royal sarcophagi as described above has to be split as well, revealing a pre-standard, experimental phase, running from the early 3rd Dynasty (Sekhemkhet) until the late 5th Dynasty (Djedkare-Isesi), followed by a certain standardisation from Wenis until Pepy II. It implies that the variations in sarcophagus design of the early phase reflect the same heterogeneous funerary ideology as the royal tomb complexes, although the content remains equally hidden to us.

A few fragments of Shepseskaf’s sarcophagus show a torus moulding at the corners like Menkauere’s, but this is not enough to assume that it was a copy because the shape of the lid is unknown.46 The sarcophagus of Userkaf is a plain, completely undecorated box, while the sarcophagus of Djedkare-Isesi was smashed, but the lid was plain.47 The sarcophagi of Wenis and Teti are the first royal, plain sarcophagi with a slightly convex lid of the pr-nw shape.48 Pepy I’s sarcophagus box is architectonically49 plain and its lid has been too badly smashed to inform us about its architectonical features.50 Merenre’s and Pepy II’s plain sarcophagi, however, both show (slightly) vaulted lids,51 while finally, Ity’s sarcophagus has an intact lid of unspecified shape.52

Summarizing the above, it can be concluded that the ultimate architectonic shape of the royal sarcophagus as the final outcome of an evolutionary process during the Old Kingdom was a plain box with a (slightly) vaulted lid between horizontal wall sections on the short sides, which, formally, are reminiscent of the pr-nw shrine, but do not necessarily equal it in meaning.55 Further, there is not a single sarcophagus with the srx motif, and the putative palace façade motif is found only once, on Menkaure’s sarcophagus, although this is the motif that dominates the non-royal sarcophagi (see below), refuting its interpretation as an actual palace rather than the more neutral enclosure wall motif.

This detailed survey of the royal sarcophagi was necessary because it shows that it was not until the end of the 5th Dynasty that the plain sarcophagi received a (slightly) vaulted lid which was, for the first time, copied and traceable down to the end of the 6th Dynasty. In other words, a certain ‘standardization’ evolved, which was slightly lagging behind a similar standardization that started in the evolution of the pyramid complexes of the mid-5th Dynasty and ended with Pepy II.53 All preceding pyramids, starting with Djoser’s, reflect too many strong unique features in each case to conclude other than that each complex was developed – by trial and error and a certain amount of experimentation – for a specific individual. It

It is now time to examine the non-royal sarcophagi more closely.56 It transpires immediately from the illustrated examples in Donadoni-Roveri57 that the non-royal material is not only far from homogeneous, but also that the purported palace façade motif is found here. The material can be divided into the following (sub)types: 1a.‘box’-shaped58 with flat lid, completely void of any architectonic motif59 LEHNER, 1997: 16, 84-148. How, for example, could Djoser’s subpyramidal labyrinth (idem, 88-89) be ‘harmonised’ with the simplicity of Snofru’s pyramid at Meidum (idem, 97-98), or Khufu’s’ complexity (idem, 108-109, 111-113) with the simplicity of Khafre’s pyramid (idem, 122-124), supposedly all reflecting identical funerary ideas? Where are the (unequivocal) written sources allowing this? 55 No written source is available to prove this claim. 56 Although queens and princes are royal, their sarcophagi are considered here as non-royal because only one sarcophagus matched the status of the highest person in the country, i.e. the king. So, only that sarcophagus is really royal and thus, logically and necessarily, expresses an ideology different from all others. 57 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969. 58 See below p. 12 for a suggestion about what this ‘box’ may represent. 59 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 17,1; 21,1 (B 9); 17,2 (B 29); 26,2 (B 13); 35 (B 84). Op. cit. 109, B 1 concerns the oldest specimen thus far, dating to the 3rd Dynasty, originating from Djoser’s complex. B 2-3 54

MÜLLER, 1985: figs. 13-19, 23. 45 An intriguing question is whether the Egyptians kept an archive of the designs of the royal sarcophagi so that they could know exactly which points they adapted from the previous examples. 46 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 105-106, A 7. 47 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 106, A 8-9. 48 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 106-107, A 10-11. 49 The text on the exterior – Teti’s sarcophagus is the first with inscriptions on the lid and in the interior (DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 107, A 11) – has no architectonic relevance of course, and can thus be ignored when diagnosing the architectonic character of the sarcophagus. 50 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 107, A 12; LEHNER, 1997: 158. 51 LEHNER, 1997: 107-108, A 13-14; LAUER, 1976: pl. 150. 52 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 108, A 15. 53 See the plans and sections of the pyramids and their cult complexes from Niuserre until Pepy II: LEHNER, 1997: 16-19, 148-161. 44

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René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture

Fig. 10 - After DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 24. 1b.‘box’-shaped with vaulted lid, completely void of any architectonic motif60 2a.‘box’-shaped, torus moulding along corners and edges, flat lid with cavetto contour motif, blank surfaces61 2b.‘box’-shaped, torus moulding along corners and edges, flat lid with cavetto contour motif, multiple narrow niches on walls62 3a.‘box’-shaped, one very broad palace façade/ enclosure wall unit on the long sides, none on the short sides, flat lid63 3b.‘box’-shaped, one very broad palace façade/ enclosure wall unit on the long sides, one on the short sides, vaulted lid64 3c.‘box’-shaped, two palace façade/enclosure wall units on the long sides, one on the short sides, vaulted lid65 3d.‘box’-shaped, three palace façade/enclosure wall units on the long sides, two on the short sides, vaulted lid66 3e.‘box’-shaped, four palace façade/enclosure wall units on the long sides, one on the short sides, vaulted lid67 3f.‘box’-shaped, multiple narrow niches on the long and short sides, flat lid68

3g.‘box’-shaped, multiple narrow niches on the long and short sides, vaulted lid69 Although typing all 97 non-royal sarcophagi collected by Donadoni-Roveri70 falls outside the framework of the present paper, even a limited analysis of only the illustrated specimens reveals the following interesting points: a. eleven of the eighteen sarcophagi are dated to the (early/mid) 4th Dynasty;71 2 to the 4-5th Dynasties;72 4 to the (mid/end) 5th Dynasty;73 and 1 to the late 6th Dynasty b. three of the eleven sarcophagi subtypes (1a-b, 2a) are blank without a trace of the palace façade/ enclosure wall motif, a total of 8 sarcophagi74 c. the palace façade/enclosure wall motif can be subdivided into one or more monumental door type(s) per long wall (Figure 10),75 and multiple narrow niches (Figure 11),76 which are first met with on a 2nd Dynasty wooden coffin found by Emery,77 but are also occurring on specimens from the late 4th and early 5th Dynasties.78 Since both types occur simultaneously and thus seem to be equivalent, the best interpretation for the difference may be that the monumental door type stresses DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 29,1 (B 32); 32,1-2, 33,1-2 (B 21). DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969. IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 109-150. 71 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: B 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 21, 29, 32, 33, 35. 72 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: B 22, 40. 73 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: B 43, 47, 50, 52. 74 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: B 9, 11, 13, 14, 29 [all 4th Dynasty], 43, 52 [both (mid/end) 5th Dynasty], 84 [late 6th Dynasty]. 75 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 23,1-3; 24 (B 33); 25 (B 47); 27,1-2 (B 15, 40); 30 (B 18). 76 IDONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 28,1-2 (B 22, 35); 29,1-2 (B 32, 26); 32,1-2 (B 21). 77 EMERY, 1961: 132, fig. 77, pl. 24b. This demonstrates that the transition from prehistoric to early historic flexed burial to extended burial position took place during the 2nd Dynasty at the latest. 78 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 10,1 (C 9); 11 (B 10). 69

remain uncertain since the shape of the lid is not mentioned. 60 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 19,2 (B 43); pl. 20,2 (B 14); 26,1 (B 11). Op. cit., 110-111 (B 4-7) are from the same complex and the same date; for B 7, see IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 245, fig. 331. 61 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 20,1; 22,1 (B 52). 62 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 28,1 (B 22). 63 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 30-31 (B 18). 64 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 27,1 (B 15). The fact that the motifs are not identical is of no relevance for their interpretation as representing an enclosure wall. 65 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 25 (B 47). 66 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 24 (B 33); 34 (B 50). 67 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 27,2 (B 40) [here an identical motif]. 68 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 28,2 (B 35).

70

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 11 - After DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 29,1.

the entrance part of the enclosure wall, while the narrow niches stress the enclosure wall itself d. the variety and flexibility in size and detail of the enclosure wall motif clearly demonstrates that the design is not a literal translation of a real enclosure wall onto the sarcophagus but an independent architectonic motif, helping to clarify the primary idea the owner had about his/her sarcophagus’s ideological meaning e. the great divide in meaning lies obviously in the two main types of sarcophagi/coffins: the completely plain box with flat lid [subtype 1a], without the slightest indication of any architectonic motif, and the enclosure wall/torus plus cavetto motif with a flat or a vaulted lid,79 undeniably referring to an architectonic ideology [subtypes 1b-3g].

to the end of the Old Kingdom,83 falling entirely within the interval of the vaulted lids, but at the far, i.e. late end. This extensive typological analysis of coffins/sarcophagi and their architectonic attributes, using the inadequate Egyptological terminology (srx and/or palace façade motif), was necessary to reach the simplest and least contradictory interpretation, i.e. that the vaulted lid=roof of a building extending beyond a niched wall comprising protruding and receding buttresses represents a ‘house’ within an enclosure wall, as reflected by the niched mastabas of the 1st-4th Dynasties at Saqqara and Meidum. This parallelism is irrefutably expressed by the niched superstructure of the tomb of Rahotep and Nefert, mirrored in Nefert’s niched sarcophagus.84 The ancient Egyptians of the 3rd-5th Dynasties must have been very aware of the deep contrast or even clash between the interior containing anthropoid corpses shaped by wrapping and padding,85 or by linen or gypsum envelopes covering the entire body,86 evolving into gypsum and cartonnage face masks,87 versus the extremely architectonic sarcophagus exterior of, for example, Figure 10. A wish to soften this clash may have resulted in the depiction of human eyes on the exterior of the wooden boxes only. Originally, the eyes may have had a purely practical reason, namely to indicate on the ‘directionless’ coffin the place of the deceased’s head in order to know

It remains to be explained what the completely (architectonically) plain and blank coffin/sarcophagus with flat lid reflects/represents, if the plain/panelled box with vaulted lid is a ‘model’ of the exterior of a ‘house’. The most plausible interpretation is that it refers to the plain walls and ceiling of the interior of a main living room in a ‘house’. This interpretation may be supported by an anonymous, late 4th Dynasty box from Giza with a double lid: a flat inner lid and a vaulted outer lid.80 Analysis of the 44 wooden coffins recorded by Donadoni-Roveri,81 reveals that 10 coffins have a vaulted lid covering a time interval from the 2nd to the end of the 6th Dynasty.82 Flat lids are found on 16 coffins dating from the 5th Dynasty

DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: C 12-14, 16-18, 21, 25, 27, 30-32, 3637; 40, 44. The lids of the other coffins are either missing (C 19, 28-29, 33, 35, 38), or there are no details on the shape of the lids (C 4, 6, 21-24, 26, 34, 43). 84 HARPUR, 2001: 50, fig. 63 [for better preserved details, see Nefermaat’s tomb, 40, figs. 45, 47-48]; 53, fig. 68; 260-261, figs. 199200. 85 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 156, fig. 174; D’AURIA et alii, 1988: 15, fig. 4; 76-77, fig. 36; TAYLOR, 2001: 80, fig. 46. 86 D’AURIA et alii, 1988: 155, fig. 173=TACKE (1996), pl. 50a, D’AURIA et alii, 1988: 91-92, fig. 23. 87 TACKE, 1996: pls. 50b-53. 83

79 Only the shape of the lid can make the distinction in interpretation for a plain box: a vaulted lid makes the ensemble an architectonic entity [subtype 1b] (DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 19,2; 20,2). A flat lid on an ‘enclosure wall’ box cannot reduce it to a pure box type because of the architectonic ‘enclosure’ design. 80 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 155, C 9, pl. 10,1. 81 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: 150-174. 82 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: C 1-3, 5, 8, 11, 20 (late 6th dyn.), 41-42.

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René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture how he or she was being transported: head or feet first.88 It should be noted that the coffin depicts real human eyes,89 while otherwise a pair of wDAt-eyes are represented. Does this reflect a semantic difference? The earliest [C 12)] of the 7 (among a total of 44 coffins)90 showing eyes is dated to the 5th Dynasty (?), the next [C 14], early 6th Dynasty; the remaining five are all dated to the 6th Dynasty. It is thus likely that this motif did not start before the 6th Dynasty with certainty. The motif is not found on any stone sarcophagus of the Old Kingdom.

and the star clocks,96 which are found only on the interior of the coffin and were thus invisible from the outside, are left out of consideration here. Although they of course represent a further and different ideological evolution in the adding of new meanings/functions, best summarized by the terms ‘liturgification’ and ‘cosmofication’, they were of no consequence for the actual shape of individual coffins, and thus did not influence the architectonisation in any respect. As in the Old Kingdom, a division between stone sarcophagi (of private and royal origin) and wooden coffins should be made in the Middle Kingdom. To start with the stone sarcophagi, there are only a very few private/non-royal examples known: in the 11th Dynasty, the limestone sarcophagi of Mentuhotep II’s wives Tem, Kemsit, Ashayet and Kawit are the best known. They all consist of separate slabs for bottom, walls and lid, assembled and held together by means of slots. Queen Tem’s sarcophagus of calcite (‘Egyptian alabaster’ or travertine) is completely blank, apart from eyes, invisible on the published photograph.97 The sarcophagi of Kemsit, Ashayet and Kawit all show scenes that are familiar from Old Kingdom elite tomb iconography,98 and in this respect represent another innovation in the use of coherent iconography compositions – which is different from loosely applied separate iconographic components – to accentuate the architectonic aspect of the sarcophagus, which is now specifically functioning as a tomb.99 Another 12th Dynasty, very curious private sarcophagus is completely blank, imitating in stone a wooden prototype. It shows only the barrel vault of the pr-nw without horizontal end sections on the short walls but nevertheless referring to the ‘house’ context.100 The 12th Dynasty coffin of Princess Ita from Dashur, cont. Amenemhat II, completely blank except for the ‘reed’ decoration of the corners and edges of walls and lid, has the same ‘abridged’ shape, but with the eyes in an oblong framework.101 The 13th Dynasty coffin of Princess Nubhetepkhered is entirely blank apart from the dividing columns on the long sides, the corners and across the lid,102 and of the complete pr-nw type.103

It should be borne in mind that the oblong ‘package’ shape of the wrappings found in coffin C 8 and mentioned above91 more or less coexisted with those just described, again most likely reflecting a dichotomy in funerary ideology. The first view possibly stressed the architectonic starting point of the overall burial treatment, the second took the anthropoid aspect as its starting point and stressed the continuation of ‘human life’ in some new mode of existence (?). After all, there is no doubt about what is there, namely an anthropoid corpse/ body, which seems to deny death, while the ‘package’ wrapping may contain a human being, or anything else, animal or artefact, because it is invisible; only completely unwrapping it will reveal its contents. A kind of midway solution is found in a 9th Dynasty mummy with ‘package’ wrapping; however, it has slightly vertically protruding feet and a clear marking of the head protruding beyond the shoulders with several anatomical details applied in paint, linen and cartonnage.92 So here is a kind of tentative balance between anthropoid and abstract, ‘architectonic’ wrapping. With the 11th Dynasty mummy of Wah, the feet are no longer accentuated but the face still pops out of the ‘package’ wrapping.93 A slightly later, 12th Dynasty, example of this method of wrapping is Gemniemhat’s mummy from near Teti’s pyramid at Saqqara.94 After this the wrapping evolved into the ‘classic’ version found in the 21st-22nd Dynasties, always with an anthropoid shape with clearly marked feet and head, although without any secondarily applied anatomical details.95

However, the second coffin of Senebtisi (12th Dynasty) is a complete pr-nw coffin with eyes only on the east wall.104 A 12th Dynasty variant with a flat lid, plus only eyes and dividing columns and a horizontal line along the top of the walls, is known from Lisht,105 while from Meir a beautiful specimen with the enclosure wall motif and

With the innovation of the introduction of eyes on coffins, the phenomenon of ‘anthropoisation’ of the architectonic body container became a fact and would never completely disappear, resulting from now on in a parallelism of ‘architectonisation’ and ‘anthropoisation’ of the body container, whereby only the degree of presence and intensity of each aspect could fluctuate. It should be noted that the emergence of the Coffin Texts annex the frieze d’objets

IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 201, fig. 252; TAYLOR, 2001: 221, fig. 161. 97 ARNOLD, 1974: 54, pl. 23c, 41. Since the shape of the lid is unknown, the degree of architectonisation cannot be evaluated. 98 For Queen Kemsit, see NAVILLE, 1907: pls. 22-23; for Ashayet, see WINLOCK, 1942: pls. 8, 10 and SALEH, SOUROUZIAN, 1986: 69a-b; for Kawit, see idem, 68a-d; LAPP, 1993: 158-162, figs. 163-174; pl. 35. 99 Although it should be realised that the main iconography of elite tombs is on the inside, not the outside! 100 HAYES, 1935: fig. 12; IKRAM-DODSON, 1998: 252, fig. 345. 101 IKRAM-DODSON, 1998: 199, fig. 244. 102 See below p. 14. 103 SCHMIDT, 1919: 58, fig. 325. 104 HAYES, 1935: fig. 13. 105 HAYES, 1935: fig. 19. 96

88 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 38,1; IKRAM-DODSON, 1998: 196, fig. 237. 89 See IKRAM, DODSON, 1998, n. 86. 90 In DONADONI-ROVERI (1969). C 12, 14, 19, 25, 27, 30, 37. 91 DONADONI-ROVERI, 1969: pl. 9, see above p. 6-7. 92 D’AURIA et al., 1988: 106, 38. 93 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 156-158, fig. 176-177 94 JØRGENSEN, 2002: 72. 95 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 158, 160-164, fig. 183.

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Fig. 12 - After HAYES, 1935: fig. 16.

eyes combined with the enclosure wall plus door motif is known. The lid is flat and shows the cavetto cornice motif, similar to Menkaure’s sarcophagus (Figure 12).106 A final architectonic motif that was introduced to mark and/or enhance the architectonic character of the coffin was the Xkr motif, crowning the top of walls and already found in Djoser’s pyramid complex.107

false door (Figure 12).114 The important fact to note is that the presence of the eyes was apparently obligatory while the false door was optional.115 The eyes can be present independently, but so far no independent false door has been found. Figure 12 is an excellent example of a coffin with a maximally articulated architectonic composition of the enclosure wall motif, forming an easily recognisable group among Middle Kingdom coffins.116

The ‘tomb scene’ type, first met with in the 11th Dynasty sarcophagi from Deir el-Bahri mentioned above, is further encountered on private coffins, as is well illustrated by Lapp and Lacau,108 but they remain quite rare. The motif of the mummified deceased on a bed is a completely new iconographic motif for instance, and only a very few further examples are known.109 A final obvious tomb attribute is the offering list on the exterior east wall of some coffins.110

A unique coffin from el-Bersheh shows the false door motif followed by four narrow niches, running from bottom to top and reminiscent of the multiple niches found on Old Kingdom sarcophagi.117 It features nine squares, carved in low relief, around the top, obviously inspired by the same attribute found in the (reconstructed) entrance bastion of the Djoser enclosure wall, while the flat lid repeats Menkaure’s cavetto cornice (Figure 13).118 The Djoser enclosure motif is next found on a pr-nwtype coffin from Gurna (Figure 14), reduced to a bottom frieze covering about one third of the height of the wall, of alternate dark and brightly painted multiple niches with two door ‘bastions’.119 So when does the Djoser enclosure wall motif as a bottom frieze first appear?

The innovation and evolution of the vertical dividing text columns and crowning and dividing bands on the walls and lid is conveniently summarized in Ikram and Dodson´s work.111 It is obvious that these columns originate from an architectural (niche) articulation, starting with one central single column on a blank wall, via two and three columns, ending in four single columns.112 However, double and triple columns and bands also occur.113 In the Middle Kingdom the eye motif was soon combined with an enclosure motif section with a double-leafed door, Egyptologically known as a decorative or palace façade

The answer is on the royal sarcophagi of the second half of the 12th Dynasty. The sarcophagi of Sesostris III (Dahshur), Amenemhat III (Dahshur), Princess Neferuptah (Dahshur), all of the pr-nw type, irrefutably show the Djoser wall as a pedestal frieze, including the square depressions of the entrance bastion (Sesostris III) and the

HAYES, 1935: fig. 16; LAPP, 1993: 172, fig. 188. HAYES, 1935: fig. 20; LAPP, 1993: 172, fig. 189; ARNOLD, 1994: 49-50; SCHÄFER, 2002: 10, fig. 4a-c. 108 LAPP, 1993: 188-189, figs. 202-204; 191, figs. 205-208; pls. 14c, 26a, 39a-c; LACAU, 1904: pls. 6-7. 109 LAPP, 1993: 187-188, figs. 198-201. 110 LACAU, 1904: pls. 1-3; LAPP, 1993: pls. 26b. 111 IKRAM, DODSON, 1993: 196-199, figs. 240-243. 112 IKRAM, DODSON, 1993: 198, figs. 240-243. 113 IKRAM, DODSON, 1993: 199, fig. 242. 106 107

ARNOLD, 1994: 226-227; OEAE, 2001 (vol. 1): 498-501, esp. 499. IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 198-199, figs. 240-243. 116 LAPP, 1993: pls. 9c, 19d, 34a, 43b; LACAU, 1904: pl. 13. 117 Cf. pp. 11-12. 118 LACAU, 1906 (vol. 2): 74-76; LACAU, 1904 (vol. 1), pl. 10. 119 LACAU, 1904: 77-78, pl. 15; for the back side of the same coffin, see SCHMIDT, 1919: 68, fig. 362. 114 115

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René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture

Fig. 13 - After LACAU, 1904: pl. 10.

Fig. 14 - After LACAU, 1904: pl. 15.

the eyes are present on Amenemhat III’s and Neferuptah’s sarcophagi.121

irregular distribution of the protruding and receding niched bastions (Sesostris III, Amenemhat III), while Neferuptah shows a symmetrical distribution (Figure 15).120 Note that Sesostris III’s sarcophagus is blank, without eyes, while

A final innovation of the Middle Kingdom was the introduction of the completely anthropoid/mummiform coffin – only known in wood, never in stone122 – which evolved from the extension of the earlier cartonnage

120 Cf. n. 8. IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 252, fig. 347; ARNOLD, 1987: 32-35 (with a list of the measurements of all royal sarcophagi from Sekhemkhet until Amenemhat III), figs. 12-13, pl. 13; 44-45, fig. 18, pl. 18a-c (Queen Aat’s sarcophagus; eyes present), 51-52, fig. 22, pls. 21b, d; 22c-d (anonymous queen, eyes present, but a blank pedestal); ARNOLD, 2002: 36-37, pls. 12d, 18-19a, 20a, c-d, 21b, 28-29; 61, pls. 81c, 104; 63, pls. 78b-c, 79d, 105-106A, 119, upper; 72, pls. 84a, 111-112A, 119, middle; 72, pls. 84b, 113-114A, 119, bottom; 80, fig. 25, pls. 20b, 61, 63a-b, 64b, 65.

121 Finally, PORTA, 1989: 118, pl. 46,3 illustrates a rectangular base from Mitrahine of uncertain date with a depression, probably meant as a pedestal for a separately made statue, showing the Djoser enclosure wall motif over the full height. 122 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 202, figs. 253-255; SCHMIDT, 1919: 75, figs. 388, 391; 77, figs. 410-411.

15

Body, Cosmos and Eternity in tombs,127 the chain motif128 combined with double Dd and tit signs,129 the latter also found on the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun,130 or the independent chain motif,131 tomb scenes like the funeral (on the box only)132 and a very stylized version of the enclosure wall motif.133 It is obvious that the (feathered) anthropoid aspect is completely dominant, and only minute architectonic attributes were added, exactly the reverse of the initially minute anthropoid detail of the eyes added to the formerly completely architectonic sarcophagi/ coffins. Degenerated Second Intermediate Period specimens of this type are also found in Thebes, showing enclosure wall motifs and eye panels with only one eye, but all are definitely pr-nw type coffins.134 The development can be followed in a straight line from the most anthropoid rishi coffin – realistic face, moulded arms and hands on the lid, dating from Thutmosis I135 – to the white, purely mummiform coffins of the early to mid18th Dynasty. The latter have as architectonic attributes the encircling columns/bands which are derived from the Middle Kingdom boxes, usually with scenes from tombs,136 and deities,137 which were previously only recorded on the Middle Kingdom coffins in text columns/bands. Under Thutmosis III the white coffins were succeeded by the black type, whose layout was structurally identical to that of the white type, i.e. representations of deities on the box, but no longer with tomb scenes, resulting in maximum anthropoisation, including moulded hands, kneecaps and shinbones,138 irrespective of whether they were covered with black bitumen, or silver, or were gilded.139 The black type is succeeded at the close of the 18th Dynasty, of course with some chronological overlap, by a yellow type. At first this type was very simple, like the coffin of the priestess Katebet in the British Museum140 – a vertical central column on the lid, crossed by three horizontal ones with the spaces in between filled with representations of deities – although she already shows bare feet, an attribute which led to the ‘lifelike’ type of coffin/sarcophagus known from the early 19th Dynasty in the tomb of Sennedjem and his

Fig. 15 – After IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: fig. 347.

face masks into a cover completely enveloping the body.123 This resulted in a perfect harmony between the invisible anthropoid inner coffin components, contained in the visible architectonic outer coffin/sarcophagus: two independent units unified and inextricably bound up with each other in a single assemblage. Whether the difference between flat and barrel vaulted lids still had its original meaning is impossible to tell.

MINIACI, 2011: 37, fig. 4d; 250-251. Cf. n. 1. 129 MINIACI, 2011: 131, fig. 137=299. 130 ALDRED, 1980: 179, fig.144. 131 MINIACI, 2011: 214, 252, 254; colour pl. 5. 132 MINIACI, 2011: 262-263, 266. 133 MINIACI, 2011: col. pl. 8a (b). 134 IKRAM &DODSON, 1998: 206, fig. 262. 135 IKRAM &DODSON, 1998: 127, fig. 132; 265. 136 HAYES, 1935: fig. 22; HAYES, 1959 (vol. 2): 31, fig. 14; 69, fig. 37; TAYLOR, 2001: 226, fig. 166. 137 HAYES, 1935: fig. 23; HAYES, 1959 (vol. 2): 71, fig. 38. 138 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 211-212, figs. 270-276; these anatomical details are also extremely carefully applied to the wooden coffin of Ramses II, see DESROCHES NOBLECOURT, 1976 colour pl. 72; 316322, esp. 321-322. 139 IKRAM &DODSON, 1998: 212, fig. 274; 211-212, figs. 273, 275276; KOZLOFF et alii, 1992: 301-302 (cat. 61); 306, figs. X.2a-b. 140 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 216, with colour pl. 30; COONEY, 2007: figs. 021-022. The slightly later outer coffin of Sennedjem, early Ramses II, is already more complex: squatting goddess Nut on the lid plus six squares filled in: DESROCHES NOBLECOURT, 1976: 166-167. The same applies to the partly yellow, partly gilded outer coffin, as well as to the completely gilded inner coffin and mummy-cover of the songstress Henutmehyt in the British Museum: TAYLOR, 1999: colour pls. 9-12, 14. 127 128

The fact is that in Thebes during the Second Intermediate Period, a completely new type of anthropoid coffin was developed, the rishi coffin, again only known in wood and always single.124 The feather decoration is so dominant on the rishi coffin in Leiden that there are only very limited architectonic attributes present, such as the Xkr motif125 and the chessboard motif,126 derived from ceiling patterns

IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 168-169, figs. 193-196. The entire subject is treated in the excellent publication by MINIACI, 2011. 125 FOŘTOVÁ-ŠÁMALOVÁ, 1963: [pls.] 65, 263; 68, 281-287. 126 FOŘTOVÁ-ŠÁMALOVÁ, 1963: [pls.] 2, 3, 6; 60, 200. 123 124

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René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture relatives at Thebes.141 It is striking to note that the private wooden coffin types are mirrored from the mid-18th till the late 20th Dynasties in stone sarcophagi as well.142 It should finally be noted that the wooden coffins were regularly encased in a black+gilded ‘catafalque’, which from the 19th Dynasty onwards was usually painted with polychrome representations. The catafalque could be of the pr-nw type (catafalques of Maihirpri and Yuya),143 or the pr-wr type (catafalques of Tuya, Sennedjem and his son Khonsu).144 Combining the architectonic catafalque with anthropoid contents was a return to the Middle Kingdom tradition. This combination was also practised in the royal burials of the New Kingdom (see below, right col.).

these royal sarcophagi were really supposed to represent. The only possible conclusion is that the search for a certain balance between the anthropoid versus the architectonic character was still ongoing, as in the private coffins of the Middle Kingdom. A definite break with this development occurred during the Amarna Period, when Akhenaten returned to a full architectonic box shape, where the ‘enclosure wall’ motif in relief at the base clearly derives from the Djoser motif of the Middle Kingdom sarcophagi.153 Since the shape of the lid is unknown, it is impossible to tell whether the unique presence of the Aten on the four walls, suggesting a representation of the sky, would have resulted in a ‘neutral’ flat roof. Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus has a prwr roof and vertical text bands with only one eye on the right and left walls, again creating some balance between anthropomorphism and architecture.154 For Tutankhamun only, we know that inside the architectonic box were three nested anthropoid mummy containers, two of gilded wood and one of massive gold.155 Ay’s sarcophagus has a cavetto cornice, crowned by a barrel-vaulted lid without end sections; the unique winged sun disk, found above temple entrances, underscores the complete architectonisation of the sarcophagus, which has no eyes.156 Finally, Horemheb also has a cavetto cornice crowned by a complete pr-nw lid with end sections, and at the base the same enclosure wall motif as on Akenaten’s sarcophagus.157 It is obvious that the non-linear development of the first half of the 18th Dynasty is being continued.

The typology of the royal sarcophagi is completely different from that of the private coffins. Only the sarcophagi from Thutmosis I to Amenhotep III were mapped in detail by Hayes145. There is a slow and subtle evolution from a rectangular box with a flat lid (Hatshepsut’s original ‘queenly’ sarcophagus) – directly descended from the Middle Kingdom rectangular (private) boxes with eyes, but now with deities figuratively represented – into a box with rounded head end and slightly convex lid, which in no way resembles the pr-nw vault since the end sections are always missing and because, since the lid of Hatshepsut’s ‘royal’ sarcophagus, the short sides also show a chamfered contour.146 The rounded head end evolved from the cartouche motif carved on top of the lids.147 On the east side the eyes are independent (‘queenly’ sarcophagus of Hatshepsut),148 or united with the enclosure wall motif or false door,149 or, uniquely, ‘hanging’ in the midst of columns of text as on the sarcophagus of Thutmosis IV.150 It is remarkable that ‘pure’ anthropoisation by means of the independent eyes is dominant, while architectonisation is limited to only two sarcophagi. The rounded-off head ends, the non-linear development of the lid shape, the explicit cartouche motif (sarcophagi A, C, E),151 ‘degenerating’ to merely differently shaped rounded-off head end contours (sarcophagi E, G, H),152 make it difficult if not impossible to conceptualize a homogeneous ideology about what

The non-linearity extends into the Ramesside Period, dynasties 19-20. It is exemplified, inter alia, by the nested sarcophagi of Merneptah, of which the innermost box clearly shows the Middle Kingdom Djoser enclosure wall motif, slightly protruding as a pedestal frieze, combining the eyes with the false door motif. It is closed by a lid with a 3-dimensional mummiform representation of the deceased owner, thus maximizing the anthropoisation.158 However, it should be noted that the outer flat lid is completely architectonic, thus completely hiding any anthropoid allusions. The sarcophagus of Ramses III shows the same bottom frieze in relief only, and the overall shape returns to the cartouche motif of the earlier 18th Dynasty royal sarcophagi, crowned again by a 3-dimensional mummiform representation of the owner, flanked by Isis and Nephthys, while on the walls are excerpts from the royal Books of the Underworld; no eyes are present.159 The Underworld books suggest that at least the box was envisaged as an architectural entity, since the representations originate from the walls of the

141 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 216; DESROCHES NOBLECOURT, 1976: colour pls. 35-36;168-173; COONEY, 2007: figs. 094-097; 108; 125-126; 141; for other individuals, op. cit, figs. 059-062; 198-199; 205206; 211 142 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 216, fig. 284; 225, fig. 287; 226, fig. 289; 227, figs. 290-291; 258, fig. 361; KOZLOFF, 1992: 318-321; note that 319, fig. 62a shows the sarcophagus on a sledge, as found with wooden catafalques, see below. 143 KOZLOFF, 1992: 259, fig. 362, mid-18th Dynasty; although the roof is not a barrel vault but simply gabled, the horizontal end sections obviously refer to the pr-nw. Yuya’s catafalque is completely normal, except that it is constructed on a sledge, KOZLOFF, 1992: 259, fig. 363. 144 KOZLOFF, 1992: 259, fig. 364; for Sennedjem, see COONEY, 2007: figs. 087-093; for his son Khonsu, see DESROCHES NOBLECOURT, 1976: 194-205; COONEY, 2007: figs. 119-123. 145 HAYES (1935). 146 HAYES, 1935: pls. 1, 3-5, 8-12, 14, 17 (lids, sections). 147 HAYES, 1935: pls. 18-19. 148 HAYES, 1935: pl. 23, A (Hatshepsut), C (Thutmosis I, Boston), D (Hatshepsut), G (Amenhotep II). 149 HAYES, 1935: pls. 7, 22, E (Thutmosis I, Cairo); 10-11 (F, Thutmosis III). 150 HAYES, 1935: pl. 24. 151 HAYES, 1935: pl. 18. 152 HAYES, 1935: pl. 18.

See pp. 14-16; IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 260, fig. 366 A. IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 260, fig. 366 B. IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 215, fig. 281. For the Ramesside Period, we only have the calcite mummiform sarcophagus of Seti I, HORNUNG, 1983: 14. 156 HORNUNG, 1983: 260, fig. 366 C. 157 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 260, fig. 366 D (note that the bottom frieze motif is absent in the drawing, but see HORNUNG, 1971: pls. 62-65. 158 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 262, figs. 368-370. 159 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 263, figs. 371-372. 153 154 155

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity Fig. 16 - Photographs: top left: Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta; top right: Cairo Egyptian Museum; bottom: Louvre (AF 1666 - E 13030), Paris.

royal tombs (cf. our third architectonisation characteristic, p. 2). Although the sarcophagus of Ramses IV has given up the cartouche shape, the enclosure wall pedestal and the Xkr motif plus recumbent Anubis figures at the top are unambiguous architectonic attributes.160 This is where the period when we had to take into consideration the evolution of the royal sarcophagi for a proper understanding of the phenomenon of architectonisation ends, because the kings of the 21st-22nd Dynasties and later only ‘recycled’ earlier sarcophagi161 and did not contribute to a further (varying) evolution of architectonisation or anthropoisation. The 22nd Dynasty innovation of the falcon-shaped silver 160 161

sarcophagus and partly gilded cartonnage of Shoshenk II from Tanis,162 as well as the granite sarcophagus of Harsiese from Thebes,163 clearly stand completely separate from the evolution that is the topic of this paper. The yellow type coffins slowly develop towards greater complexity in decoration during the 20th Dynasty, and ‘exploded’ during the 21st Dynasty as particularly exemplified by the coffins of the male and female clergy of the Amun temple in Thebes (Figure 16).164 It should GOYON, 1987: 115, 117. IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 235, fig. 310. 164 NIWIŃSKI, 1988; lid exteriors: pls. 3-8 A, 9-10, 11B, 13-14; box exteriors: pls. 16-18 A; box interiors: pls. 20-24. 162 163

IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 264, figs. 373-374. IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 265-268.

18

René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture be noted and stressed that none of the 21st Dynasty coffins, whether or not from Bab el-Gasus, i.e. the ‘Second Cachette’ find,165 were encased in architectonic ‘catafalques’, like Sennedjem’s anthropoid coffins. In other words, the 21st Dynasty standard coffin set of five components166 – an outer box+lid, an inner box+lid and a plank lid167 – was entirely anthropoid, i.e. mummiform, as far as its 3-dimensional shape was concerned. On the 2-dimensional level, however, the horizontally and vertically crossing bands, ultimately originating in the Middle Kingdom architectonic columns/bands on the rectangular (outer) coffin boxes, and already known from the earlier anthropoid coffins/sarcophagi, were still there on the lids of both the non-’stola’ as well as the ‘stola’ type coffins – following Niwiński’s typology168 – striking some sort of balance between architectonisation (i.e. on the part below the abdomen) and anthropomorphism (i.e. the upper part of the lid).

attributes has taken place on a single artefact, namely the purely mummiform coffin, by completely discarding the separate outer architectonic coffin/sarcophagus that both contained and hid the innermost and – from the point of view of the body – the most intimate protective container. In short, the dichotomy between the separate 3-dimensional architectonic outer coffin/sarcophagus and the anthropoid inner coffin/sarcophagus was lifted. However, the dichotomy returns with the Pfostensärge, also known as the qrsw-type coffins, of the 25th Dynasty, consisting of a rectangular box with four square posts at the corners and a barrel-vault lid.174 Herewith the point of maximum harmony between architectonic and anthropoid attributes is reached, as found on the ‘stola’ coffins and as summarized in my thesis175 and which needs no repetition here. It is interesting to note, however, that the earliest case of iconographic architectonisation is found on the lid of the outer anthropoid coffin of Sennedjem, showing in the top and middle compartments a recumbent Anubis figure on a shrine pedestal or the figure of a kneeling goddess, respectively (Figure 21).176 It should be further noted that the orientation of the vignettes are along the length of the lid,177 not the width as on the slightly later coffins of Tamaket178 and the subsequent period, indicating that the dominant position of this coffin was envisaged as lying horizontally,179 rather than standing as the late 19th-22nd Dynasty coffins do. As far as the kneeling goddess is concerned, Sennedjem’s configuration seems to be unique and was probably influenced by the combination of Anubis and kneeling goddess flanking the staircase in Nefertari’s tomb.180

The columns/bands are also present on the boxes, but at the head end. Initially, the anthropoisation is underlined by the hair that continues from the lid onto the walls of the box.169 Also absent is a horizontal line of text along the top of the box wall, it runs along the edge of the lid.170 The next step is a horizontal line of text on the box with the hair still present.171 Then follows a line of text with the disappearance of the hair,172 or a frieze of uraei either with or without mAat-feathers, and either alone or combined with a line of text (Figure 16).173 The uraei and mAat-feathers are typical, or rather intrinsic, architectonic attributes, converting the exterior box wall into a temple wall if mainly deities are represented, or into a tomb wall if there are more funerary themes represented from, for example, the Book of the Dead. These themes represent iconographic architectonisation which is not intrinsic and consists of at least two or more iconographical components (see, above p. 16), since the subjects may also be found on papyri. What is really innovative in the entire process so far is that here for the very first time the beginning of a harmonic and well-balanced fusion of architectonic and anthropoid

For the sake of convenience, and in order to facilitate the visualization of the architectonisation, the main components on the coffin of Djedmonthu are listed below. LID: 1. large winged figures of sun disk, falcon and goddess Nut are found on roofs of temples and/or royal tombs or above entrances, like the goddess Ma‘at in Nefertary’s tomb (Figure 17)181 2. centripetally placed goddesses with wings in a horizontal V-position as occurring, for example, in Nefertary’s tomb182

NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 24-28, 196-197, 205. This number has not been found so far with 19th-20th Dynasty material. 167 For this specific term, see WALSEM, 1997: 9 with n. 23. 168 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 68-69 (note that in IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 229, fig. 296, Niwiński’s actual number of 10 type schemes has been reduced to 7) showing the variation in moulded arms and hands (early) which were reduced to fists (male) or stretched hands (female; late); short wreaths (early) to deep wreaths (late), finally covered by the ‘stola’. For the term, see WALSEM, 1997: 15 with n. 46; 116e-119; 124-126). Despite being the first for 21st-early 22nd Dynasties coffin material at Thebes, Niwiński’s typology is not immune to criticism, see WALSEM, 1993. 169 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 209, fig. 267; 211, fig. 270; 212-213, figs. 274, 277-278; 214, fig. 281 (all 18th Dynasty); 216, fig. 284; 225, figs. 285-287; 228, fig. 296 TAYLOR, 1999: colour pls. 9-12, 14 (all Ramesside). 170 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 212, fig. 274 [it does appear, however, on the boxes of Tutankhamun’s anthropoid sarcophagi, id., 213, fig. 278]; 216, fig. 284; 225, figs. 285-287. 171 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 16 A; COONEY, 2007: figs. 039, 049, 055, 067, 094-095, 109-110. 172 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: pl. 17 A., COONEY, 2007: fig. 078 falls in between: no line of texts and no hair; 149, idem; 188-189. 173 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 16 B; 17 B. 165 166

174 LEXIKON DER ÄGYPTOLOGIE, 1975-1992 (vol. 5): 449, 452, 457, 460; IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: col. pl. 31; 274, fig. 394=TAYLOR, 2001: 241, fig. 178. 175 WALSEM, 1997: 358-361. 176 DESROCHES NOBLECOURT; 1976: 166; COONEY, 2007: fig. 096. 177 It is interesting to note that identical horizontally opposed Anubis figures are found on the south wall of Sennedjem’s burial chamber, SHEDID, 1994: 23, fig. 14; 72, 95. 178 COONEY, 2007: fig. 054; here we see the same Anubis figures horizontally in respect of a standing coffin. 179 SHEDID, 1994: 111. 180 THAUSING, GOEDICKE, 1971: pls. 57, 59, 62, 63. This may be due to his having been involved in the decoration of Nefertari’s tomb, but this is speculation that is impossible to substantiate by any irrefutable fact. 181 WALSEM, 1997: figs. 1-3, 490a. 182 Idem, figs.1-3, 494-495; THAUSING, GOEDICKE, 1971: pls. 46-47,

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 17 - After DESROCHES NOBLECOURT, 1976: 166.

Fig. 18 - Photograph Museum of Antiquities, Leiden and after THAUSING, GOEDICKE, 1971: pl. 8=68. 20

René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture

Fig. 19 - Photograph Museum of Antiquities, Leiden.

3. cavetto cornice of first vignette of central leg partition is shaped like a cavetto cornice plus winged sun disk as seen above the temple entrances on the lids of Cl 1 and NY 1 (Figure 18)183 4. confronting recumbent Anubis figures on shrine pedestals in the first lateral compartments of the leg section, guarding the inner part(s) of a tomb, like those of Nefertari and Pashed184

BOX, interior, walls: 1. except for the head end, which is composed of features from mythological papyri,191 the remaining wall vignettes were inspired by temple offering scenes192 2. The foot-board is the only exception to the architectonisation of this coffin, since it is the only case of a ‘stola’ coffin that has a decorated one,193 although it serves as the floor of a tomb chamber and floors were never decorated.

BOX, exterior: 1. the intrinsic architectonic attribute of the uraeus frieze crowned with sun disks and its many varieties (Figure 20)185 originates in kiosks and tomb and/ or temple wall decoration 2. the iconographic archtectonisation of the exterior walls consists of subjects derived from temple contexts,186 royal tombs (Amduat),187 private tombs,188 Book of the Dead189 and ‘unknown’190

A characteristic common to several coffins are rows of mummiform deities with a great variety of heads, which were obviously influenced or derived from the Litany of Re in the royal tombs194 and/or gatekeepers in chapters 42, 144/146 of the Book of the Dead (Figures 19 and 22).

52-53. 183 WALSEM, 1997: figs. 1-3, 496. 184 WALSEM, 1997: figs.1-3, 499-500; THAUSING, GOEDICKE, 1971: pls. 7, 57, 62; ZIVIE, 1979: pls. 6, 8-10. 185 WALSEM, 1997: figs. 8-13; 345-359. 186 WALSEM, 1997: figs. 8-10 (right half). 187 WALSEM, 1997: figs. 10 (left), 11-13. 188 WALSEM, 1997: figs. 11-12. 189 WALSEM, 1997: fig. 13 (right). 190 WALSEM, 1997: fig. 12 (centre).

WALSEM, 1997: figs. 14-17. WALSEM, 1997: figs. 14, 18-25. 193 WALSEM, 1997: fig. 26. 194 This connection is also made by HORNUNG et alii, 2005: 140-141; cf. also 40-43, 78. 191 192

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 20 - After WALSEM, 1997: pl. 143. 22

René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture BOX, interior, floorboard: 1. the 2nd and 3rd vignettes were influenced by temple and/or royal tomb scenes, while the 4th is a mix of private tomb and temple origins195 2. the 1st and 5th vignettes are ‘free’ compositions196 3. the latter are ‘supported’ by the only intrinsic architectonic attribute of Dd and tit signs Herewith we have reached the end of our survey of the anthropoid/architectural evolution of the ancient Egyptian coffin/sarcophagus, culminating – with the Amun clergy of the late 21st-early 22nd Dynasties – in its multiple function as a private and a royal tomb, as well as a mortuary/sun temple.197 So many royal and/or divine prerogatives were being usurped here that shortly after the succession of the 21st Dynasty by the 22nd the architectonisation was almost completely abolished.198 It survived only as a very stylized form of the enclosure wall motif in a bottom frieze on the Pfostensärge and in the square pedestal of mummiform coffins199 and cartonnages, and lasted well into the Roman Period.200 This unremitting tenaciousness in holding to architectonic attributes on coffins/sarcophagi may be best summarized in the statement that the ancient Egyptian was the most explicit and versatile ‘homo architectonicus’ in Antiquity. This is further underscored by one of his cosmographies, which conceives of the world as consisting of the square sky surface resting on four supports,201 like a canopy, which, of course, originates from the primitive reed shelters with which we started our survey. Finally, we can conclude that, although this strong connection between architecture and the human body may seem unique for ancient Egypt, it is not. In the Renaissance the human body was inscribed in church designs, as exemplified by Francesco di Giorgio (Figure 23).202 The chasm between ancient Egypt and Europe turns out to be narrower than maybe initially expected! Bibliography ALDRED, Cyril (1980) – Egyptian art in the days of the Pharaohs 3100-320 BC. London: Thames & Hudson. ALLEN, James P. (2004) – Middle Egyptian. An introduction to the language and culture of hieroglyphs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

WALSEM, 1997: figs. 27-28. WALSEM, 1997: figs. 27-28. 197 WALSEM, 1997: 373. 198 WALSEM, 1997: 361-362, 365. 199 IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: colour pl. 31; TAYLOR, 2001: 235, fig. 174; 241, fig. 178. 200 GERMER, 1997: 86, fig. 94; 88-91, figs. 96-97. 201 LEXIKON DER ÄGYPTOLOGIE, 1975-1992 (vol. 2): 1213-1215 (Himmelsrichtungen), 1215-1216 (Himmelsvorstellungen, 1); vol. 6, 1211-1213 (Weltbild). For excellent illustrations, see SCHÄFER, 1928: 95, figs. 13-15. 202 WITTKOWER, 1971: fig. 1a. 195 196

Fig. 21 - Photograph Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 23

Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 22 - After HORNUNG, 1976: 58-59; After PIANKOFF, 1964: 14-15. 24

René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture CAPART, Jean; WERBROUCK, Marcelle (1930) – Memphis à l’ombre des pyramides. Brussels: Vromant et Cie. COONEY, Kathlyn M. (2007) – The cost of death. The social and economic value of ancient Egyptian funerary art in the Ramesside Period. Leiden: Egyptologische Uitgaven 22, Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. DESROCHES NOBLECOURT, Ch., coord. (1976) – Ramsès le Grand. Paris: Presses Artistiques. DONADONI-ROVERI, Anna Maria (1969). I sarcophagi Egizi dalle origini alla fine dell’Antico Regno. Rome: Istituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente. DRIEL-MURRAY, Carol van (2000) - Leatherwork and skin products. In NICHOLSON, Paul T.; SHAW, IAN, coords. – Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University, p. 299-319. EMERY, Walter B. (1961) – Archaic Egypt. Harmondsworth: Penguin. FIECHTER, Jean-Jacques (2001) – Mykérinos le dieu englouti. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose. FOŘTOVÁ-ŠÁMALOVÁ, Paula (1963) – Das ägyptische Ornament. Hanau/Main: Dausien. GARDINER, Alan (1957) – Egyptian grammar, being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs. Oxford: Griffith Institute. GERMER, Renate (1997) – Mummies. Life after death in ancient Egypt. Munich: Prestel. GOYON, Georges (1987) – La découverte des trésors de Tanis. Aventures archéologiques en Egypte. Paris: Perséa. HARPUR, Yvonne (2001) – The tombs of Nefermaat and Rahotep at Maidum. Discovery, destruction and reconstruction. Prestbury: Cheltenham. HAYES, William C. (1935) – Royal sarcophagi of the XVIII dynasty. Princeton: Princeton University Press. HAYES, William C. (1953) – The scepter of Egypt. A background for the study of the Egyptian antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part I: from the earliest times to the end of the Middle Kingdom. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. HAYES, William C. (1959) – The scepter of Egypt. A background for the study of the Egyptian antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part II: The Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom (1675-1080 B.C.). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. HEINRICH, Ernst (1957) – Bauwerke in der altsumerischen Bildkunst. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. HORNUNG, Erik (1971) – Das Grab des Haremhab im Tal der Könige. Bern: Francke Verlag. HORNUNG, Erik (1976) – Das Buch der Anbetung des Re im Westen (Sonnelitanei). Basel: Ägyptologisches Seminar. HORNUNG, Erik (1983) – Tal der Könige. Die Ruhestätte der Pharaonen. Zürich: Artemis Verlag. IKRAM, Salima; DODSON, Aidan (1998) – The mummy in ancient Egypt: Equipping the dead for eternity. London: Thames and Hudson.

Fig. 23 - After WITTKOWER, 1971: fig. 1a. ARNOLD, Dieter (1987) – Der Pyramidenbezirk des Königs Amenemhat III. in Daschur. Band I :Die Pyramide. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern. ARNOLD, Dieter (1974) – Der Tempel des Königs Mentuhotep von Deir el-Bahari. Band I: Architektur und Deutung. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern. ARNOLD, Dieter (1994) – Lexikon der Ägyptischen Baukunst. Munich: Artemis & Winkler. ARNOLD, Dieter (2002) – The pyramid complex of Senwosret III at Daschur. Architectural studies. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. D‘AURIA, Sue; LACOVARA, Peter; ROEHRIG, Catharine, H., coords. (1988) – Mummies and Magic. The funerary arts of ancient Egypt. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts. BADAWY, Alexandre (1948) – Le dessin architectural chez les anciens Égyptiens. Étude comparative des representations égyptiennes de constructions. Cairo: Impremerie Nationale. BARSANTI, A. (1906) – Fouilles de Zaouiét el-Aryân. (1904-1905). Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 7, p. 258-286. BIETAK, Manfred, coord. (1996) – Haus und Palast im alten Ägypten. House and palace in ancient Egypt. International symposium in Cairo, April 8. to 11. 1992. Vienna. 25

Body, Cosmos and Eternity KEMP, Barry J. (2006) – Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a civilization. London: Routledge. JØRGENSEN, Mogens (2002) – Gravskatte fra det gamle Ægypten/ treasures from ancient Egypt. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. KOZLOFF, Arielle P. et alii, coord. (1992) – Egypt’s dazzling sun: Amenhotep III and his world. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art. KUHLMANN, Klaus Peter (1996) – ‘Serif-style architecture and the design of the archaic Egyptian palace. In BIETAK, Manfred, coord. - Haus und Palast im alten Ägypten. House and palace in ancient Egypt. International symposium in Cairo, April 8. To 11. 1992. Vienna, p. 117-137. LACAU, Pierre (1904) – Sarcophages antérieurs au Nouvel Empire (Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 28001-28126). Cairo: Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale. LACAU, Pierre; CHEVRIER, Henri (1977) – Une chapelle d’Hatshepsout à Karnak, Cairo: Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale. LAPP, Günther (1993) – Typologie der Särge und Sargkammern von der 6. bis 13. Dynastie, Heidelberg: Orient Verlag. LAUER, Jean-Philippe (1976) – Saqqara. The royal cemetery of Memphis. Excavations and discoveries since 1850. London: Thames & Hudson. LEHNER, Mark (1997) – The complete pyramids. London: Thames & Hudson LEXIKON DER ÄGYPTOLOGIE, Helck, Wolfgang et alii, coord., vol. 1-7 (1975-1992). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. LUCAS, A. (1959) – Ancient Egyptian Materials & Industries, London: Edward Arnold. MINIACI, Gianluca (2011) – Rishi coffins and the funerary culture of Second Intermediate Period in Egypt. London: Golden House Publications. MÜLLER, Hans Wolfgang (1985) – Gedanken zur Entstehung, Interpretation und Rekonstruktion ältester ägyptischer Monumentalarchitektur. In Ägypten Dauer und Wandel. Symposium anlässlich des 75 jährigen Bestehens des Deutschen Ärchäologischen Instituts Kairo am 10. und 11 Oktober 1982. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, p. 7-33. NICHOLSON, Paul T.; SHAW, IAN, coords. (2000) – Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1988) - Twenty-first Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies. Mainz am Rhein: Phillip von Zabern REDFORD, Donald B., coord. (2001) – The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press. PIANKOFF, Alexandre (1964) – The litany of Re. New York: Pantheon Books. PORTA, Gabriella (1989) – L’Archittetura Egizia delle origini in legno e materiali leggeri. Milan: Cisalpino.

ROMER, John (2013) – A history of Ancient Egypt. From the first farmers to the Great Pyramid. London: Penguin. SALEH, Mohamed; SOUROUZIAN, Hourig (1986) – Offizieller Katalog Die Hauptwerke im Ägyptischen Museum Kairo. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. SCHÄFER, Heinrich (2002) – Principles of Egyptian art. BRUNNER-TRAUT, Emma coord. (Transl. BAINES, John). Oxford: Clarendon Press. SCHÄFER, Heinrich (1928) – Ägyptische und heutige Kunst und Weltgebäude der alten Ägypter. Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter. SCHMIDT, Valdemar (1919) – Sarkofager, mumiekister, og mumiehylstre i det gamle Ægypten. Typologysk atlas med inledning. Copenhagen: J. Frimodt. SHEDID, Abdel Ghaffar (1994) – Das Grab des Sennedjem. Ein Künstlergrab der 19. Dynastie in Deir el Medineh. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern. TACKE, Nikolaus (1996) – Die Entwicklung der Mumienmaske im Alten Reich. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 52, p. 307-336. TAYLOR, John H (1999) – The burial assemblage of Henutmehyt: inventory, date and provenance. In DAVIES, W.V., coord., Studies in Egyptian antiquities. A tribute to T.G.H. James. London: British Museum Press, p. 59-72. TAYLOR, John H. (2001) – Death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Press. THAUSING, Gertrud; GOEDICKE, Hans (1971) – Nofretari. Eine Dokumentation der Wandgemälde ihres Gabes. Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt. VALLOGGIA, Michel (2011) – Abou Rawash I. Le complexe funéraire royal de Rêdjedef (FIFAO 63). Cairo: Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale. VOGELSANG-EASTWOOD, Gillian (2000) – Textiles. In NICHOLSON, Paul T.; SHAW, IAN, coord. – Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 268-298. WALSEM, René van (1993) – The study of 21st dynasty coffins from Thebes. ‘Bibliotheca Orientalis’ 50, no. 1/2 , p. 9-91. WALSEM, René van (1997) – The coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, I. Technical and iconographic/ iconological aspects. Egyptologische Uitgaven. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten. WALSEM, René van (2014, in press). – The ‘chain’ motif. A decorative architectonic element with prehistoric roots on the lid of some ‘stola’ coffins. In AMENTA, Alessia; GRECO, Christian; GUICHARD, Hélène, coords. - Proceedings of the First Vatican Coffin Conference. Forthcoming. WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE UNABRIDGED, vol. 1-3 (1976), Chicago. WENGROW, David (2006) – The archaeology of early Egypt. Social transformation in North-East Africa,

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René van Walsem: From skin wrappings to architecture 10,000 to 2650 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. WINLOCK, H.E. (1942) – Excavations at Deir el BaHri. New York: The Macmillan Company. WITTKOWER, Rudolf (1971) – Architectural principles in the age of humanism. New York/London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ZIVIE, Alain-Pierre (1979) – La tombe de Pached à Deir el-Médineh. [No. 3] Cairo: Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale.

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Permeable containers: Body and cosmos in Middle Kingdom coffins Rune Nyord Christ’s College (Cambridge) Abstract Middle Kingdom coffins with their extensive programmes of decoration and inscription constitute a rich source for studying Egyptian mortuary conceptions. Over the last decades this material has been the subject of a number of detailed studies, including two typological studies (Willems 1988; Lapp 1993) and a number of monographic case studies of individual coffins (Willems 1996; Meyer-Dietrich 2001, 2006). This surge of interest has gone a long way towards elucidating the religious, and especially ritual, context of the coffins. Nonetheless, certain significant questions are still left open, so that for instance the exact relationship between coffin and ritual is understood rather differently by the two authors of the coffin cases studies cited. Similarly an object such as a coffin is open to a number of different understandings (e.g. as medium for image and writing, as space, as house, as inherently connected to – or even notionally part of – the dead body), some of which are still deserving of further exploration. This paper takes up some of the open questions and seeks to address them from a number of different perspectives, complementing traditional philological and iconographical approaches with ontological and material culture perspectives drawn from archaeology and anthropology.

The theme of the ‘Body, Cosmos and Eternity’ symposium invites us to think about the ways in which we can approach the challenge of understanding an object like the Egyptian coffin. With the often rich and complex programmes of decoration and inscription found on Egyptian coffins, it has been tempting in both the past and the present to regard coffins primarily as surfaces of writing and iconography, an approach which is perhaps also prompted by the usual form of publication where the material object is by necessity fragmented into individual sides suitable to be reproduced as photo or facsimile plates.

1. Body and cosmos in the coffin The typical Middle Kingdom coffin is a rectangular wooden box in which the deceased lies. The ideal patterns of orientation of the body in the coffin and the coffin in the tomb chamber lie at the core of the coffin’s ability to serve to establish connections between the body and the cosmos.1 The deceased is generally put on his left side, so that his face is turned towards one of the long coffin sides. At the same time, the coffin is usually oriented according to the cardinal axes, so that the longest side of the coffin is oriented north-south. This gives us a set of corresponding bodily coordinates and cardinal directions, so that the front of the deceased is turned towards the east, and correspondingly his back towards the west, while the head is to the north and the feet to the south.

Useful and unavoidable as such considerations are, they tend to remove attention from the coffin as a material object with particular spatial and conceptual configurations. This raises the question whether it is possible to supplement such traditional approaches with new avenues of approach taking the coffin as a material thing, rather than its individual sides as mediums for writing and decoration, as the point of departure. In exploring this question, the problem of the ontological role of the coffin will be of particular interest – in other words, for a coffin to work in the way that seems to be implied by its decoration and use, what kind of thing would a coffin have to be?

The point about the directionality and placement of the body in the coffin leads naturally to the first theme to be discussed here, namely the most important ways in which the decoration of the coffin is dependent on the body lying within it. One of the most conspicuous elements of the internal decoration of Middle Kingdom coffins is the so-called object friezes.2 Consisting of a series of objects usually known to be connected to the offering ritual and often paralleled by actual grave goods or models, the object friezes can be understood as efficacious presentations of objects needed in one sense or another by the deceased. Close parallels can also be found in tomb depictions of funerary rites where the grave goods are being brought by a procession of ritualists.3

In order to get to these methodological considerations, the paper begins by offering an overview of the material, more specifically the conceptual underpinnings of the main roles played by the body of the deceased and various cosmological entities in the decoration and inscriptions on Middle Kingdom coffins. In this presentation of the material, examples have been chosen that are both representative enough to give an introduction for readers less familiar with the material, telling in the sense that we can draw inferences from them about the nature of the Middle Kingdom coffin-concept, and useful for the attempt at ‘thinking through the coffin’ that I will make in the second half of this paper.

As the object friezes thus enter into a complex relationship with grave goods, it is worth noting that Podvin has demonstrated by gathering evidence from intact Middle For this question in general, see RAVEN, 2005. JÉQUIER, 1921; WILLEMS, 1988: 200-228. 3 NEWBERRY 1894: pl. 7; cf. WILLEMS, 1988: 200-201. 1 2

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Fig. 1 - Object frieze on the back side of the inner coffin of Gemniemhat, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, ÆIN 1585. Photo: Ole Haupt, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity Kingdom tombs that the general placement of the grave goods correspond to overall principles of bodily associations.4 Thus, staves and weapons are placed beside the body near the arms, while sandals, toiletries and other objects are each placed near the body part with which they are most strongly associated. Harco Willems has been able to show that a similar main principle is found also in the layout of object friezes on coffins, the distribution of which thus corresponds to the placement and orientation of the body lying inside the coffin. Thus, in the example shown in Figure 1, the head of the deceased would be to the right and the feet to the left, and thus at the right end we find a headrest and a mirror, followed by a collar and counterpoise. After these, various objects associated with the hands are found, including bracelets, vessels for purification and various weapons. At the very left end closest to the feet, a pair of sandals is depicted. The principles underlying the distribution of object friezes are rather more complex, as a number of other ‘rules’ enter into play, and a full study on this topic is still an important desideratum. However, I have argued elsewhere that at least the main principles of distribution correspond with a hypothesis that the layout of the object friezes can be understood as basically a classificatory task yielding results with similar principles to what can be obtained from cognitive studies dealing with human classification systems.5 One peculiarity is the tendency for the objects to form clusters, so that an object may not simply be ascribed to a group on the basis of its own bodily association but also or instead because of its association with other objects already ascribed a place in the classificatory scheme. The underlying notions of the connections between objects and body become particularly interesting in such cases. One of the most prominent of such ‘sets’ of objects has been explored by Harco Willems,6 namely the group of ritual implements surrounding the Xnm.twr sieve often shown on the head end of coffins. As Willems has shown, the sieve is often associated with a group of objects on the foot end consisting of sandals, two anx-signs and two different types of jars. While the sandals can obviously be explained on the background of a conceptual connection to the feet, the other items are less clear. Fortunately, pictorial presentations of a particular purification rite allow us to explain the bodily association of the objects. In a scene first attested in the Middle Kingdom, but of which the clearest versions date PODVIN, 2000. NYORD, 2007: 7-8. 6 WILLEMS, 1999. 4 5

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Rune Nyord: Permeable containers: Body and cosmos in Middle Kingdom coffins The rDw-efflux plays a complex role in the Coffin Texts, but one of the central elements is the idea that the efflux need to leave the body of the deceased, but must not be allowed to simply flow out on the ground, but should be collected.10 While the snw-jar does not occur in the role of receptacle of rDw in the Coffin Texts, keeping in mind the depictions of the purification rite and the use of the jar at the Khoiak-festival, it would fit perfectly in the structural role as container collecting the fluids as stressed in the Coffin Texts. When we do find mythological explanations of the equipment under discussion here, they focus on a rather different aspect, namely the placement of the objects under the feet of the deceased, either generally during the ritual or perhaps more specifically on the frieze of the foot end of coffins. Thus Coffin Texts spell 907 as reconstructed from new parallels from Lisht makes the following connections:11

Fig. 2 - The purification ritual with sieve, jar and two ankhs as represented in two dimensions in the 18th Dynasty tomb of User (TT 21). Davies, 1913, pl. 21. Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society.

I place for you this robber beneath your feet, so that you may live (anx). (Two ankhs)

to the New Kingdom, the association of the sieve, the anxsigns and the large snw-jar can be seen (Figure 2).7

You have made inert (s.nn) my father this Osiris N in this [your] name [of] snw-jar.

The depictions show a person being purified with fluid poured by two ritualists through a sieve placed above him. The person being purified is shown sitting on a snwjar and two anx-signs lie on the ground below. To point out just a couple of the several interesting aspects of this rite, the snw-jar is frequently associated with the efflux of Osiris.8 In one telling example which closely parallels the purification ritual albeit on a very different scale and at a much later date, a snw-jar is placed under a corn mummy during the Khoiak festival, so that some of the water sprinkled over the corn mummy is collected in the jar. As Willems notes, this fertile surplus fluid closely parallels the role of the rDw-efflux in mythologising texts, so that the conceptual background of the Khoiak rite is very likely related to that of the purification ritual depicted on earlier sources and eternalised in Middle Kingdom coffins.9

You have set a trap (grg) for my father this Osiris N [in] this your name of mgrg-jar. As will be seen, each object is identified through the medium of ‘semantic etymologies’12 with particular aspects of the enemy of the deceased, i.e. Seth and his followers in the Osirian mythology underlying the ritual situation of the wake on the night before the funeral known traditionally by its German designation Stundenwachen.13 The reason seems to be not so much the particular role each item plays in the purification rite, as even the otherwise unambiguous ankh-signs receive these negative connotations, but rather the fact that they are all placed ‘under the feet’ of the deceased in the way that enemies are very often said to be, including Seth in the Stundenwachen liturgies from the Coffin Texts.14 While spell 907 is thus not of much use in teasing out the details and meaning of the purification rite, at least the spell clearly affirms its association with the ritualised defeat of the enemies of the deceased during the Stundenwachen.15

WILLEMS, 1996: 210. See the material collected in WILLEMS, 1996: 118-119. WILLEMS may have slightly overstated the role of the rDw as offerings restored to their origin, which, while the idea can be attested throughout the Egyptian history, is actually fairly rare in the Coffin Texts and the Middle Kingdom generally. Apart from the occurrence of the snw-jar in the coffin object friezes which incorporates many objects playing a role as offerings and/ or grave goods, WILLEMS’s interpretation follows ZANDEE’s (19751976: 40-41) reading of CT 362, where the efflux of Osiris serves as nourishment, probably as a mythologised libation. Compared with the rest of the Coffin Texts evidence, it is, however, characteristic that it is not Osiris himself who is nourished by the god’s efflux in this spell, but other beings. This seems to be part of a general pattern in the Coffin Texts according to which re-internalising one’s own efflux is portrayed as highly problematic. For the complex role of rDw-efflux in the Coffin Texts, see the discussion of the evidence in NYORD, 2009: 462-467. Note that while the snw-jar does not occur in the role of receptacle of rDw in the Coffin Texts, it fits perfectly in the structural role as container collecting the fluids in the diagram ibid.: 467. 9 Note that I assume that the purification was of a deceased person, as that is clearly the role the objects play in the coffin, and also the use of the rite paralleled in the later sources collected by WILLEMS. In a later contribution, WILLEMS, 1997 suggests that the New Kingdom depictions may in fact show the purification of a living ritualist before entering the place of embalming. This is certainly not impossible, but 7 8

in light of the clear evidence for an association of the rite with practices involving dead bodies, it is probably safest to focus on this most clearly attested use, which is in any case the one most pertinent for the present purposes. 10 NYORD, 2009: 462-467. 11 ALLEN, 1996: 11, lines 1-3. 12 Cf. BRONKHORST, 2001. 13 The ritual situation of the Stundenwachen is argued to be the main inspiration for the decoration programme of Middle Kingdom by WILLEMS, 1988 and 1996. 14 See esp. ASSMANN and BOMMAS, 2002: 409-411 and 416. 15 Pace WILLEMS, 1997: 349 n. 27.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity he who sees cannot possess the visible unless he is possessed by it, unless he is of it, unless, by principle, according to what is required by the articulation of the look with the things, he is one of the visibles, capable, by a singular reversal, of seeing them – he who is one of them.21

Possible Anthropomorphisms Perhaps the most stable element of the decoration of Middle Kingdom coffins, first introduced in the late 5th Dynasty, is the pair of wDA.t-eyes on the front or east side of the coffin. The often-repeated traditional interpretation of this phenomenon is based on the idea that the deceased lying on his or her left side with the face behind the painted eyes can look through them, the purposes of which is usually assumed to be to be able to see the offerings presented to the deceased in the mortuary cult (an interpretation supported by the frequent association of the pair of eyes with the depiction of a false door), and/or the sun rising in the east. We will return to the consequences of the notional permeability of the coffin indicated both by the eyes and by the false door, but in accordance with our stated purpose here, it will be useful to pause for a moment and see if there are additional conceptual avenues that should be explored before we decide on following the traditional one.

From this way of thinking, it follows that the participants in an act of seeing cannot be isolated definitively into a subject and an object of the act, but rather visibility is always a chiastic interplay between seeing and being seen. Both stela and coffin are characterised by the particular use of writing and decoration where they do not describe a pre-existing state of affairs, but rather serve to bring about the state of affairs described – a reversal of the ordinary modern notion of representation, most closely paralleled in modern usage of so-called ‘performative’ speech acts.22 Assuming that this goes for the eyes as well, and drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological notion of the chiastic vision, we can thus say that the eyes and the gaze they enact are not meant merely to communicate the ritual presence of the deceased, but rather to effect it, not unlike the role of a statue of a god or deceased.

The array of meanings inherent in the icon of the wDA.t eye is notoriously multifarious.16 Without for the moment elaborating the various versions of the myth of the eye of Horus or the two eyes of the creator god, we can look to the other type of object on which the pair of eyes is most usually found in the Middle Kingdom, namely stelae.17 Because the practical aspects of ritual behaviour in relation to the tomb stela is rather more well-defined than is the case with the coffin, we can plausibly suggest that in the case of stelae, the pair of eyes signify the simple presence of the deceased as object for the mortuary rituals by positing a gaze which can be met by the ‘audience’ of the stela. I have argued elsewhere that the reciprocal act of seeing and being seen plays a fundamental role in Egyptian ideas about the manifestation of the dead.18 A good example is found in the Naga ed-Deir letter to the dead now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The writer complains about a haunting which is described as the ghost ‘causing me to see him in a dream’.19 The nature of these visits as an imposition is clear from the wording of ‘causing to see’, but at the same time the gaze of the ghost is also important, as the end of the letter refers to the nightly encounters as the ghost ‘seeing me’.20

The parallel with the statue is instructive here, insofar as the means to ‘presentify’23 the deceased is precisely representations which, in one sense or another, provide him with body parts requisite for his or her manifestation. If the eyes thus effect the ability of the deceased to see (in addition to allowing him to be seen in an interactive sense), perhaps the idea of the eyes as simple windows through the coffin is too limited. The question then becomes whether there is an additional sense in which the coffin itself can be understood as an actual body despite displaying only a very limited degree of anthropomorphism. The answer may well be positive as shown by an interesting palaeographical phenomenon in the ornamental hieroglyphs of certain coffins from Akhmim.24 The best example of this phenomenon comes from a small group of 11th Dynasty coffins,25 now in the Cairo Museum (CGC 28010-28012) on which all hieroglyphs are monochrome, except on the front side where the eye , D4) forming part of the name ‘Osiris, hieroglyph ( Lord of Djedu’ is polychrome in black, white and red,26 (D1) hieroglyph in the and on the back side where the name ‘Anubis who is on his mountain’ is painted in black

In this way, the reciprocal gaze becomes a creative enactment of the relation between the living and the dead, rather than a unidirectional case of the deceased observing the outside world from an isolated vantage point. This interactional manifestation of the deceased through fixing a point of view, as it were, may remind us of MerleauPonty’s notion that

MERLEAU-PONTY, 1968: 134f. This idea has played in important role in recent anthropological work on ‘perspectivism’, see especially HOLBRAAD and WILLERSLEV, 2007, WILLERSLEV, 2009, and PEDERSEN, 2011: 65-68. 22 The classical treatments of this phenomenon are AUSTIN, 1962, and SEARLE, 1969. Notable examples of the use of this conceptual framework on Egyptian religious texts are SERVAJEAN, 2003 and MEYER-DIETRICH, 2010. 23 In the sense of VERNANT, 1991: 151-163, cf. the remarks on this notion in an Egyptological context by ESCHWEILER, 1994: 293ff. 24 BORCHARDT, 1897: 116; LAPP, 1993: 152 (§341). 25 For the dating, see LAPP, 1993: 272-275 (Ach2, Ach5, Ach15) and BROVARSKI, 1985: 128-129. 26 28010 and 28012 only (LACAU, 1903: I, 27 and 30). 21

See e.g. ROEDER, 1996:244-264. Cf. HÖLZL, 1990: 13-47. 18 NYORD, 2009: 454-457, see now also NYORD, 2013 for this phenomenon in the experience of the presence of the deceased in the Old Kingdom tomb complex. 19 SIMPSON, 1966: pl. IX, l. 2-3. 20 SIMPSON, 1966: pl. IX, l. 6. Cf. NYORD, 2009: 456 with further references. 16 17

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Rune Nyord: Permeable containers: Body and cosmos in Middle Kingdom coffins

Fig. 3 - Diagram showing the distribution of D1 hieroglyphs with and without colour emphasis on the coffin of Bekheni, Cairo Museum, CG 28012. Drawing: Henrijette Vex Nyord. and red.27 That the principle here is based on the location of the body parts in question is confirmed by the interesting third coffin in the group, that of the seal-bearer and general Bekheni.

type. On the basis of this association, Borchardt suggested that the emphasised hieroglyphs are simply a ‘repetition’ of what is already communicated by the pair eyes, ‘daβ nämlich hier der Todte gewissermaβen aus dem Sarge herausschaue’.30 As we have already indicated, it may be slightly more accurate to say that the pair of eyes effects the presence and interactional potential of the deceased by providing him with the requisite body parts, and the phenomenon just described seems to be born from a similar aim of making sure that whatever heads and eyes, even hieroglyphic ones, are located near the place on the mummy where this potential is likely to become manifest, need to be functional for this particular purpose. Thus, the emphasis by colouring and enlargement which clearly serves no communicative purpose and hardly an aesthetic one either, can be seen as providing the deceased with an interactive body.

As his name is derived from the root bxn with a probable basic meaning like ‘be watchful’,28 it is determined with (D1). The name of the deceased occurs at the the sign end of each of the imAx-phrases on the short ends of the coffin, as well as in the Htp-dj-nsw-formula on the lid, yielding the locations of the D1-hieroglyph shown in Figure 3. Corresponding exactly with our hypothesis that emphasis occurs whenever an eye-hieroglyph or a headhieroglyph was located on the part of the coffin closest to the body part in question, we find emphasised hieroglyphs on the front, back and head boards, but not on the foot end or lid, where the sign occurs only at some distance from the head of the deceased.

Inscriptions with bodily associations

These particularly informative examples also help us put into perspective the much more subtle palaeographic convention also found at Akhmim where the hieroglyphs in question are executed in a particularly large format, even when grouped with other signs.29

The spells inscribed on Middle Kingdom coffins also occasionally show particular bodily and thematic connections. Shortly after the publication in 1979 Lesko’s Index of the Spells on Egyptian Middle Kingdom Coffins which made this kind of research possible, Barta published a study31 in which he examined the statistical tendency to place particular spells on a particular side of the coffin. His material ranges from relatively unimpressive cases with just over a 50-50 distribution, to examples where numerous attestations of a single spell are consistently placed on the same side of the coffin. Moving on from this

What can we make of this phenomenon? The first scholar to notice it and as far as I know the only one to have offered an independent interpretation is Ludwig Borchardt (1897) who associated it with the pair of eyes invariably occurring on the east side of coffins of this LACAU, 1903: I, 27, 28 and 30. OSING, 1976: 833, n. 1116. 29 See e.g. the late Old Kingdom coffins published by EL-MASRY, 2007: 183-215, notably the head signs on pl. 6-8a and the eye signs on pl. 7b. 27 28

30 31

33

BORCHARDT ,1897: 116. BARTA, 1982.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity purely statistical fact to the major themes dealt with in each of the spells in question, Barta arrives at the following list of key words associated with spells characteristic of each coffin side:32 Key word Enemies Offering ritual Solar cycle Resurrection Magic power Negative wishes Head rites Free movement Ba and body Osiris myth Tomb construction Nut Purification Uniting body parts Glosses

Head Foot Front Back Lid   X X X X X   X X X     X X X       X X         X     X X   X      

  X    

    X  

      X X

Bottom X   X X X  

       

     

     

     

     

X X X

 

 

 

 

 

the mortuary liturgies identified by Assmann.34 While the tendency of such liturgies to be placed on particular coffin sides more often than others remains of interest, it is clear that in such cases seeking the explanation in the thematic contents of the individual spells is not likely to provide an explanation for a lengthy sequence of spells distributed as a whole, yet covering several different themes in Barta’s list. Nonetheless, there are numerous examples among those collected by Barta where there is indubitably a connection between the contents of a spell or sequence and its association with a particular coffin side. As one might expect, by and large the best examples are those from the bottom of the table where only a single coffin side is connected to a particular keyword, although we do need to weed out a few of the more idiosyncratic ones such as ‘glosses’ and the ‘Osiris myth’ which is based on a couple of spells from one of the mythologising mortuary liturgies just mentioned.

       

     

As can be seen from this list, apart from the rites connected to the head, Barta’s classification concentrates much more on the thematic contents than on specific body parts. A number of these themes are explicitly cosmological, and as such they offer a good cue for moving on to the second main theme to be discussed here, namely that of cosmological references in the coffins.

X

Given the state of Coffin Texts research at the time, Barta’s list was an important step forward, and in some respects it has not yet been superseded. However, in a number of cases subsequent research has enabled us to nuance Barta’s initial observations. I will focus on just a couple of examples where we can now offer alternatives to the interpretations put forward by Barta.

Cosmos in the coffin The earliest and most stable effort to situate the coffin cosmologically is found in the most frequent formulation of the ornamental text on the outside of the two long sides. Each of the two sides typically carry a Htp-dj-nsw-formula, the one on the front or east side addressed to Osiris and the one on the back or west side addressed to Anubis. The east formula stresses the access to invocation offerings, while the west side deals with the burial in the western desert, thus situating the coffin squarely between the two main concerns of the deceased: The continued contact with the living associated with the eastern cardinal direction and the repose in the tomb associated with the west.35

Coffin Texts spell 605, for instance, is known in two copies from Assiut,33 in both cases written on the front side of the coffin. Barta categorises the spell as belonging to a group of spells dealing with the relationship between the ba and the body, because the short spell ends with the statement ‘My weary ba sleeps’. However, the text carries the title ‘Spell for a bed’ and occurs below a depiction in the object frieze of a bed. In the light of Willems’s demonstration of the principles underlying the distribution and placement of frieze objects on the one hand, and their ritual background on the other, we might suggest classifying this spell instead as belonging to the offering theme and consider its placement on the front side of the coffin in light of the general layout of the object friezes of the coffins in question, whereas the reference to the ba sleeping would then be seen in the light of the interactive properties of the bed with which the spell is associated rather than as constituting a specific theme determining the place of the spell in its own right.

At the same time, this early formulation is also the beginning of a very long Egyptian tradition of surrounding the deceased with gods. This is mostly done by distributing simple phrases of the type jmAxj xr followed by the name of the god in question. This pattern of decoration is so ubiquitous that Willems labels it the ‘standard formulation’.36 Willems has also argued in favour of a specific ritual background of the distribution of gods, namely that the divine names refer to the ritual officiants standing around the coffin at the Stundenwachen taking place on the night before the funeral. This is corroborated by the occasional further development of the phrases where each god is associated with particular actions carried out

Another example is Barta’s distribution across a number of different themes of spells which are now known to be distributed as part of a more or less fixed sequence, notably 32 BARTA, 1982: 37-42. This analysis also forms the main basis for the overview of the question at WILLEMS, 1988: 232-233. 33 S1C and S5C.

ASSMANN and BOMMAS, 2002. WILLEMS 1988: 123-124. 36 WILLEMS, 1988: 138. 34 35

34

Rune Nyord: Permeable containers: Body and cosmos in Middle Kingdom coffins for the benefit of the deceased, mostly dealing with the typical Stundenwachen themes of bodily reconstitution and protection from enemies, e.g. the frequent phrase known also from the Pyramid Texts ‘Your mother Nut has spread herself over you that she may cause you to be a god without enemies’.37

tendency for the spells written in this way to be ferryman spells dealing with the permission to cross a body of water, so that a clear connection can further be made between text and iconography. Apart from this phenomenon, the more famous composition of the Book of Two Ways is very frequently found on the bottom of Bersheh coffins, and as it shares the ‘map’like structure, the rationale may again be the similar one that the bottom represents a ‘landscape’ naturally located under the body and hence opposed to the sky on the lid. It should be noted, however, that this placement may also have been motivated in part simply by the fact that a large, coherent composition like the Book of Two Ways would easily conflict with the fixed decorative programmes on other coffin sides, whereas the bottom could more easily be cleared for the purpose of accommodating the Book.

Cosmological elements on the inside of the coffin are primarily concentrated on the up-down axis expressed by the lid and the bottom, and the vertical space between. The connection between the lid and the sky (and hence the goddess Nut) is indicated by the occasional presence of the formula just cited on the lid,38 and several other decorative elements affirm the celestial association of the lid as viewed from the inside. Thus, the inside lid is the location of the so-called diagonal star clocks indicating the periods of visibility of the decanal stars.39 Apart from the doubtless ritual importance of the data in the matrices, as they deal with phenomena of the night-sky, the placement on the lid is highly pertinent. This is true to an even greater degree of the unfortunately very badly preserved lid from the coffin of Heny from Assiut, carrying what appears to have been a precursor of the kind of detailed astronomical maps best known from the later examples in the tomb of Senenmut and elsewhere.40

A similar cosmographic composition in the Coffin Texts is the representation of the Fields of Hetep associated with spell 466. While this place is clearly presented as a cosmic location, the ‘Two Fields of Offerings’ is also sometimes found as a concrete designation of the offering table,44 and although as a cosmic location the Fields are sometimes connected with the direction east, it is likely this ritual association with the offering rite that predicated the placement on the front side of this vignette and the accompanying spells.

With much less detail, the same basic idea is confirmed by the occurrence of the icon of a starry sky-hieroglyph on the top of the vertical sides of Bersheh coffins.41 While this phenomenon does not presumably hold a similar ritual importance to the detailed astronomical representations on the lid itself, they serve to clearly render the cosmic scale of the space between the coffin walls.

Connections between body and cosmos The final group of examples focuses on a phenomenon that has already been brushed a few times, namely combinations where the coffin establishes a relation between body and cosmos. Such references are relatively frequent in the spells of the Coffin Texts, and for the present purposes, I will simply give a couple of examples.

If the top of the coffin is thus clearly associated, or even identified, with the sky, it stands to reason that the four corners of the coffin could be identified with the four pillars holding up the sky in Egyptian cosmology, and Willems has adduced some indications that the four Sons of Horus whose names usually occur in the decorative bands at the corners of the coffin could play this role in Egyptian cosmology and mythology.42

A group of formulae which appears to belong to a separate textual tradition from the Stundenwachen-related inscriptions concerning the services of the gods for the deceased written in the decorative bands on the outside of the coffins, but the overall contents of which are broadly similar to such statements is the inscriptions found on mitres, dowels, and other generally inaccessible spaces of the coffin.45 Each of these short texts is often associated with a particular side of the coffin and often combines the bodily reconstitution with cosmological incorporation, as can be seen from these examples of the most frequently attested such formulae:46

There are thus good reasons to think that the Egyptians in different ways made use of the association of the lid of the coffin with the sky. The opposite cosmological association of the bottom with the earth is also quite clear. Thus, a number of coffins, especially from Beni Hasan, Meir and Thebes, are decorated on the bottom with depictions of a watery landscape with canals and ‘islands’ forming the background on which the spells on the bottom are written.43 Willems has pointed out that there is a special

A (Foot) Recitation: O Geb, (put) your arms around me that you may illuminate my face and open my eyes!

Cf. WILLEMS, 1988: 134. See WILLEMS, 1988: 174, with some possible further indications of such a connection ibid.: 140-141 and 233. 39 WILLEMS, 1988: 235-236 and WILLEMS, 1996: 328-337. 40 GUNN, 1926. 41 WILLEMS, 1988: 193. 42 WILLEMS, 1988: 139-141 43 WILLEMS, 1988: 235-236; 1996: 328-337, and most recently COCKCROFT and SYMONS, 2014 37 38

See the references given at WILLEMS, 1988: 235, n. 234. GRALLERT, 2007. 46 GRALLERT, 2007: 46-57, each text is presented here in a standardised, 1st person version and with an indication of the coffin side(s) with which it is mainly associated. 44 45

35

Body, Cosmos and Eternity B (Head) Recitation: O my mother Nut, come to me, that you may remove my bandages upon me from the hand of him who acted against me. C (Back) Childhood is upon me! I will not be tired, these body parts of mine will not be weak. D (Head/Foot) Recitation by Nut: I have placed Isis/ Nephthys under your head/feet E (Head) Recitation: Surround me, kinsmen! These body parts of mine will not be weak. F (Bottom) Recitation: O Nut, raise me up! I am this son of yours. May you remove my weariness from the hand of him who acted against me

variant of the formula ‘you at seeing whom X rejoices’, where X is a being or group of beings encountered in the cosmological journey envisaged in the hymns. In the hymn to the head board, this is the god Re,50 on the foot, it is ‘those of the Duat’,51 on the west it is ‘the westerners’52 and on the east, it is Osiris53 who is often associated with the eastward journey of the deceased in the Coffin Texts. Thus, a cosmological scheme emerges where the coffin is being observed from four different directions. While the cardinal directions of east and west are straightforward enough, we once again find the association of the head and foot, not with their corresponding cardinal directions, but rather with up and down respectively – in other words the proper associations if the deceased had been standing upright rather than lying down.54

The roles of Geb and Nut here a mainly cosmological, Geb being associated with the feet and hence the direction down, and Nut with the head, and thus the direction up (construing the deceased here as a living being standing upright, as discussed further below). Somewhat more surprisingly, Nut is associated instead with the bottom of the coffin in text F, but this connection may be motivated by the importance of the notion of ‘lifting up’ the deceased from his situation of weariness on the bottom of the coffin.

As a corollary of such cosmic associations, each goddess is also responsible for pertinent parts of the reconstitution of the body of the deceased. Thus, the goddess of the headboard is not only responsible for guarding and attaching the head and neck of Osiris and hence for carrying out a similar service for the deceased, but is also able to protect against beings threatening to cut off the head. Thus again, the body of the deceased becomes involved in the cosmos through the associations connected to each of the coffin sides.

On the other hand, the roles of Isis and Nephthys and their particular bodily associations in text D are clearly motivated by the ritual, rather than the cosmological, roles of these goddesses and priestesses incarnating them in the ritual.47

2. The coffin-concept As has been seen, both textual and pictorial elements of the coffin decoration contain numerous references to the body and the cosmos. Our common-sense interpretation of texts and images as primarily communicative devices, however, is thwarted by the fact that we are dealing with a coffin, which, especially as far as the inside is concerned, is as unsuitable a medium for communication in the ordinary sense as one can think of. Accordingly, recent contributions have tended instead to stress the ritual nature of the coffin in the specific sense that the coffin decoration serves to render permanent the effects of the funerary ritual, especially the Stundenwachen.55 This perspective, where the coffin is approached primarily as a surface for writing and iconography of ritual significance, provides a clear point of focus, which is also very much a focus of the coffin decoration, namely the deceased, so that the central question becomes: what is the benefit to the deceased of a particular element of the decorative programme? There is no doubt that this is a very sensible focus, completely in keeping with the purpose of producing the coffin in the first place, but it leaves another interesting question in its wake, which I would like to take up here, namely for the coffin to work as the decoration seems to indicate that it would, what kind of thing is an Egyptian coffin, and can

An even clearer example of a group of spells connected to particular sides of the coffin is the small group of Hymns to the Coffin Sides.48 In these texts, each of the sides of the coffin is personified as a goddess performing the tasks of protection and bodily reconstitution usually connected with the Stundenwachen. As such, these texts can be seen as a further development of the idea of the presence of the Ennead around the deceased, as the coffin boards themselves come to be addressed as goddesses. While the head and foot board naturally come to be associated with the roles of Isis and Nephthys, and the lid goddess is similarly connected to Nut, by and large the goddesses appear to be primarily personifications of the coffin sides, rather than, as elsewhere in the coffin decoration, a preexisting deity being assigned a role on a particular part of the coffin. In other words, the hymns for the most part would not make much sense without the medium of the coffin, so it is a reasonable suggestion that the texts have been composed particularly for this medium, although still clearly based on the ritual themes of the Stundenwachen. Possibly for this reason, the hymns express an unusual degree of systematicity, so that it is even possible, as I have argued elsewhere, in some sense to regard the distribution of themes in the hymns as a classificatory task. Here, we will concentrate on just a few important aspects of the hymns in this regard.49 In the hymns to the four vertical coffin sides, each of the goddesses is addressed with a

CT III, 294c [229] CT III, 302g [236] 52 CT III, 307d [237]; VII, 28s [828]. 53 CT III, 320e [239]; 324h [241]. 54 NYORD, 2007, 20-21. 55 See especially the monographic treatments by WILLEMS, 1988; 1996 and MEYER-DIETRICH, 2001; 2006. 50 51

WILLEMS, 1988: 135. See most recently NYORD, 2007. 49 Drawn from the analyses in NYORD, 2007. 47 48

36

Rune Nyord: Permeable containers: Body and cosmos in Middle Kingdom coffins we gain further insights by focusing also on its nature as a material object?

345 identifies the text as a ‘Spell of justification before Thoth, the prince of the gods by a man in Heliopolis. For a man’s linen and a man’s coffin (ors.t) not to be taken away from him in the necropolis’,62 and the spell proceeds to effect this purpose in mythological terms by paralleling the various rites of purification and embalming performed for the deceased with the mythological precedent of Osiris.

In a 2007 volume entitled Thinking through Things: Theorising artefacts ethnographically, the editors pose the interesting question ‘What would an artefact oriented anthropology look like if it were not about material culture?’.56 Behind this apparently paradoxical formulation lies the call for a particular methodological move which can be described as ‘rather than providing data to which theory is applied, revealing the strengths and flaws of an existing theoretical model, the things encountered in fieldwork are allowed to dictate the terms of their own analysis – including new premises altogether for theory’.57 In a later contribution, Martin Holbraad presents the suggested method very succinctly: ‘Put very simply: instead of treating all the things that your informants say of and do to or with things as modes of representing the things in question, treat them as modes of defining them.’58 Apart from thus offering important new heuristic opportunities for the analysis of objects, this move has important implications for the way we understand the goal of such analyses, traditionally understood – in Anthropology as well as Egyptology – as a matter of delineating and interpreting the thoughts of the people studied: ‘On this view, anthropological analysis has little to do with trying to determine how other people think about the world. It has to do with how we must think in order to conceive a world the way they do’.59 In the present case, the question then becomes what kind of coffin-concept we would need to account for an object which is at once a part of the body, an ensemble of gods and a cosmos; an object which, when painted and inscribed, incarnates objects and ritual acts and becomes selectively transparent by painting on it a pair of eyes.

While there are other spells that assume a definite mythologisation of the coffin as the body of the skygoddess Nut,63 they do not refer explicitly or concretely to the coffin, nor otherwise inform us about the nature of the object. Other texts, however, provide some insight into certain metaphorical conceptualisations of the coffin and its function. Thus, through references to the coffin sides as ‘dams’, we can deduce that the coffin could be viewed metaphorically as an agricultural canal or water receptacle, the corollary perhaps being that the deceased rests in a state of potentiality akin to a grain of corn in an irrigated field.64 Another coffin metaphor is based on nautical terminology, where the coffin is conceptualised as a boat, serving as a vessel for the notional journey undertaken by the deceased.65 Both of these conceptual blends are clearly at the same time related to material and artistic practices. Thus, the coffin-field blend has clear conceptual affinities with the ideas underlying corn Osirises like those already mentioned in relation to the Khoiak Festival and earlier practices such as clay figurines with inserted grains of corn.66 The conceptualisation of the coffin as a boat seems to be highly relevant for understanding the whole genre of funerary boat depictions in two and three dimensions, apart from whatever rites may have served as their inspiration.67 Certain later references are interesting in this regard, but fall outside of our current purposes, such as Ikhtay’s coffin being conceptualised as a messenger mediating between the letter-writer and the deceased recipient.68

We are, however, clearly in a different situation than the anthropologists editing and contributing to the volume in question, as we cannot (or only to a very limited degree, as we shall see shortly) rely on informants to provide us with the raw materials for the necessary conceptual work. In studying a dead culture, we need, in other words, to rely to a large extent on our capacity to ‘let the thing speak’ for itself.60 Nonetheless, the Egyptians’ thinking about coffins will provide a suitable, if fairly limited, point of departure for the present discussion.

A similarly very general picture is found if we employ what has become another traditional approach to word meaning in Egyptology, namely by looking at the ways in which the most frequent noun for ‘coffin’, ors.t was classified. Apart from the classifier connected to the root ors, ‘bury’, we find only the very straightforward classification with wood as well as some instances with a so-called ‘repeater’ sign, that is, a sign depicting the item in question, rather

Egyptian thoughts about coffins

CT IV, 369a-c [345]. Cf. BILLING, 2002. 64 NYORD, 2007: 26-27. 65 NYORD, 2007: 27-28. 66 Cf. Szpakowska, 2008: 56. 67 This is especially clear in Middle Kingdom model funerary boats, often with poles decorated with striped bands similar to those found at the edges of the sides of coffins, and with wDAt-eyes on the prow. I am grateful to Gersande ESCHENBRENNER-DIEMER for pointing out that this parallelism is particularly clear in examples like the Bersheh boat models now at Boston Museum of Fine Arts (e.g. FREED and DOXEY, 2009: 175, fig. 135) which show a pair of wDAt-eyes (rather than just a single one) on the sides of the prows. 68 O. Louvre 698 (ČERNÝ and GARDINER 1957: pl. 80), cf. FRANDSEN 1992 and COONEY 2007: 275-276. 62

At first we may note that the coffin was not surprisingly regarded as a crucial part of the burial ensemble, and several different types of texts attest to the notion that ‘coffin and linen’ are an idiom capturing the two most essential parts of a burial.61 Thus, the rubric of Coffin Texts spell

63

HENARE et al., 2007: 1. HENARE et al., 2007: 4. 58 HOLBRAAD, 2011: 12 59 HENARE et al., 2007: 15. 60 HOLBRAAD, 2011. 61 Thus for instance in the inscription of Djau (DAVIES, 1902: pl. 13, ll. 8-14), and the stela of Antef (FRANKE, 2007: 157-158). 56 57

37

Body, Cosmos and Eternity than classifying it.69 Even if there are naturally details that have been left out here, the overall conclusion must be that the great conceptual wealth of coffin decoration is highly underdetermined in preserved Egyptian discourses about coffins.

the wDAt-eyes, serve precisely to nuance this fundamental feature of the coffin. The wDAt-eyes have already been touched upon above, but the false door has so far been passed by, mainly because it belongs neither to the bodily, nor to the strictly cosmological, but rather to a third conception of the coffin, which we could label as architectural.73 In a short notice published in 1897, Ludwig Borchardt pointed out that the chronological development of the false door motif on coffins might provide us with a clue to its conceptual importance.74 He suggests that the original rationale of the false doors on coffins should be sought in a group of fairly early coffins which show the false door on the inside rather than the outside of the eastern coffin side, corresponding incidentally to the practice of depicting door bolts as a sign that the false door shows a door seen from the inside, rather than the outside of the notional building of which it is a part. A medial stage is then found with coffins with no interior decoration, but where the necessity of including a false door must have been clear enough to prompt the artisans to make it part of the outside decoration instead, still on the part of the coffin closest to the head of the deceased. This then leads to a further development where several doors can be included on the outside of the coffin.

One further, perhaps more important indication of what a coffin can do is found, not, as it happens, in the Coffin Texts, but rather in certain rubrics from the Book of the Dead. Thus, for instance the rubric to Chapter 72 in the Papyrus of Nu reads ‘As for him who knows this spell or upon whose coffin it has been made, he can come forth by day in any shape that he wishes. He is given bread and beer and a large cut of meat on the offering table of the great god. He can go forth to the Field of Reeds, and barley and emmer is given to him there. Thus is he sound as he was on earth’.70 Such rubrics hold the potential for lengthy discussions in their own right, including questions about the need and nature of knowledge, as well as the whole ‘mysticism’ debate taken up some decades ago by Wente.71 For the present purposes, though, what is of primary interest is the fact that the coffin is explicitly said to be capable of functioning as an alternative to knowledge of the spells in question. Unfortunately the relation between the two uses of the spell is not elaborated. Jan Assmann has recently suggested that we should distinguish, in the Coffin Texts, two different uses of text, one which goes back to the Pyramid Texts and is essentially a ‘prosthetic voice’ that pronounces recitations eternally, while the other texts are rather codifications of knowledge and function thus as a ‘prosthesis of recollection’.72 Neither type of text is, of course, meant to be actually read, so that the prosthetic use Assmann suggests (whether or not one follows his precise distinction between the two types) seems to be a clear consequence of the Book of the Dead spell just cited. Whatever a coffin is, it is the type of surface on which ritual texts can be written to alleviate (or, perhaps rather, fulfil) the need for actually knowing them.

The false door is thus conceived of in the first instance as a door for the deceased, clearly derived from the origin of the false door in tomb chapels. In this original usage of the false door, it serves to localise the presence of the ancestor during the offering rituals taking place in the chapel. While discussions about the function of a false door usually centre on the alleged ‘beliefs’ of ancient Egyptians about souls and the like, as Lynn Meskell has pointed out, the phenomenological experience of a door which cannot be opened and the presence of an ancestor who cannot (normally) be seen, may be more important than more intangible beliefs – and, we may add, since no contemporary texts explicate the believed function of a false door, as a matter of methodology, it may be less problematic to explore. Lynn Meskell has already called attention to an evocative description from Bachelard’s Poetics of Space in this connection detailing the emotions and experiences,75 especially those of the range of possibilities of sociality, change and movement that adheres to the door. In this connection, we might add some of Lang’s remarks on the ‘Dwelling door’ which also seem highly apposite to the understanding of Egyptian false doors:76

Boxes with Eyes and Doors While the latter point will be seen to be of some importance, it appears that it would be useful at this point to set aside the Egyptians’ own statements about coffins and return to the object itself. The most immediately apparent characteristic of a coffin like those of the Middle Kingdom, indeed of any wooden box, is its fundamental separation of inside and outside and the corresponding ability to contain and keep in or out. A closely connected concept is that of the impenetrability and opaqueness of the box, preventing not only movement between the two sides, but in fact any form of interaction. Taking our point of departure in this fact, we may note right away that the two most widespread and enduring elements of coffin decoration, the false door and

Though a door can be seen purely as a physical object ... it also can be viewed as a new access and disclosure of the world. To think of the house as embodied, as a kind of second body, means to see it in all its aspects not as thing but as access to things ... it is first of all

GOLDWASSER, 2002: 15. LAPP, 1997: pl. 20, l. 12-14. 71 WENTE, 1982. 72 ASSMANN, 2005: 248-249.

Cf. also the contribution by van WALSEM in this volume. BORCHARDT, 1897 75 MESKELL, 2003: 41. 76 LANG, 1984.

69

73

70

74

38

Rune Nyord: Permeable containers: Body and cosmos in Middle Kingdom coffins access to an inside and an outside, it is disclosure and closure, it yields or resists, it beckons or rejects.

those of the deceased, a point of view which appears to be corroborated by the emphasis of the head and eye in the Akhmim coffins discussed above. The occurrence precisely on an otherwise non-anthropomorphic coffin, however, gives the impression of an undifferentiated being whose only point of inchoate differentiation is a pair of eyes. This characterisation has some important correlates in Egyptian mythology, but before exploring them in more detail, I would like to show that we can arrive at a similar conclusion from another avenue of approach.

This general phenomenological property of the door as a promise of access gains a further dimension in the case of the special Egyptian construction of the false door, where the function of the door as ‘physical object’ referred to in the quote is deliberately thwarted by what is essentially only a depiction of a door as cultic focus with its suggestion of a space and a presence beyond the door which is accessible only indirectly in the ritual interaction with the ancestor. It should be borne in mind that in the Old Kingdom, the false door formed part of a complex consisting also of other ‘dummy’ architectural features such as the inaccessible tomb chamber and the serdab slit which does allow one to look through it but hardly to observe much of what is inside, and once again certainly not to access the area beyond in the usual sense. Taken together, such elements of the tomb serve to establish a phenomenological experience of the deceased as a halfperceived presence with which it is possible to interact during the ritual.77

Divine relations It has been seen that the ornamental hieroglyphic bands of the outer decoration of Middle Kingdom coffins portray the deceased as being surrounded by gods, a situation which probably alludes to the rites carried out during the vigil before the funeral. The ‘standard formulation’ of this is a spatially distributed collection of jmAxj-phrases, but occasionally more detailed statements of the services performed for the deceased are found. A relatively neglected aspect of such references is that they often stress the family relations between the actors. Thus, Geb and Nut often stress that the deceased is their son (or conversely his relationship to them as parents is stressed),80 and in an interesting textual tradition from Dahshur, the bond of ‘love’ between the gods is stressed and paralleled with Nut’s love for the deceased:81

Following the idea that the false door on coffins was originally thought of as belonging on the inside, it may simply have been conceived as part of the cult place depicted on the inside front of coffins, but it is also very possible that it was conceived as having a connection with the false door in the actual tomb chapel, as it is often posited in Egyptological discussions.78 When the false door is moved to the outside of the coffin, its meaning appears to be less concretely tied to the situation of the offering rite, but rather to retain the experience of the presence of the deceased as well as the corollary penetrability of the coffin. The presence of several false doors on the outside of coffins can thus perhaps be understood a bit more abstractly than Borchardt’s interpretation that the soul was thereby provided with more exits, namely as a general stressing of the notional permeability of the otherwise materially solid and impenetrable wooden coffin. Possibly related to the same idea is Coffin Texts Spell 242, titled ‘Spell for opening a door for the ba’ and inscribed on the front sides of several Assiut coffins, where the intended direction movement, however, is that of the ba desiring to enter to see the body, rather than leaving it.79

Recitation by Nut: N is my daughter, N is my beloved with whom I am pleased, just like I love my father Shu and just like I am pleased with my mother Tefnut. (…) I love my beloved daughter N just like I love my husband Geb and just like I love my firstborn, Osiris. This family entanglement reminds us that Jansen-Winkeln has suggested that the etymological origin of the notion of imAx so important in Egyptian mortuary religion lies in the root mAx, with a basic meaning of a sheaf or bundle.82 Thus, Jansen-Winkeln argues, the origin of the religious notion of imAx is a metaphorical extension of this concrete idea to denote a social dependence or entanglement with another person.83 Leaving aside the difficult linguistic point for the moment, it is clear when we examine divine speeches on coffins that there is a definite subtext of family entanglement, in addition to the more obviously Stundenwachen-related themes of bodily reconstitution and protection.

This point leads us back to the question of the pair of eyes and their function. Paralleling to some extent the meaning of the false door just analysed, we have already seen that the pair of eyes serves to make present the deceased in the context of stela decoration. Thus from the point of view of the question of permeability, the eyes serve a similar function to that of the door. The conceptual consequences are somewhat different, however. Given the ritual role of the eyes as mentioned earlier, it becomes an obvious possibility to view the eyes as in some sense being

See e.g. the examples of Nut-spells cited by WILLEMS, 1988: 133134. 81 CT Temp 331. Treated most recently by RUSSO, 2012: 85, but note the different reading of the 1st person pronouns in the rendering here, which avoids the problems of referring to Tefnut as masculine hy, ‘husband’ and to the male Osiris having a wp-Xt, ‘firstborn’ (lit. opener of the womb). 82 JANSEN-WINKELN, 1996. 83 JANSEN-WINKELN, 1996, cf. also ALLEN, 2006: 16f. 80

Cf. NYORD, 2013. E.g. the depiction in FISCHER, 1977: 40, fig. 42. 79 CT III, 327c [242]. For the possible relation to the false door, see WILLEMS, 1988:228, n. 210. 77 78

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity Such relational entanglements are a much more general feature of Egyptian religion. Jan Assmann in particular has pointed out that, with the possible exception of Aton in the Amarna Period, Egyptian gods are not generally defined by some internal essence that makes them what they are, nor originally by the narrative roles they play, but rather by the relationships, or, to use Assmann’s term, constellations in which they participate.84 From this point of view, the text just quoted expresses a ‘mother-child’ constellation between Nut and the deceased and parallels this to the various other constellations between Nut and her close kin: ‘mother-child’, ‘husband-wife’, and ‘son-mother’.

Such a relational approach might help to resolve a slightly surprising consequence of the dominant interpretation of the coffin as a perpetual suspension of the situation of the Stundenwachen rites. With the focus on defeat of enemies and bodily reconstitution, as well as their temporal character as a ritual phase taking place on the night before the funeral, in the famous nomenclature of Arnold van Gennep, the Stundenwachen constitute a liminal phase.87 This phase is characterised by malleable categories and corresponding danger, and in general it is a temporary phase eventually overcome by the incorporation phase in which the categories become fixed and the danger averted. This latter phase, in which the new status of the initiand is affirmed and rendered permanent, would, on the face of it, be a much more likely candidate for the ritualised environment of the coffin, and this would conform better with the relational interpretation suggested here, where the deceased becomes an Osiris precisely by the enactment of the appropriate relations within the divine world. While Willems has shown cogently the close connection of Middle Kingdom coffin decoration with the Stundenwachen, we can also choose to focus instead on the more permanent side of the procedure where the deceased becomes a son (of Geb and Nut), a brother (of Isis and Nephthys), a father (of Horus), all bound together mythologically, as in the quoted spell, by a bond of love and pleasure (mrwt and Htp) and ritually by the entanglement of the jmAx-relation. Thus, the kinship and other relationships stressed in the text are not a mere by-effect of the identification with Osiris, but rather, as in a hymn, the god is continuously defined through the constellations into which he enters. It will be noted that this ‘creative’ or ‘performative’ way of establishing an identity doesn’t really conform to our usual understanding of the word ‘definition’, and anthropologist Martin Holbraad has suggested the neologism ‘infinition’ or ‘inventive definition’88 to express this kind of acts which define the person talked about as a new kind of being by positing new relations.

Assmann originally noted this phenomenon in the particular case of hymns where constellative expressions are used to describe the god in question in the ritual situation. The god being addressed is thus being defined through the hymn with reference to the constellations in which it plays part. Similarly, in our case, the dead is defined as Osiris inter alia by Nut addressing him and treating him as her offspring. With the ritual focus that has been prevalent in the more recent studies of Middle Kingdom coffins, it has been natural to focus on the portrayed relation between each of these various gods and the deceased.85 However, with our current focus on the coffin as object and especially on its role as separator between the spaces outside and inside, it becomes clear that there are at least two ways of looking at the gods surrounding the deceased, corresponding to what anthropologist Marilyn Strathern terms external and internal relations, depending on whether the related entities pre-exist or are brought into existence by the relationship.86 The first of these possibilities corresponds to the ritual interpretation where the dead and the priests all pre-exist before the ritual, ready to take on the ritual roles for a limited time, and the coffin simply renders this already-existing relation permanent. The second possibility would be that the relationship established by the coffin brings into being both the role of Osiris and the role of Nut, a reading which can be connected to the definitional role of Assmann’s constellations. In this interpretation, the deceased becomes Osiris precisely by entering into the myriad of constellations posited by the coffin. In this way, the walls of the coffin become not just wooden barriers blocking movement and sight, but at the same time conceptual boundaries, so that the connections between the protective gods and the deceased can be seen as external boundaries between pre-existing entities when viewed from the inside where the mummy is surrounded by the walls of the coffin, or as internal when viewed from the outside where the relations bring into being the gods that they relate, including, most importantly, the role of the deceased as Osiris.

It is worth noting here that this line of thinking approaches, in a roundabout way, an interesting suggestion advanced by Mark Smith concerning the correct understanding of the juxtaposition of the name of the individual deceased with that of Osiris in mortuary texts. Proceeding from a number of late instances where an n intrudes between Osiris and the name of the deceased, Smith argues that the relation should always be understood as a genitive (be it direct or indirect) and that Osiris is thus not a new van GENNEP, 1960: 21 et passim. Just before the manuscript of this paper was submitted, an article by Harold HAYS (2013) appeared, announcing ‘the end of rites of passage’ by calling into question the relevance of this category for the Egyptian material, primarily on the grounds that the basic schema does not appear to correspond to the structure of Egyptian representations of ritual. This interesting critique raises too many questions to be fruitfully addressed here, but among the points that could be debated (the ultimate result of which I suspect might be a slightly more positive view of the usability of the analytical framework of rites of passage than that argued by HAYS) is the equation of the tripartite structure of rites of passage with a continuous narrative plot, the specific equation between temporal ritual structure and representational layout in Egyptian depictions, and the insistence on commensurability between emic and etic approaches. 88 HOLBRAAD, 2012: 220f. 87

First in ASSMANN, 1969. E.g. WILLEMS, 1988; 1996. 86 STRATHERN, 1995: 18f, cf. also more generally on such constitutive relationships STRATHERN, 1988. 84 85

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Rune Nyord: Permeable containers: Body and cosmos in Middle Kingdom coffins identity for the deceased, but rather to be understood as an aspect or form. Thus, ‘[a]t the end of the embalming rites, having been returned to life and freed from imputation of wrongdoing, the deceased was endowed with an Osirisaspect’.89 It is probably safe to say that Smith’s general argument shows a certain imbalance in favour of Late Period evidence, and that the most literal application of his suggested interpretation works rather less well for the earlier periods.90 However, on a more general level, and leaving aside for the moment the grammatical question of genitive or apposition, the notion that the divine status attained by the deceased can be regarded as a potential which is realised by the funerary rites is highly germane to the view of the coffin I have advocated here. To return to the question of the types of relations between the deceased and the gods, if, as I have suggested, they can be regarded as internal connections in the sense that they cause the related entities to exist as such, a question presents itself, namely ‘internal to what’? The obvious answer is the coffin itself, which thus comes to contain the entire totality of gods including the relations between them. In discussing the bodily aspect of the coffin, I suggested earlier that there might be a mythological correlate to the undifferentiated being with two eyes as the only delineated body part, and as it happens, this line of thinking converges with the idea of a being incorporating all of the gods and their relations.

Fig. 4 - Vignette of East and West standards bearing offerings from the front side of the inner coffin of Senebtisi (L2Li). Gauthier, J.-E.; Jéquier, G., 1902: pl. 23. Courtesy of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.

Thus, in the Pyramid and Coffin Texts spells dealing with the divinisation of the body parts, we find precisely a portrait of a being who incorporates all the gods of the pantheon, sometimes identified explicitly as Atum,91 and at other times only hinting at this identity through puns, e.g. ‘Complete (tm) as every god have you come into being’92 playing on the root tm, which most probably does not just denote simple totality, but more specifically a totality consisting of heterogeneous elements such as a human body or for instance ‘the complete Ennead’. A similar conception is found in Coffin Texts spell 75 where Shu stresses his coming into being inside the limbs of Atum,93 so that he can attain his role as mediator between Atum and the rest of the creation. Later on in the same spell, he accordingly claims to first create the Entourage and then setting up those who are around the shrine for Atum, Fig. 5 - Diagram of internal/external relations implied by the coffin decoration. Drawing: Henrijette Vex Nyord.

SMITH, 2008: 3. Cf. the detailed discussion by HAYS, 2012: 167ff, and note that not only the occurrence of the genitive adjective, but more generally the vast majority of the material cited in support of SMITH’s (2006) interpretation is of late date, and, more importantly, the general idea is difficult to attest in earlier times. In short, it does not seem possible to sustain a similar argument based on the pharaonic material, so that the most immediate conclusion from SMITH’s important observations would seem to be that a reinterpretation of post-mortem fates took place over the millennia. SMITH’s (2006: 336) methodological point that single interpretations covering the whole span of the ancient Egyptian history should be sought would impose a highly static view of Egyptian religion that seems unwarranted, except in cases where such continuity can be established as probable based on representative sources covering the whole chronological span. 91 Pyr. 135a-b [213]. 92 CT VI, 391h [761]. 93 CT I, 342b-346b [75]. 89 90

both no doubt references to the gods of later generations.94 Here, the way in which Atum contains within him all of the other gods is conceptualised as the relationship between a body and its parts, whereas the ‘intensive multiplicity’95 CT I, 393d-394a [75]. In the sense of philosopher Gilles Deleuze. It goes beyond the scope of this paper to explore this conceptual framework and its usability for analysing Egyptian thought more fully, and I hope to be able to do so elsewhere. For some introductory remarks on this approach, see NYORD, 2013, and for a fuller discussion of Deleuze’s notion of multiplicity, see de LANDA, 2002. 94 95

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity of gods and relations between them contained within the coffin is perhaps a slightly more abstract conceptualisation of the same basic situation.

offer a more fundamental challenge to conventional ideas about communication and representation and that we need to take up those challenges if we are to gain a fuller understanding of the way the objects were supposed to work. Such a rethinking would clearly move well beyond what it is possible to explore in a single paper of limited scope, as one would need to address questions such as Egyptian notions of representation and ritual efficacy much more broadly than just questions about coffins.

In a similar manner, the eyes on the front side of the coffin is at least once associated with the two eyes of the creator god which are at the same time the first differentiation or hypostasis of the creative act.96 Thus in the depiction shown here (Figure 4), the eyes are paralleled by the standards of the East and West presenting offerings (as the vignette is closely associated with the offering list), which in turn are labelled as the day-bark and the night-bark respectively, and the accompanying spell CT 607 stresses this link to Shu and Tefnut as the two eyes of the creator.97

As a first step in this direction, however, I have suggested some possible approaches for beginning to explore the conceptual affordances of Egyptian coffins, making use of their basic nature as impenetrable and opaque boxes which become notionally permeable by virtue of their decoration. It was seen that this fundamental set of concepts enable us to ‘think through the coffin’, drawing both on Egyptian mythological notions and the properties of the coffin as material object to arrive at analyses the terms of which are extracted from the objects themselves. In this way, painted eyes become an indicator of perceptual permeability and inchoate corporeality and being surrounded by gods can be seen as an establishment of divine relations constitutive of the identity of the body within the coffin. Apart from such concrete hermeneutical avenues opened up by the analyses suggested here, I hope also to have taken a first step towards an approach to Egyptian objects where Egyptian conceptual categories (such as the attributes of the gods in mythology) can be used to think through the inherent properties of objects such as Middle Kingdom coffins (e.g. containment and permeability) to help us re-forge our own categories to accommodate the at first sight strange and mysterious objects the Egyptians have left us.

If Atum is thus understood as a kind of superordinate category containing all the gods occurring on the coffin, this would explain the otherwise somewhat curious absence of this god from the coffin decoration. Willems tentatively suggests that the reason for this absence could be that the deceased on occasion takes on the mythological role of the sun god, and by extension also apparently that of Atum in addition to the more obvious and usual role as Osiris.98 In the view argued here, this would be essentially correct, but we can add more precisely that the deceased is Osiris when viewed from the inside of the coffin where his relationships to the other gods are external, whereas when viewed from the outside of the coffin, so that the relationships are internal, the deceased (or rather the whole ensemble) becomes Atum (Figure 5). The coffin thus oscillates between the internal Osirian perspective with external relations and the external Atum perspective with internal relations. The role played by the body and the cosmos in each case is rather different. To Osiris, the limbs are gathered and restored to life, while he is protected from Seth. The cosmic elements usually focus on journeys and cycles and cardinal correspondences. To Atum, on the other hand, the concern is with differentiation of his intensive multiplicity, often expressed in the texts as interactions with the first generation of gods who are the first to become hypostasised. The cosmos in this case is contained wholly within the god with only vague primeval exceptions such as Nun and the primeval mound. The other gods, in this conception, are differentiated on the surface of the coffin with their internal relations hidden. Due to its containing and separating structure, the Middle Kingdom coffin is able to instantiate both notions in one and same thing.

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LAPP, Günther (1993) – Typologie der Särge und Sargkammern von der 6. bis 13. Dynastie. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orient-Verlag. LAPP, Günther (1997) – The Papyrus of Nu. London: British Museum Press. EL-MASRY, Yahia (2007) – Rock-tombs from the late Old Kingdom in the 9th nome of Upper Egypt. Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 36. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag, p. 183-215 MERLEAU-PONTY, Maurice (1968) – The Visible and the Invisible. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. MESKELL, Lynn (2003) – Memory’s Materiality: Ancestral Presence, Commemorative Practice and Disjunctive Locales. In VAN DYKE, Ruth M.; ALCOCK, Susan E. eds. – Archaeologies of Memory. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Pulishers, p. 3455. MEYER-DIETRICH, Erika (2001) – Nechet und Nil: Ein ägyptischer Frauensarg des Mittleren Reiches aus religionsökologischer Sicht. Uppsala: Uppsala University. MEYER-DIETRICH, Erika (2006) – Senebi und Selbst. Personenkonstituenten zur rituellen Wiedergeburt in einem Frauensarg des Mittleren Reiches. Freiburg and Göttingen: Academic Press and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. MEYER-DIETRICH, Erika (2010) – Recitation, Speech Acts, and Declamation. In WENDRICH, Willeke, ed. – UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Los Angeles: University of California Los Angeles. NEWBERRY, Percy E. (1894) – Beni Hasan, Part II. London: Egypt Exploration Fund. NYORD, Rune (2007) – The body in the hymns to the coffin sides. Chronique d’Égypte 82, p. 5-34. NYORD, Rune (2009) – Breathing flesh: Conceptions of the body in the ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum. NYORD, Rune (2013) – Memory and succession in the City of the Dead: Temporality in the ancient Egyptian mortuary cult. In REFSLUND CHRISTENSEN, Dorte and WILLERSLEV, Rane, eds. – Taming time, timing death: Social technologies and ritual. Farnham: Ashgate, p. 195-211. OSING, Jürgen (1976) – Die Nominalbildung des Ägyptischen. Mainz: von Zabern. PEDERSEN, Morten Axel (2011) – Not quite shamans: Spirit worlds and political lives in northern Mongolia. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. PODVIN, Jean-Louis (2000) – Position du mobilier funéraire dans les tombes égyptiennes privées du Moyen Empire. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen 56, p. 277-334. Pyr. – SETHE, Kurt (1908-1922) – Die altaegyptischen Pyramidentexte nach den Papierabdrucken und Photographien des Berliner Museums. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs. RAVEN, Maarten J. (2005) – Egyptian Concepts of the Orientation of the Human Body. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 91, p. 37-53.

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Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents: social place, reuse, and working towards a new typology of 21st Dynasty coffins Kathlyn M. Cooney University of California – Los Angeles Abstract This article touches upon the overlapping ideological, economic, and political aspects of society to better understand Egyptian coffins of the 20th and 21st Dynasties. Given that coffins of this time period were created in the context of social crisis, specifically focusing on material adaptations of funerary arts, the practice of reuse must be incorporated into any study of these coffins. Coffin reuse, by extension, upsets many typological considerations, and the article ends with a preliminary attempt at social differentiation among the dataset.

To understand social power, the historian Michael Mann divided human authoritative systems into four main areas – ideological, economic, military, and political – all of which overlap, complement, and compete with one another.1 I add to Mann’s schema the notion of sexual power, which for the Egyptians was a significant force of nature and certainly a determining factor to how much social power a given person could hold. If we use this schema and examine the Egyptian coffin functionally, in terms of communicating and bestowing different kinds of social power upon the deceased (and, by extension, his family) we can recognize that although body containers may seem only religiously motivated, other social considerations came into play for the ancient Egyptians – economic, political, and gender based – none of which are mutually exclusive to religious understanding of the piece. Rather than treating each social power in isolation or elevating the importance of religion over more worldly matters, we can combine analysis of them for a fuller, holistic and social study of Egyptian funerary arts. Mann’s schema also allows us to touch upon the anthropological truth that the dead do not bury themselves.2 Many elements of the funeral were meant to be public and viewed by a mass of people. Family members used such displays to create and solidify their own social power in the world of the living. This article touches upon the overlapping ideological, economic, and political aspects of society to better understand Egyptian coffins of the 20th and 21st Dynasties.

retracted their rule to the Delta city of Tanis, leaving the rest of Egypt to work with a new system of decentralized, priestly, and even tribal, sociopolitical patterns. Economic and political disruptions were standard, and long-distance trade routes were jeopardized. To the south, in Thebes, the High Priesthood of Amen reigned in the absence of the king, relying on a hierarchy of close-knit, patriarchal families. Grain inflation was widespread, and state wages went unpaid so long that the artisans who decorated the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings went on periodic strikes in the mortuary temples of the West Bank. Mines and quarries were quiet, and the scarcity of materials like metals and wood was felt by everyone in Egypt, causing rich and poor alike to find resources however they could, including resorting to tomb robbery and coffin recycling when the dead needed a functional container for their ritual funerary transformations. Painted Egyptian coffins – particularly of the 21st Dynasty – contain a mass of religious and social data. The religious information alone can be overwhelming – much in the same way that a scene from the Book of Gates or Book of Earth in the Valley of the Kings can confound the viewer. It is easy to become ‘lost in the weeds,’ trying to puzzle through the intricacies of underworld demons, solar iconography, and secret names. And when we reach a point where we think we understand the intent of the religious text, much research stops when what is also needed is a broader perspective – to step back and focus on the social functionality of this mass of material: Why were such intricate religious compositions produced? Whom did such books serve? What were the economics of their creation?6

Robust scholarship has already advanced our understanding of events taking place at the end of the Bronze Age in Egypt, including recent studies by John H. Taylor,3 Nicholas Reeves,4 and Karl Janssen-Winkeln.5 In the 20th Dynasty, Egypt was hit with economic and political threats, the scale of which it had never seen before. Mass migrations of ‘Sea Peoples’ in the Mediterranean caused venerated dynasties to fall throughout the region. In Egypt, a series of weak kings followed Ramses III, and eventually these men

In the case of the royal underworld books, one can make the argument that the Egyptian kings were ideologically legitimized through these esoteric, profound, and highly technical religious books, placing them into a different category of human being, as a privileged individual with powers beyond humanity.7 These royal underworld texts are, by their very nature, exclusionary, meant to be more

MANN, 1986. PEARSON, 1993. 3 TAYLOR, 2000; TAYLOR, 1992; TAYLOR, 2010. 4 REEVES, 1990. 5 JANSEN-WINKELN, 1995. 1 2

For the idea of ‘functional materialism,’ see chapter 8 of COONEY, 2007. 7 HORNUNG, 1999. 6

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity complicated, intricate, and mysterious than those texts available to commoners. Royal funerary material reminded the few elites privileged to see these painted reliefs that the king belonged in the realm of the gods. The king’s tomb was meant to be a functional entrance to that divine realm and a marker of his (and his heir’s) social place. Private coffins could work in the same way, especially complicated 21st Dynasty high elite Theban coffins, in which innovative scenes compete for space with traditional iconography and texts in an arena of conspicuous ideological consumption.

political implications. Men who could not participate in the highest intellectual and ideological circles at Thebes had much less social agency, and they purchased unimpressive and bland coffins with the same old underworld texts and, often, a good deal of scribal error. Probably because of the overwhelming mass of data, previous 21st Dynasty studies have made little attempt to understand different social categories among the ancient Egyptians who could afford coffins – which coffins use complicated scenes or texts that betray higher status, which body containers belonged to individuals who aspired to such types but couldn’t afford or truly understand them, and which coffins were created by and for people who lacked the education and funds to commission high quality objects, contenting themselves with bland, quickly produced, and often inaccurate imagery and texts. Organizing 21st Dynasty coffins from this perspective could help us to understand individual agency in the context of their social place: who could push the envelope within the orthodoxies of funerary materiality? Who had only the social means to purchase the stock item, individualized only with a personal name and titles?

The creation of complicated texts and iconography in 21st Dynasty Thebes may, at its source, have been propelled forward by priestly agendas and a desire to display ideological, economic, and political power to differentiate themselves from the rest of their society. Earlier in the New Kingdom, Theban high priests may have initiated the composition of new underworld books, as their own identities were dependent on their ability to produce novel and mysterious content for the king by complicating, glossing and commenting on existing underworld books. Thus they showed their value to the king, and the king was able to differentiate himself from the rest of society by using these compositions. Once the king had retreated to his Delta court at the end of the 20th Dynasty, leaving Thebes in the hands of the Amen temple, these priests continued to use funerary texts as a means of displaying their social place – vis-à-vis one another and vis-à-vis the larger Theban population.

1. Economic considerations and the specter of reuse If we look at the human reactions to this social crisis, specifically focusing on material adaptations of funerary arts, we see people driven to steal and reuse when faced with scarcity. I am currently working through a massive and scattered dataset – 800 or so 21st Dynasty coffins spread about institutions around the world – documenting them photographically and determining if and how these objects were reused. After four seasonsof museum work, my initial findings are that more than 50% of these Theban 21st Dynasty coffins show signs of reuse, much higher than expectations and indicative of a significant collective shift amongst Theban elites in the face of economic scarcity. In other words, the numbers demonstrate a cultural agreement in the religious capital of Thebes, and almost certainly beyond, to use funerary objects on a temporary basis, rather than permanently.10

This is not to discount sincere belief in these cosmic structures on the part of the ancient Egyptians or to push for a cynical world view in which social concerns encouraged priests to manufacture silly, nonsensical claptrap for the king’s use. Indeed, all evidence suggests that there was significant faith amongst the high Egyptian priesthood, but belief is not mutually exclusive to social agendas. During the 19th Dynasty, the Amduat exploded into dozens of new forms to support the king’s funerary transformation.8 Professionalized priestly systems sustained the creation of new texts and images, and in so doing allowed some of this information to bleed over into non-royal funerary use. Indeed by the end of Dynasty 20 when there was no longer any royal burial at Thebes, the coffins of the Amen priests experienced the same kind of Renaissance that we saw earlier in Dynasty 19 for the king.9 Instead of the same standardized texts and images from coffin to coffin, there was now a new allowance for creativity in coffin decoration occurring within a fluid, decentralized and competitive social environment.

Coffin reusers employed a number of different methods to reuse an older coffin. They sometimes changed the gender of a coffin by adding breasts and earrings and removing the beard of a coffin previously made for a man (as shown by X-rays of a beard hole on a Vatican coffin), Or sometimes, they completely plastered over unfashionable, out-ofdate modeling (as visible in a plaster break in a coffin in Copenhagen). Sometimes, the reusers only redid the painting on the lid, leaving the case sides in the older style (as seen on a coffin in Florence). Numerous coffins show that only the name of the old user was scrubbed away, keeping the old decoration unchanged. Examples of such reuse are many, and I have written about them elsewhere.11

Not everyone had access to high levels of religious knowledge. Some 21st Dynasty coffins belonging to higher level Theban clergy members betray intellectualism in creative combinations and unusual motifs. Others, usually those of lower quality priests and bureaucrats, are standardized, a clear marker that ideological power had transferable economic and

COONEY, 2011. ‘Reuse of Egyptian Coffins in the 21st Dynasty: Ritual Materialism in the Context of Scarcity,’ in AMENTA (forthcoming).

10 8 9

WARBURTON, HORNUNG, 2007. NIWIŃSKI, 1987-1988.

11

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Kathlyn M. Cooney: Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents The main agenda of the reuser was to place a new body inside the older coffin so that the newly deceased could benefit from ritual transformation during funerary rites. Ideally, a reuser also wanted to veil the fact that the coffin was not newly commissioned – by redecorating the painted surfaces. Despite the lack of new sources for wood, funerary fashions continued to change at Thebes, encouraging the reuser to shave down forearms, lengthen the floral collar, add breadth to the head, and change the wig or headdress – all to keep up with the current styles of his peers. Still, some reusers were content to only change the name of the old user, in favor of the new. Indeed, many 21st Dynasty coffins show evidence of reuse that would have been clear to most in the audience of Egyptian observers at a funeral. How might it have affected the social standing of the deceased’s family to leave the name and image of the old coffin owner? Were such loose methods overlooked by other Thebans who themselves were reusing the coffins in their own family vaults?

testing indicates that the shiny yellow translucent lacquer was primarily pistacia resins,13 which were almost certainly imported from Northwest Asia. Since all the evidence indicates the certain contraction and/or destruction of such trade systems, it seems elite Thebans were dependent on the (apparently) ample varnish stores kept in Karnak temple magazines. Twenty-first Dynasty elite Theban coffins are known for their heavy use of varnish. The ability to buy, that is, having funds, was key, but social place also played a huge role in a commissioner’s choices. Ancient Egypt saw a gradient of education and literacy. Only the most educated, connected, and cosmopolitan families commissioned body containers with esoteric funerary texts and images. Lower level bureaucrats and priests seemingly had no access to such information, and their coffins betray simpler, formulaic texts available to every coffin purchaser. It is entirely plausible that a 21st Dynasty individual may have come into ample funds (through tomb robbery, perhaps?), but still had no real access to hire a high-level craftsman who understood the orthodoxies of funerary texts and scenes. Instead, such a coffin commissioner might have purchased a funerary piece with ample materials to advertise his wealth, like frit pigments, but nonetheless allowed scribal mistakes and fanciful unorthodox imagery – probably because he didn’t understand such things himself.

Military activity at the end of the Bronze Age likely diverted resources normally used for elite funerary constructions to war and defense. Political decentralization ostensibly left many workshops and apprenticeship training programs unsupported, as evidence at Deir el Medina makes clear. Material scarcity in this social context was unavoidable and part of a larger regional collapse. Political power – in particular, placement in the Amen priesthood at Thebes – determined access to scarce and reused materials. The practice of reuse effected not only the commission and style of an ideologically charged object, but how it was used ritually. Funerary reuse is evidence of creative agency that favors the short-term, ritual value of funerary objects during Dynasty 21, trumping their value as eternal objects meant to stay with one deceased individual, as might have been ideal in an elite burial of Dynasty 18. Coffin reuse, which has previously been simplified as something aberrant by Egyptologists, needs to be problematized as a creative negotiation for materiality that could override moral concerns.

Size and fit were other considerations effected by economic constraints. If new wood was unavailable and if a commissioner acquired unmatched, older coffins on the market, how were the craftsmen able to nest those coffin pieces to fit one another?14 And further, how did the craftsmen fit such an opportunistically acquired body container to the corpse, if there was no opportunity to measure the living first? Practical social and economic issues of coffin commission, construction, use, and reuse must become more a part of our study of these objects. Egyptian coffins are often understood to be the remnants of a clear and perfect expression of Egyptian religious belief and ritual practice, commissioned in advance and created for one individual for an eternal rest. Such idealism is quickly quashed by the ancient Egyptian practicality in using funerary objects for their own short term ends and even for multiple individuals during economic crisis. Coffin reuse is perhaps the most dramatic contamination of Egyptian original intent – because if a coffin can be reappropriated for another user, then we are dealing with multiple emic perspectives. We would do well to treat coffins holistically, understanding them within their rich and complicated social context(s).

At Thebes at least, because this is the only place for which we have any real data, late 20th and 21st Dynasty purchasers faced many economic realities on the funerary arts market – including unavailability of wood and the inability to afford any or all elements of a given coffin set’s creation, from wood, to plaster, to pigments, to varnish, to payments for good craftsmen. If a purchaser was able to get his hands on coffin wood at this time, he likely resorted to buying older wood, using an old family coffin, stealing an object himself, or purchasing a recommodified body container on the market. Thereafter, she would have faced another array of choices. How much more modification could she afford if an older coffin was being reworked? Could he buy expensive frit pigments, like blue and green? What about orpiment, a bright yellow arsenic based pigment known for its sparkling quality (and insecticidal properties).12 The ability to varnish one’s coffin probably depended on one’s connections to the Amen temple institution, as was so often the case for anything with material value in ancient Thebes. Chemical 12

SERPICO, WHITE, 2001. As seen in the last minute adjustments on many 21st Dynasty coffin sets, the sets of Butehamen (Turin C2237) and Sutymes (Louvre N260911) serve as examples. 13 14

LEE, QUIRKE, 2000.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity • the presence or absence of decoration on the coffin case interior • the presence or absence of forearms • the presence or absence of elbows • the length of the floral collar (the longer it is, the later the coffin • the presence or absence of decoration under the feet • the presence or absence of an orthodox Ramesside case side primary layout with Sons of Horus, Anubis, Thoth and Book of the Dead 161 • the gradient of density in the compartments and text columns on the lower lid • the presence or absence of a human wig (early) • the presence or absence of a checkered headdress (mid to late 21st Dynasty) • the presence or absence of a series of outstretched winged figures in parallel layout on the lid • the presence or absence of stola mummy bands,

2. Towards a social typology Coffin reuse in the context of economic scarcity upsets many typological considerations. How do Egyptologists understand the social place of a reused coffin? And further, how do they date a coffin that had been used two or even three times – with its first or second use? How can we separate new decoration from old decoration, if both appear on the same coffin? If we include the practical economic considerations that the ancient Egyptians certainly faced when buying coffins in a time of scarcity, then we realize that any attempt at typologizing these coffins will be complicated and challenging. René van Walsem is one of the few to attempt social categorization of 21st Dynasty coffins – because his treatment of the stola type coffin understands that only a certain social status group had access to them and that some ancient Egyptians created false stola coffins – emulative objects attempting to replicate a coffin type that they do not have the social means to recreate. Andrej Niwiński, on the other hand, prefers to date 21st Dynasty coffins chiefly by means of painted decoration.15 If a certain type of iconography appears on a given coffin, then to Niwiński, it should date after a certain time, and no earlier, discounting any possibilities of the flexibility of social place or reuse.16

If there is evidence for reuse on a given coffin, it is often very hard to ascertain the two dates, and the coffin is grouped only with the time period diagnostically represented. Rarely, if enough diagnostic material is left, it is possible to group the coffin in two time periods. Such double dating is usually only possible for reused Ramesside Period coffins.18 Most reused 21st Dynasty coffins have a break in the plaster showing older painted plaster underneath, but such fragments are hard to date.19

Perhaps we can categorize 21st Dynasty coffins into social groups, while also taking relative chronology and reuse into account? Because of the specter of reuse, I prefer to separate the pertinent time period roughly into 1) late 20th / early 21st Dynasty, 2) early 21st Dynasty, 3) mid 21st Dynasty, and 4) late 21st Dynasty.

The following table is a first, experimental attempt at a new social typology for 21st Dynasty coffins. It includes examples from each time period corresponding to the social status group, with examples proven to be reused in bold. I have only included a few coffins thus far, as this method is preliminary.

To place coffins into these rough relative dating categories, I rely on the following formal key markers:17

Sample social typology of 21st Dynasty coffins (reused examples in bold) 20th-21st Dynasty Nodjmet (Cairo CG 61024)

Early 21st Dynasty Panedjem (Cairo CG 61025)

High elite

Sutymes (Louvre N2609-11)

Nespawershefyt (Fitzwilliam E.1.1822)

Mid 21st Dynasty Late 21st Dynasty Nesykhonsu (Cairo CG Isetemkheb (Cairo CG 61030) 61031) Djedptahiuefankh (Cairo CG 61034) Tabakenkhonsu (Turin Amenemipet (BM EA 2226) 22941)

Mid elite

Butehamen (Turin C2237)

Low elite

Meretenahet (Vienna AS 6066)

Satkames (Cairo CG 61011) Tjenetentiuhereru (Louvre 13034-35) Anonymous (Copenhagen NM 3912)

Ikhy (Vatican 25035.3.1) Anonymous (Florence 2157) Anonymous (Vatican 25022)

Highest elite

Examples include the inner coffin of Susawerkhonsu (Vienna ÄS 241) with Ramesside case sides. 19 See, for example, the inner coffin of Nysupernub (Vienna ÄS 6269). Its decoration dates to the late 21st Dynasty, but it covers over a solid blue wig with gilding, dating anywhere from early to mid 21st Dynasty. 18

15 16 17

Anonymous (BM EA 24907) Anonymous (Louvre AF 9593) Anonymous (Berlin ÄM 9679)

WALSEM, 1993: 13 NIWIŃSKI, 1988. This follows WALSEM, 1993.

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Kathlyn M. Cooney: Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents

Fig. 1 - Coffin of Nodjmet (Cairo CG 61024).

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Fig. 2 – Coffin of Panedjem I (Cairo CG 61025)

Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 3 - Inner coffin of Nesykhonsu (Cairo CG 61030) 50

Kathlyn M. Cooney: Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents

Fig. 4 - Inner coffin of Isetemkheb (Cairo CG 61031)

51

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Fig. 5 – Inner coffin of Djedptahiuefankh (Cairo CG 61034) 52

Kathlyn M. Cooney: Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents

Fig. 6 – Coffin of Sutymes (Louvre N2609-11) 53

Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 7 – Mummy board of Tabakenkhonsu (Turin 2226- DSC_1421) Photographer Neil Crawford 54

Fig. 8 – Coffin of Amenemipet (BM EA 22941)

Kathlyn M. Cooney: Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents

Fig. 9 – Coffin set of Butehamen (Turin C2237) 55

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Fig. 10 – Inner coffin of Tjenetentiuhereru (Louvre 13034-35) 56

Kathlyn M. Cooney: Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents

Fig. 11 – Outer coffin of Ikhy (Vatican 25035 - DSC_4641) Photographer Neil Crawford 57

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Fig. 12 – Coffin of an anonymous woman (BM EA 24907) 58

Kathlyn M. Cooney: Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents

Fig. 13 - Louvre AF 9593

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Fig. 14 – Anonymous coffin (Florence 2157 - GYU_0860) Photographer Remy Hiramoto 60

Fig. 15 – Anonymous coffin (Florence 2157 - DSC_2783) - Photographer Neil Crawford

Kathlyn M. Cooney: Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents

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Fig. 16 – Coffin of Meretenahet (Vienna AS 6066)

62

Kathlyn M. Cooney: Ancient Egyptian funerary arts as social documents

Fig. 17 – Anonymous coffin (Copenhagen 3912)

Fig. 18– Anonymous coffin: lid (Vatican 25022 - DSC_3286) - Photographer Neil Crawford

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 19 – Anonymous coffin: lid DSC_3246 - Photographer Neil Crawford

to be assigned permanently to one deceased individual by name, and most lack names at all, as all our examples show. They also betray more innovative and unorthodox styles of scene and iconography, which do not always pull from the traditional and accepted Book of the Dead scenes, sometimes betraying naïve, ‘folk-art’ types not seen on higher elite examples.

Everyone who could afford extra commodities for a coffin counted as elite; this is an exercise of finding patterns to differenciate them . Some initial findings: There is less evidence of reuse in the higher elite examples. This does not mean that there was no reuse amongst such socioeconomic groups, just that these groups were more invested in veiling the practice. The only way to test for reuse of materials is to do Carbon-14 dating on the coffin wood, a technique I have just applied to a stola coffin in private ownership and currently on display in the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Higher elite coffins also show innovation and variety in scene choice, finding their source in the orthodox religious selections from the Book of the Dead and other Underworld Books. Mid level coffins show a more standard and banal selection of scenes and iconography from the Book of the Dead. We also see more evidence of shortcuts in mid elite coffins if a given piece is reused. For this socioeconomic group, we often see older painted decoration underneath the current layer (as on the outer coffin of Butehamen) or the inscription of a new name without removing the old one (as on the coffin set of Ikhy). The coffin of Tjenetentiuhereru retains markers of being a Ramesside coffin initially, including remains of shiny black pitch on the coffin interior, indicating that mid level elites were reusing 19th and 20th Dynasty coffins well into Dynasty 21. Lower elite coffins are less likely

This analysis is admittedly quite preliminary, but it does reveal patterns. Although Egyptologists often see the coffin’s primary function as an eternal container for the dead body, this was only a secondary purpose. Indeed, ritual activity in a public social setting was arguably the raison d’être of an Egyptian coffin. Egyptologists also expect a given coffin to follow certain stylistic rules, but those rules changed depending on the social place of the commissioner and his or her ability to pay for coffin modification. In all, the painted coffins of the 21st Dynasty was meant to provide different kinds of social power to different kinds of people. No matter how esoteric or strange or full of ‘scribal error,’ every coffin symbol or text can be linked back to its social context. Maybe if we can better understand the practices of ritual funerary transformation, coffin reuse, fashion trends, and social display, we can better understand a changing Egyptian society at the Bronze-Iron age crossroads. 64

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Fig. 20 – Anonymous coffin (Berlin 9679) 65

Body, Cosmos and Eternity TAYLOR, John H., (2010) - Changes in the Afterlife. In WENDRICH, Willeke, ed. - Egyptian Archaeology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, p. 220-40 TAYLOR, John H., (2000) - The Third Intermediate Period (1069-664 BC). In SHAW, Ian, ed. - The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press. WALSEM, René van (1993) - The Study of 21st Dynasty Coffins from Thebes. Bibliotheca Orientalis 50, p. 9-92. WARBURTON, David; Erik HORNUNG (2007) - The Egyptian Amduat : the Book of the Hidden Chamber. Zurich: Living Human Heritage Publ. WHITE, M.; SERPICO, R. (2001) - The Use and Identification of Varnish on New Kingdom Funerary Equipment. In DAVIES, W. - Colour and Painting in Ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Press, p. 3342.

Bibliography COONEY, Kathlyn M. (2011) - Changing burial practices at the end of the Ramesside Period: Evidence of Tomb Commissions, Coffin Commissions, Coffin Decoration, Mummification and the Amen Priesthood. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 47, p. 3-44. COONEY, Kathlyn M. (2007) - The Cost of Death: The Social and Economic Value of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Art in the Ramesside Period. Leiden: Egyptologische Uitgaven 22, Netherlands Institute of the Near East. COONEY, Kathlyn M. (2014) - Reuse of Egyptian Coffins in the 21st Dynasty: Ritual Materialism in the Context of Scarcity. In AMENTA, Alessia; GRECO, Christian; GUICHARD, Hélène, coords. - Proceedings of the First Vatican Coffin Conference. Forthcoming. COONEY, Kathlyn M. (2014) - Textual Evidence from Western Thebes for Funerary Arts Reuse and Usurpation. In TOIVARI-VIITALA, Jaana, ed. - Deir el Medina Studies: Helsinki, Finland 24th - 26th of June 2009. Helsinki: Helsinki University. Forthcoming. GRAEBER, David (2001) - Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of our own Dreams. New York: Palgrave. HORNUNG, Erik (1999) - The ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. JANSEN-WINKELN, Karl (1995) - Die Plünderung der Königsgräber des Neuen Reiches. Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 122, p. 62-78. LEE, Lorna; QUIRKE, Stephen (2000) - Painting Materials. In SHAW, Ian; NICHOLSON, Paul eds. - Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 104-20 MANN, Michael (1986) - The Sources of Social Power. Vol.1: A history of Power from the Beginning to A.D.1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1988) - Twenty-first Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies. Mainz am Rhein: Phillip von Zabern. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1987-1988) - The Solar-Osirian Unity as principle of the Theology of the ‘State of Amen’ in Thebes in the 21st Dynasty. Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux 30, p. 89-107. PEARSON, Mike Parker (1993) - The Powerful Dead: Archaeological Relationships between the Living and the Dead. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3, no. 2, p. 203-29. REEVES, Nicholas (1990) - Valley of the Kings. The Decline of a Royal Necropolis. London: Kegan Paul International. TAYLOR, John H. (1992) - Aspects of the History of the Valley of the Kings in the Third Intermediate Period. In REEVES, Nicholas, ed. - After Tut`ankhamun. Research and Excavation in the Royal Necropolis at Thebes. London: Kegan Paul International.

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Representations of passage in ancient Egyptian iconography Éva Liptay Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest Abstract The following study discusses and interprets some iconographic solutions in Egyptian two-dimensional art which were applied when the intent was to display the process of passage from one sphere or state of being to the other. The discussed material evidently shows that the way in which this passage, invisible to human eyes, occurs was regarded to be of key importance in order to get a better understanding of the whole process. Four characteristic modes of representation of these symbolic contents will be presented from Old Kingdom to Late Period mortuary and temple ritual contexts.

What takes place between ‘here’ and ‘there’ and how can the essence of this liminal state be captured and displayed as a pictorial representation? Can it be imagined as a flash of moment, as a plurality of successive moments, or perhaps as states of being or stations melting into each other? What kind of answers could be given to this question by ancient Egyptian art within its strict artistic conventions?

The white garments of the female participants of this world are in sharp contrast to the black coloured figures of the deceased and his son in contact with one another in a liminal sphere, at the threshold of the netherworld. The boundaries of this liminal zone are designated by the platform and the black colour. This type of representation evokes some scenes appearing in contemporaneous mortuary iconography at Thebes where the deceased are depicted in the same way, in their ‘shadow’ aspect, standing at the entrance of the tomb;2 in a liminal state directly before rebirth or transfiguration. According to these representations, at the moment of their leaving the tomb, the shadow aspect of the personality of the deceased is closely associated with and regularly encountered by the bird-shaped ba as well as with its capability for free movement between the divine world and the beyond.3 In two much later scenes on a coffin from the Roman Period, the figures of the deceased are displayed in the same way (painted black) as lying on the funerary bier and as ritually purificated.4

1. Colour symbolism: The ‘shadow’ aspect of the personality Opportunities for communication between the living and the dead were provided in rituals of the mortuary and ancestor cults. The contact itself was sometimes represented in unusual ways which leaves no doubt that the artist was not only very well aware of the uniqueness of the moment, but intentionally drew attention to it with a special and striking manner of representation. In an offering scene represented on the long side of a wooden box from the second half of the reign of Amenhotep III,1 Perpawty (the owner of the Theban tomb where the object was once placed as an item of burial equipment) is sitting before an offering table. The chair of the deceased and the offering table heaped with food stand upon a low black platform. The standing figure of the son of Perpawty, Patjuwy is represented on the same platform, on the opposite side of the offering table. Somewhat behind him, Tjat and Kedy, the daughters of the deceased are approaching in white festive dresses.

Returning now to our starting point: the 18th Dynasty representation shows that- in order to communicate successfully- entering the divine sphere of the revered dead ancestor (father) requires a temporary transfiguration or assimilation of the performer of the offering ritual. The ancient Egyptian artist was able to express the complex symbolism of this temporary transfiguration and transgression merely by using an unusual colour code which not only refers to the divine state, but also conveys the capability of free passage to and from different spheres.

What makes the display unusual is the colour code of the two male participants of the represented event. Father and son in communication are represented painted entirely black, only the whites of their eyes are indicated, creating a visually expressive display. However, in addition, quite surprisingly the lotus flower held in the hand of the deceased and the offering table with the offerings are of the same colour as the two figures. Consequently, in this particular case, the difference between the spheres of the living and the dead is marked by a special colour code.

2. Breaking through the boundary lines Presenting the lotus flower There are compositions as early as the Old Kingdom which use quite different means to represent the passage between the spheres of the living and the dead. One of the frequently appearing motifs of the Old Kingdom tombs is KISCHKEWITZ, 1972: no. 21. SALEH, 1984: 53, Abb. 60 and 62 (Chapter 92 of the Book of the Dead); LEKOV, 2010; TAYLOR, 2010a: 164. 4 TAYLOR, 2010b: fig. 14. 2

Durham University Oriental Museum, no. N.1460 = KOZLOFF, BRYAN, 1992: 285–287 (No. 53); HOFMANN, 2003: 147 and 148, Abb. 1.

1

3

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Fig. 1 - Junker, 1943: Abb. 13

the figure of the tomb owner sitting before the offering table, while receiving, holding or smelling a lotus flower.5 5

In some versions the receiver of this symbolic offering is seated under a roofed construction (kiosk, canopy or tent), the walls of which definitely mark off the boundaries of the sacred space around the dead ancestor. These walls clearly

PIEKE, 2006.

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Éva Liptay: Representations of passage in ancient Egyptian iconography separate him from the much smaller figures of the offerers and the offerings outside his divine sphere. The larger figure, who is occasionally represented in the company of his wife within the kiosk, is seated in an arm-chair. He receives the lotus flower with his left hand, while holding a flail in the right. The central motif of the version where the lotus is presented to the tomb owner is the elaborate and sometimes unnaturally large-sized flower.

represented symbols, undoubtedly show the transfigured state of the deceased who - despite the fact that he had departed - retained his respectable position within his family/community.10 Consequently, the protagonist of the scene is the deceased ancestor who not only participates at the earthly feast, but has a central role in the represented liminal situation. Board game between the living and the dead

In some 5th–6th Dynasty tombs at Gizeh,6 the presentation of the lotus flower is displayed in an unusual way (Figure 1): the offerer (i.e. the oldest son) hands over the gift from outside the kiosk, while the seated figure receives it with his outstretched hand through the wall of the kiosk; the lotus flower itself is half inside and half outside, in a liminal state. Contrary to our expectations, however, the large figure in the kiosk, to whom the offering is presented, is not the owner of the tomb, but his father, while the tomb owner himself seems to play the role of the offerer in this context. Consequently, there is an additional artistic convention that is ignored here: contrary to the general rule applied in Old Kingdom mortuary iconography, the largest figure of the scene is not the tomb owner, but his ancestor represented within the sacred sphere of the kiosk.7

In one of the scenes of the mastaba of Kaemankh at Giza (Figure 2) the deceased, wearing a festive garment, can be seen in a very similar situation (seated in the armchair, holding a flail in his left hand), in the kiosklike construction, in the company of his wife. In front of the kiosk, between the figures of harpers and a group of singers and dancers, sits a person playing a board game (senet) with Kaemankh himself.11 Both the topic and the iconography of the scene strongly resemble the above discussed ‘lotus presentation’ of the tomb of Seshemnefer III; in fact it is a special variant of that scene type which applies the same iconographic solution. One end of the board, with the game pieces, protrudes into the sphere of the kiosk, while the fingers of the hand of Kaemankh’s fingers touching a piece stick out from the frame of the kiosk.

Additional figures, like other members of the family, dancers and musicians (regularly with harpers among them) make the ceremonial context of the scene obvious. This feastive occasion conveying regeneration symbolism is clearly associated with the mortuary or ancestor cult. During the feast the tomb owner, standing at the threshold of transfiguration/rebirth after death, presents offerings to the protagonist and key figure of the feast, a previously departed and transfigured member of the family (e.g. his father).8

The senet game is a frequently appearing motif in Old Kingdom mastabas of the Memphite necropoleis. That is, in connection with the secondary characters, who are usually represented with the game board, except in the mortuary chapel of Mereruka in Saqqara where the owner of the tomb himself plays the game with his son or attendant/official. Probably that was the pattern followed by the now discussed unusual version displayed in the tomb of Kaemankh.12

The contact of the living with the dead obviously implies the transgression of the boundaries which separate the two spheres from each other. The representation of this transgression seems to have required special, unusual solutions in ancient Egyptian iconography. (The scene itself could have conveyed the same symbolism without these unusual details, but it must have been more emphatic like this.) The gesture of the ancestor figure ‘coming through’ the borderlines of his medium (i.e. through the wall of his kiosk) may have made it apparent for the ancient spectator (initiated into the symbolism of this context) that this was a representation of the border crossing at a liminal stage. Furthermore, the unusual size of the tomb owner compared to his ancestor clearly indicates the nature of the cultic event and places it within the context of ancestor cults.9 The iconographic motifs of the scene together with the

In an excerpt from the Coffin Texts, in which the crossing between this world and the other by a barque is allowed after an initial rite, by a favourable judgement of the netherworldly court,13 a very similar situation is evoked which sheds some light on the symbolism of our scene. Let him sing and dance and receive ornaments, let him play draughts with those who are on earth, may his voice be heard even though he is not seen; let him go to his house and inspect his children for ever and ever.14 10 FITZENREITER, 2001a: 81–83; FITZENREITER, 2001b: 431–436. Similar complex symbolism is conveyed by the Old Kingdom motif of the ‘presentation of the scroll’ which is an additional (iconographic) manifestation of the communication between two spheres, making obvious at the same time that the matters recorded in the presented scroll continue to be at the disposal of its recipient, i.e. the deceased/tomb owner: DER MANUELIAN, 1996: 561–588; ALTENMÜLLER, 1978: Abb. 3. 11 JUNKER, 1940: 35–40; ALTENMÜLLER, 1978: 15–16; WIEBACH, 1986: 274, Abb. 1.; FITZENREITER, 2001a: 122 and Abb. 7a; FITZENREITER, 2000: 80, Abb. 4. 12 HARPUR, 1987: 111–112. 13 ASSMANN, 1989: 144–152. 14 Coffin Texts Spell 405 (CT V 210a–c; translated by R.O. FAULKNER): MÜLLER, 1972: 110–111; ALTENMÜLLER, 1978: 15–16; PICCIONE,

Giza, Western Cemetery, from where the iconography of the discussed version of the presentation of the lotus flower seems to originate: HARPUR, 1987: plan 16 (Iymery), 28 (Abdu), 56 and 95 (Neferbauptah), 58 (Seshemnefer II), 67 (Seshemnefer III), 100 (Iazen), 103 and fig. 58 (Nefer I); PIEKE, 2006: 268–269, 276–278 (Nr. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21). 7 PIEKE, 2006: 272–274. 8 HELAL-GIRET, 1997: 257–261; ALTENMÜLLER, 2008: 17–28. 9 FITZENREITER, 2008: 78 (Abb.2b), 79 and 97. 6

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Fig. 2 - Junker, 1940: Abb. 9

the deceased leaves the mummified body in order to join the divine world.17 A passage of the Pyramid Texts clearly refers to this complex association:

Symbols of passage in the Old Kingdom scene of the feast Lotus flower The (blue) lotus and generally the scent of flowers have similar connotations to that of incense offering, highlighting their mediator role played during rites of passage.15 The scene of presenting, receiving and smelling the lotus flower in Old Kingdom mortuary iconography evokes the moment of the ritual (during the feasts) when the gates of the netherworld are opened in order that the deceased can temporarily return home into the circle of his family. In this situation the lotus flower is the symbol of the passage and communication between the two spheres. On the other hand, in New Kingdom mortuary iconography, the figure of the deceased smelling a lotus flower can be associated with his or her special position (as Ax iqr), i.e. a honourable transfigured ancestor who were believed effective mediators between the living and the dead.16

…and I ascend on the smoke of the great censing. I fly up as a bird and alight as a beetle.18 Additionally, it is worth mentioning another passage of the Pyramid Texts where the deceased ruler is raised to the sky by Nut, Shu and Tefnut, with the help of burning incense.19 Senet game The word senet is derived from the verb sn ‘to cross (a border)’. In the Book of the Day version of the tomb of Ramesses VI it refers to a netherworldly passage which is discussed there in association with the defeat of the Apophis snake (and perhaps becomes accessible after having overcome this cosmic enemy).20

According to the ancient Egyptian belief system, the rising smoke and the strong scent can reach and penetrate into divine and netherworldly territories, thus creating a ‘sensory bridge’ between various spheres of the universe. Scents and offering incense ascending to heaven could metaphorically evoke both the rebirth of the sun god as a winged scarab at dawn and the moment when the ba of

The spells of Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead enable the deceased to ‘go out into the day, taking any shape in which he desires to be, playing senet, sitting in a booth, and going forth as a living soul’.21 Some vignettes of the chapter occurring in various New Kingdom tombs depict

1994: 197–198. 15 WIEBACH, 1986: 273; MANNICHE, 1997: 29–35. 16 FITZENREITER, 2001a: 119 and n. 14; ALTENMÜLLER, 2008: 21–22.

18

WIEBACH, 1986: 277. Pyr. Utt. 267 (§ 365), translated by R.O. FAULKNER. 19 WIEBACH, 1986: 277. 20 MÜLLER-ROTH, 2008: 206–214. 21 PICCIONE, 1994: 198. 17

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Éva Liptay: Representations of passage in ancient Egyptian iconography the deceased in the company of his wife sitting in front of a richly laden offering table, while playing senet.22

parts of the ritual act which takes place on earth, while its protagonist’s presence is only symbolic or imaginary at the event. During this joint appearance the symbols of the communication, which was mediated between the living and dead participants by the scents, music, game play and other elements of the ritual performance, have a prominent role in the scenes. The noteworthy and unusual iconographic solutions are intended to emphasise the complex symbolism of this situation; i.e. the possibilities for the joint appearance and interaction of the two spheres in a liminal space of the rite of passage.

In the New Kingdom sources the symbolism of the senet game is obvious; it is played against an invisible opponent, and its course models the nocturnal journey of the sun god through the netherworld. That is this divine pattern which is intended to be followed by the deceased in order that he or she can achieve the same divine fate; i.e. rebirth/ transfiguration.23 On the other hand, as early as the Old Kingdom scenes the senet game already seems to have served as a means of communication between the living and the dead in the course of the rituals performed during Hathoric feasts. The game may have had the same goal as the performed songs and dances did, i.e. to make smoother the journey of the deceased and his/her temporary return/sojourn among the living.24

Breaking through the boundaries of the sky There exist other patterns in ancient Egyptian religious iconography which convey and express their symbolic meanings by intentionally ignoring the same artistic convention; i.e. the borderlines of the pre-drawn frames of the composition. In his study published in 2002,27 D. Budde discusses the complex symbolism of the representations of the divine headdress composed of the Double Feather Crown (qA Swty), especially in the scenes where the headdress worn by the cosmic god extends beyond the upper frame of the composition associated with the sky (as goddess). In this case, breaking through the boundary lines symbolises the occupation of the celestial realm of the sky (goddess) by the omnipotent cosmic god.

Harp The harp in itself symbolises the music and dance performed during the discussed festive event which provided an opportunity for the communication between the living and the dead. In some Old Kingdom tombs the text of the song performed by the harpists is also recorded, according to which the deceased was urged to come back to his relatives on this occasion. According to these textual sources Hathor had a prominent role in the deceased’s return from the netherworld; she was believed to wake him up from his ‘sleep’ and to open ‘the gates of heaven’ for the passenger.25

Presumably the same semantic meaning of the Double Feather Crown appearing primarily in a temple context has been transformed into a three-dimensional form on the inner decoration of a late Libyan Period anthropoid coffin.28 Here the inner decoration of the lower part of the coffin displays as usual the figure of the sky goddess. However, above the head of the goddess the upper half of a Double Feather Crown appears just as it penetrates the sky. Rather oddly, the lower half of the same crown is placed on top of an Abydos fetish represented on the inner decoration of the lid. This means that the figure of the fetish begins on the lower part of the coffin only to continue on the upper, creating a very unusual and exciting composition.

The music, songs, and scent of lotus along with the senet game are the means of communication with the deceased ancestor. As the above cited excerpt from the Coffin Texts26 testifies, the text of the song wakes him up and ‘lures’ him across the liminal zone and through the borderline in order that he can be present invisibly but audibly at the ritual. The Old Kingdom ritual scene In the scenes depicting the discussed feast the moments of border crossing between the two spheres are represented as an alternative reality in which the living and the dead can take part side by side in the same space and at the same time, but well separated from each other. All the dance, music and adorning of the deceased with ornaments are

In certain cases (in iconographic as well as textual sources) the Double Feather Crown is replaced by another symbol of power, the wrrt-crown or the Atf-crown.29 Perhaps similar connotations can be linked to the compositions where the sun disc placed upon the ram-headed cosmic god breaks through the symbol of the sky represented above.30 A further development of the same motif can be seen in the scene of the Main ceiling of Corridor G in the tomb of Ramesses VI,31 where the sun disc is surmounted by the

SALEH, 1984: 14–17; SCHMIDT, 1995: 242–243. PUSCH, 1984: 852; PICCIONE, 1994: 197–204. See also a 21st Dynasty reinterpretation of the same motif in a similar context, on a coffin: GASSE, 1996: pl. XXX,1. 24 PICCIONE, 1994: 198. 25 ALTENMÜLLER, 1978: 21–22. According to Hartwig ALTENMÜLLER (1978: 23) in these Old Kingdom scenes depicting the offering of the lotus flower (as well as the version with the senet game) similar ceremony is evoked as the Beautiful Valley of the Feast known from later records. It is Hathor who provides the opportunity for the passage between the earthly and otherworldly regions by opening the gates through which one can pass back and forth. See also: KLOTZ, 2006: 279; HARTWIG, 2004: 11–13; 98–103. 26 See n. 14. 22 23

BUDDE, 2002. Louvre E 5534: SCHULZ, SEIDEL, 1997: 429, Abb. 20; TAYLOR, 2007: 412. 29 BUDDE, 2002: 99. See also GOEBS 2008, 40–41, 83–89. 30 See e.g. the well-known scene from the tomb of Queen Nofertari: HORNUNG, 1982: 184. See also the similarly positioned ram-head with sun disc upon the Atf-crown of the royal figure in the Enigmatic Scene of the tomb of Ramesses IX: GUILMANT, 1907: pl. LXXVII. 31 PIANKOFF, 1954: fig. 139. 27 28

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Fig. 3 - Niwiński, 1999: fig. 32. Courtesy of Andrzej Niwiński head of the ram god, while from its lower part a scarab is creeping out, pushing the sun disc with its front legs.

and netherworldly regions from where the half depicted figure is emerging (as if he came forth directly from the earth below the coffin), lifting the sun disc35 or the sun barque36 in his arms (Figure 3).37 On the specimens of 21st Dynasty Theban coffin type the motif of the emerging god can be interpreted in the horizontal position of the anthropoid coffin. However, the symbolism of a later version of the same divine figure (similarly displayed as emerging from the bottom of the coffin) works if the anthropoid coffin is erected in a standing position.38 Consequently, the position of the figure ‘coming out from the bottom of the coffin’ (i.e. emerging from the depths of the chthonic spheres) depends on which surface/edge of the coffin was intended to be in contact with the ground during the mortuary rites.

3.Half or partly depicted figures in a liminal stage Divine figure emerging from the Primeval Water or from the solar disc Half depicted figures are often shown when the first moments of the creation of the universe are to be represented. Presumably the most frequently appearing pattern is the motif of the Schlußszene of the Book of the Gates with the figure of Shu half-emerging from the Primeval Water, while lifting the sun disc in his arms. Additionally, it is also worth mentioning its later versions that seem to follow the same iconographic tradition, through transplanting it into the new standardised version of vignette 15 of the Book of the Dead.32 In these later versions the motif expresses a crucial moment in the course of the sun god’s journey when he is just crossing the border between the netherworld and the celestial regions, thus seeming to imply both the rising and the setting phases of the sun.33

Other half depicted divine figures also occur in the iconographic repertoires of New Kingdom royal tombs/ Netherworld Books. These examples provide creative patterns for representation of figures in the state of coming forth/being reborn, e.g. the sun god coming into existence from a crocodile-shaped divine image manifesting the corpse of Osiris.39

In 21st Dynasty Theban coffin iconography, the symbolism of the motifs regularly appearing along the sides of the box is associated with the cosmic geography represented by the coffin itself. The foot end of the case manifests the West and the same part was thought to be directly connected to the Netherworld.34 Sometimes the bottom of the coffin box itself seems to embody the borderline between the earthly

DARESSY, 1909: 159, pl. LII; HORNUNG, 1979: Abb. 17; NIWIŃSKI, 1995: fig. 48; SCHMIDT, 1919: fig. 799 = GASSE, 1996: pl. XXVIII, 1. 36 NIWIŃSKI, 1999: fig. 33. See the same motif on 21st Dynasty funerary papyri: PIANKOFF, RAMBOVA, 1957: pl. 30; ANDRZEJEWSKI, 1959: pl. 3; NIWIŃSKI, 1995: fig. 43; and a special version of the same symbolism: LIPTAY (forthcoming). 37 I am thankful to Prof. Andrzej Niwiński for permitting me to use his drawings (figs 3–7 of this study). 38 BARGUET, 1962: fig. Pl. I–II; Les Portes du Ciel, 2007: no. 65. 39 MANNASSA, 2007: 310 and n. 146; ROBERSON, 2012: 209–212. 35

BUDEK, 2008. BUDEK, 2008: 25. 34 GASSE, 1996: pl. XXX, 1. 32 33

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Fig.4 - Niwiński 1989: fig. 42. Courtesy of Andrzej Niwiński

Fig. 5 - Niwiński 1995: fig. 55. Courtesy of Andrzej Niwiński

There are two additional patterns which are also worth mentioning here: i.e. the motif of the solar scarab coming forth from the sun disc/pupil of the Solar Eye. The sun disc/pupil can be identified with the netherworld, from which the sun god’s manifestation of dawn (in the shape of a scarab) comes into existence.40 The same pattern was sometimes used in Theban mortuary iconography during the 21st–22nd Dynasties41 (Figure 4).

context of the royal regeneration rituals as rites of passage associated with the image of the sun god descending at dusk in order to regenerate during the nocturnal journey through the netherworld. The cow-shaped goddess coming forth from the mountain As mentioned above, in 21st Dynasty Theban coffin iconography the foot end represents a gate providing a passage between the earthly and otherwordly territories.43 The most frequently appearing motif on the foot end of the 21st Dynasty Theban coffin type was that of the half or partly depicted body of the cow-shaped Hathor in the moment of her coming forth from the western mountain (Figure 5).

The frequently occurring motif of the winged sun disc also has a special kind of representation when only one of its wings is depicted. According to a recent study by Claire Derriks,42 this version can always be associated with the liminal stage of the depicted events; i.e. the cosmic See also WAITKUS, 2002: 378–380. See e.g. PIANKOFF, RAMBOVA, 1957: pl. 19. See also: LIPTAY, 2006b: 14–23. 42 DERRIKS, 2009. Cf. the 21st Dynasty versions of the motif, e.g. NIWIŃSKI, 1999: fig. 133. Cf. also with the wDAt-eye with one wing in the same period: e.g. NIWIŃSKI, 1995: fig. 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 25, 34, 38, 59, pl. 46., etc. 40 41

The origin of the concept and motif of the divine cow coming out of the mountain is deeply rooted in the cults 43

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MANNASSA, 2007: 452.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity practiced in the Hathor sanctuaries on the Western hillside of Thebes.44 The iconographic motif primarily denoted the relationship between the king and the divine mother venerated in the local Hathor cult. During the 18th Dynasty the iconographic pattern was transformed into a private votive context (occurring on painted textiles and stela). Correspondingly, its connotations left the royal cult sphere and started to focus on the relationship between the cult statue and the private participants of the cult. The new context also brought major changes in the representation; the three-dimensional cult statue started to be depicted in two-dimensional form. These iconographic and semantic changes led to the abstraction of the motif, i.e. the creation of a new scene depicting the divine emanation (not so definitely identified with the cult statue anymore) in the very moment of her appearance. By a further functional shift, the motif was put in practice in a private mortuary context (in private tombs and in funerary papyri) in Thebes and the scene became one of the ideal patterns of the predestination of the deceased in the Beyond. While on the one hand the motif undoubtedly alludes to an actual geographical route of the real mortuary ritual to the entrance of the tomb, this change in the context made it possible to interpret the motif on a cosmic level as well. The scene gradually became the representation of the key moment of the netherworldly journey when the deceased is received by the goddess at the gate of the realm of the dead.

Fig.6 - Niwiński 1999: fig. 76

the mountain became a regularly recurring, standard motif on contemporary Theban anthropoid coffins.

The abstract symbolism of the half-emerged divine body in a mortuary context became an artistic device to further emphasise the liminal phase of the events. This attitude of ‘partly/half emerging’ was apt for intensifying the transformative aspects of the decoration by representing the most crucial phase of the story. This key event was the very moment of passing over the borders between this world and the next in the sense of a rite de passage45 when the conveyed meaning of the abstract symbolism was of a primary importance.

In the same period, in some versions of the scene, besides the original version with the figure of the cow, other symbols and entities (e.g. Nun or Shu lifting the solar disc at the moment of creation;46 the rising sun;47 the first lotus flower emerging from the Primeval Water48; the mummified deceased,49 and other chthonic beings50) are represented in the same way, as their half depicted bodies are emerging from the mountain (Figure 5). The motif of the night barque represented in the same position, i.e. half emerged from the western mountain,51 is the reinterpretation of the Schlußszene of the Book of Caverns with the human-shaped figure of Atum accompanied by a goose in the prow of the solar barque (Figure 6).

The western mountain as a general symbol of passage During the 21st Dynasty the motif remained a part of the Theban private mortuary cult sphere, but, by a further transfer, it began to be used in a new sacred space, i.e. on the sides of wooden coffin boxes. That was the period when the motif and concept obviously reached its peak in popularity: the scene of the cow goddess emerging from

Finally, in some peculiar cases, the western horizon is identified with the foot end of the coffin box itself, so that its drawing continues beyond the borderline of the scene to the edge of the bottom.52 Thus one can conclude that the E.g. REFAI, 2007: Abb. 9 = CHASSINAT, 1903: Taf. III; REFAI, 2007: Abb. 10 = PIANKOFF, RAMBOVA, 1957: no. 3, no. 6, and c.f. no. 16; SCHMIDT, 1919: fig. 852; NIWIŃSKI, 1995: fig. 53, etc. 47 E.g. BRUNNER-TRAUT, BRUNNER, 1981: Taf. 110. 48 E.g. SCHMIDT, 1919: fig. 852 = HORNUNG, 1979: Abb. 20 = REFAI, 2007: Abb. 6. 49 E.g. NIWIŃSKI, 2004: fig. 183, pl. XXXVII.1. 50 E.g. SCHMIDT, 1919: fig. 799 = GASSE, 1996: pl. XXVIII, 1. 51 ANDRZEJEWSKI, 1959: pl. 2. See also NIWIŃSKI, 1999: fig. 41, fig. 76 and pl. XV. 52 SCHULZ, SEIDEL, 1997: 476–477, Abb. 99. 46

PINCH, 1993: 175–179; BLUMENTHAL, 2000; PISCHIKOVA, 2008; LIPTAY, 2012. 45 HARTWIG, 2004: 119; WIEBACH, 1984: 270–271. A 21st Dynasty version of the motif represents the deceased as proceeding to the cow goddess accompanied by a vulture-headed psychopompos between two snakes called ‘doors’ (aAw or aAwy; i.e. the gates of the netherworld): CHASSINAT, 1909: 21–22, fig. 23. Snakes as gate keepers traditionally symbolise the passage between the two spheres. For vulture-headed chthonic beings as psychopompi, see GOFF, 1979: 244 and fig. 157. 44

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Fig. 7 - Niwiński 1995: fig. 100 mountain of the western horizon (and the foot end of the anthropoid coffin) started to act as a universal symbol of passage between the mundane and otherworldly spheres which makes it an iconographic topos of the 21st Dynasty.53

have inspired the later representations of the cow-goddess emerging from the reeds/western mountain/netherworld.

Iconographic antecedents of the cow motif

A peculiar diagonally positioned ithyphallic divine figure dominates the closing scene of a 21st Dynasty funerary papyrus preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest.57 The motif was inspired by and transferred from the socalled ‘Enigmatic scene’ of the tomb of Ramesses IX.58 The existence of two additional 21st Dynasty interpretations of the same exceptional royal motif has been verified by J.C. Darnell earlier.59 (Figure 4)

4. Cosmic god in diagonal position

The motif of ‘the cow coming forth from the mountain’ neither uses colour symbolism nor breaks through any borderline of the scene in order to signify the change of state in progress or to express the process of passage, but applies an additional artistic means, i.e. partly or half depicted figures. The abstract symbolism of the only half emerged divine images/figures is appropriate to convey the liminality of the situation (i.e. the divine emanation) as a rite of passage.

The god can be identified as the creator on the eastern horizon at the moment of his rebirth. He is in possession of all his abilities by means of which he will become the creator and lord of the universe. He is about to emerge from the netherworld, at the entrance of the horizon, between heaven and earth, in a kind of liminal stage between here and there.

One can find an interesting precursor of this artistic method of representation at Tell el-Amarna, where an ox is in the act of walking through a gate: the front part of its body is just through, while the hind part is still outside and the middle part is hidden by the entrance.54 However, a real iconographic antecedent of the cow scene can be found in Old Kingdom private tombs among the scenes of daily life where ‘the herd is leaving the wetland marshes of the Nile Delta to gain the higher grazing grounds during the time of annual inundation’.55 The cattle coming out from the reeds are represented as being up to their necks in water, while crocodiles are hiding in the depths threatening to attack one of the animals any moment. The beast invisibly submerged in water symbolised the dangers of chaos to be checked and averted by magical power. In other versions of the fording scene-type the cows are coming forth from the marshes with half their bodies still under water. Their figures and attitudes obviously allude to the creative and motherly aspects of the cow-shaped Hathor,56 thus may

The diagonally positioned figure of the god presumably aims to express the transitional stage of the ‘threshold person’. He has already awakened from death, but the act of creation itself has not yet been accomplished. The creative darkness of this transitional stage credits and at the same time guarantees the ultimate triumph over all obstacles.60 Another frequently occurring motif of the 21st Dynasty Theban funerary papyri and coffins is the scene of Osiris, just awakened and rising from his funerary bier (Figure 7) which pars pro toto alludes to the peak point (and

LIPTAY, 2006 a and b. HORNUNG, 1987: 226–237; DARNELL, 2004: 276–373; LIPTAY, 2006a and 2006b; LIPTAY, 2011: 95–97. 59 DARNELL, 2004: 401 and 417–418. 60 VAN DER VLIET, 1988: 411. 57

LIPTAY, 2012: 172. 54 SCHÄFER, 1986: 134–136, fig. 116b. 55 ARNOLD, 2008: 2–6. 56 ARNOLD, 2008: 4 and 17 (fig. 5). 53

58

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity hoped-for outcome) of the Stundenwachen rites.61 The 21st Dynasty versions were most probably modelled after the patterns appearing in Theban Ramesside royal tombs.

Moreover, the complex symbolism of these scenes was thought and meant to magically promote the positive outcome of the represented process. The intermediary state of the represented figures suggested and at the same time guaranteed the irreversibility of the progress. The representation itself was able to magically ensure the communication between the living and the dead; to open the entrance into the divine or chthonic spheres; to guarantee the rebirth of the cosmic deity; i.e. ultimately the cyclical regeneration of the universe.

In the version of Ramesses VI,62 above the figure of the awakening Osiris a large-sized, horizontal rs sign has been placed63 which refers to the divine quality rs-wDA (‘The entirely/intact awakened one’) characterising the creator god at the moment of his rebirth.64 One of the adopters of the above mentioned motif of the diagonally positioned ithyphallic god of the ‘Enigmatic scene’ of the tomb of Ramesses IX, however, applies the same divine title as an epithet of the diagonal divine figure.65 This indicates that the diagonally positioned divine figure as well as the one rising up from the funerary bed, are attributed with the same divine quality (rs-wDA). The title alludes to two principal stages of the revivification of Osiris/the deceased: the awakening and getting up from a recumbent position.

Bibliography ABITZ, Friedrich (1989) – Baugeschichte und Dekoration des Grabes Ramses’ VI (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, 89). Freiburg, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. ALTENMÜLLER, Hartwig (1978) – Zur Bedeutung der Harfenlieder des Alten Reiches. Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 6, p. 1-24. ALTENMÜLLER, Hartwig (2008) – Väter, Brüder und Götter. Bemerkungen zur Szene der Übergabe der Lotusblüte. In SPIEKERMANN, Antje, ed. – ‘Zur Zierde gereicht…’. Festschrift Bettina Schmitz zum 60. Geburtstag am 24. Juli 2008 (Hildesheimer Ägyptologische Beiträge 50). Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, p. 17-28. ANDRZEJEWSKI, Tadeusz (1959) – Le papyrus mythologique de Te-hem-en-Mout (Musée National de Varsovie, no 199 628). Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk – Paris: Mouton & Co, La Haye. ARNOLD, Dorothea (2008) – Egyptian Art – A Performing Art? In D’AURIA, Sue, ed. – Servant of Mut. Studies in Honor of R.A. Fazzini (Probleme der Ägyptologie 28). Leiden, Boston: Brill, p. 1-17. ASSMANN, Jan (1989) – Death and Initiation in the Funerary Religion of Ancient Egypt. In SIMPSON, William K., ed. – Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt (Yale Egyptological Studies 3). New Haven: Yale University, p. 135-159. ASSMANN, Jan (2002) – Altägyptische Totenliturgien 1. Totenliturgien in den Sargtexten des Mittleren Reiches. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. BARGUET, Paul (1962) – Une liste des pehou d’Égypte sur un sarcophage du Musée du Louvre, Kêmi 16, p. 7-20. BETTUM, Anders (2004) – Death as an Eternal Process. A case study of a 21st Dynasty coffin at the University Museum of Cultural Heritage in Oslo. Diss. Univ. Oslo. BLUMENTHAL, Elke (2000) – Kuhgöttin und Gottkönig. Frömmigkeit und Staatsreue auf der Stele Leipzig Ägyptisches Museum 5141. Leipzig: Ägyptisches Museum der Universität. BRUNNER-TRAUT; Emma, BRUNNER, Helmut (1981) – Die Ägyptische Sammlung der Universität Tübingen. Mainz am Rhein: Zabern. BUDDE, Dagmar (2000) – ‘Die den Himmel durchsicht und sich mit den Sternen vereint’. Zur Bedeutung und Funktion der Doppelfederkrone in der

The ‘awakening’ of the cosmic deity (in the sense of the regained activity of the creator god previously lying in an inactive state in the Primeval Waters) refers both to the solar god ‘awakening in the early morning’ and to Osiris emerging from death. 5. Representations of passage Each of the above mentioned patterns provides an unusual and creative answer to the question as to how the abstract concept of liminality could be represented in ancient Egyptian art. Breaking through the borderlines between two spheres was usually visualised by expressing the essence of movement, change or progress placed in the ‘focal point’ of the composition. Equally dramatic effects were achieved by changing the colour code, breaking through the borderlines, or representing partly depicted or diagonally positioned figures, because these visual details help focus the attention on the essential symbolism of the motifs/scenes. In the above mentioned examples the scene was ‘frozen’ in mid passage, at the most characteristic moment of the process, while its complex meaning was conveyed and enforced by additional iconographic symbols. It is reasonable to assume that the persons who created the discussed compositions adapted the rules of ancient Egyptian artistic conventions as usual; i.e. attempted to provide the most representative aspects of each element in the scenes. However, in the given situation these seemingly irregular (or at least unusual) modes of representations proved to provide the most representative aspects of the evoked events and depicted figures. 61 BETTUM, 2004: 122. See e.g. PIANKOFF, RAMBOVA, 1957: no. 10; NIWIŃSKI, 1989: fig. 37; NIWIŃSKI, 1999: fig. 98 and 105. See also ASSMANN, 2002: 53; PRIES, 2011: 17–26. 62 ABITZ, 1989: 154–156 and Abb. 38; WAITKUS, 1987: 71, Abb. 2. 63 See also: PIANKOFF, RAMBOVA, 1957: No. 19; LIPTAY, 2006b: 27–28; LIPTAY (forthcoming). 64 VAN DE WALLE, 1972; LEITZ, 2002: 713–715. 65 PIANKOFF, RAMBOVA, 1957: no. 2.

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Éva Liptay: Representations of passage in ancient Egyptian iconography Götterikonographie. Studien zur altägyptische Kultur 30, p. 57-102. BUDEK, Jana (2008) – Die Sonnelaufszene. Untersuchungen zur Vignette 15 des Altägyptischen Totenbuches wahrend der Spät- und Ptolemäerzeit. Studien zur Altägyptische Kultur 37, p. 19-48. CHASSINAT, Émile (1903) – Études sur quelques textes funéraires de provenance thébaine. Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 3, p. 129-163. CHASSINAT, Émile (1909) – La seconde trouvaille de Deir el-Bahari. Sarcophages (Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 6001–6029). Le Caire: Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale. DARESSY, George (1909) – Cercueils des Cachettes Royales (Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 61001–61044). Cairo: Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale. DER MANUELIAN, Peter (1996) – Presenting the Scroll: Papyrus Documents in Tomb Scenes of the Old Kingdom. In DER MANUELIAN, Peter; FREED, Rita E., ed. – Studies in Honor of W.K. Simpson. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, p. 561-588. DERRIKS, Claire (2009) – Le soleil, le roi et le rite de passage. Une mutation de forme du disque solaire. In CLAES, Wouter; DE MEULENAERE, Hermann; HENDRICKX, Stan, ed. – Elkab and beyond. Studies in Honour of Luc Limme (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 191). Leuven – Paris – Walpole: Peeters, p. 283-301. FITZENREITER, Martin (2000) – Zur Präsentation von Geschlechterollen in den Grabstatuen der Residenz im Alten Reich. In LOHWASSER, Angelica, ed. – Gesclechterforschung in der Ägyptologie und Sudanarchäologie. ‘Internet-Beiträge zur Ägyptologie und Sudanarchäologie’ 2, p. 75-111. Available at: . [Accessed on 08/08/2012]. FITZENREITER, Martin (2001a) – Grabdekoration und die Interpretation funerärer Rituale im Alten Reich. In WILLEMS, Harco, ed. – Social Aspects of Funerary Culture in the Egyptian Old and Middle Kingdoms. Proceedings of the international symposium held at Leiden University 6–7 June, 1996. Leuven, Paris, Sterling: Peeters, p. 67-139. FITZENREITER, Martin (2001b) – Statue und Kult. Eine Studie der hunerären Praxis an nichtköniglichen Grabanlagen der Residenz im Alten Reich, I, ‘InternetBeiträge zur Ägyptologie und Sudanarchäologie’ 3. Available at: . [Accessed on 21/08/2012]. FITZENREITER, Martin (2008) – Jenseits in Diesseits – Die Konstruktion des Ortes der Toten im pharaonischen Ägypten. In KÜMMEL, Christoph; SCHWEITZER, Beat; VEIT, Ulrich., ed. – Körperinszenierung – Objektsammlung – Monumentalisierung: Totenritual und Grabkult in frühen Gesellschaften. Archäologische Quellen in kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive

(Tübinger Archäologische Taschenbücher 6). Münster, New York, Berlin, München: Waxmann, p. 75-106. GASSE, Annie (1996) - Les sarcophages de la Troisième Période Intermédiaire du Museo Gregoriano Egizio. Aegyptiaca Gregoriana III. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. GOEBS, Katja (2008) – Crowns in Egyptian Funerary Literature. Royalty, Rebirth, and Destruction. Oxford, Griffith Institute. GOFF, Beatrice L. (1979) – Symbols of Ancient Egypt in the Late Period. The Twenty-first Dynasty. The Hague, Paris, New York: Mouton. GUILMANT, Félix (1907) – Le tombeau de Ramsès IX (Mémoires de l´Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 15). Le Caire: L’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. HARPUR, Yvonne (1987) – Decoration in Egyptian Tombs of the Old Kingdom. London: Kegan Paul International. HARTWIG, Melinda (2004) – Tomb Painting and Identity in Ancient Thebes, 1419–1372 BCE (Monumenta Aegyptiaca X, Série Imago No 2). Turnhout: Brepols. HELAL-GIRET, Amal (1997) – Le lotus: renouvellement et projection vers l’avenir. In BERGER, Catherine; MATHIEU, Bernard, ed. – Études sur l’Ancien Empire et la nécropole de Saqqâra dédiées à Jean-Philippe Lauer (Orientalia Monspeliensia IX), Montpellier: L’Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3, p. 257-261. HOFMANN, Eva (2003) – Viel Licht im Dunkel. Die Farbe Gelb in der ramessidischen Grandekoration. In GUKSCH, Heike; HOFMANN, Eva; BOMMAS, Martin, ed. – Grab und Totenkult im Alten Ägypten, München: Beck, p. 147-162. HORNUNG, Erik (1979) – Die Trageweite der Bilder. Altägyptische Bildaussagen. Eranos Jahrbuch 48, p. 183-237. HORNUNG, Erik (1982) – Tal der Könige. Die Ruhestätte der Pharaonen. Zürich, München: Artemis Verlag. JUNKER, Hermann (1940) – Giza IV. Die Mastaba von KAjmanx (Kai-em-anch), Wien, Leipzig: HölderPichler-Tempsky A.G. JUNKER, Hermann (1943) – Giza VI. Die Mastabas von Nfr (Nefer), Qdfjj (Kedfi), KAHjf (KaHjef) und die westlich anschließenden Grabanlagen, Wien, Leipzig: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky A.G. KISCHKEWITZ, Hannelore (1972) – Egyptian Drawings, London: Octopus Books. KLOTZ, David (2006) – Between Heaven and Earth in Deir el-Medina: Stela MMA 21.2.6. Studien zur altägyptische Kultur 34, p. 269-283. KOZLOFF, Arielle.P.; BRYAN, Betsy M., ed. (1992) – Egypt’s Dazzling Sun. Amenhotep III and his world. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art; Indiana University Press. LEITZ, Christian, ed. (2002) Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, IV. (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 113). Leuven, Paris, Dudley: Peeters.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity LEKOV, Teodor (2010) – The shadow of the dead and its representations. The Journal of Egyptological Studies 3, p. 43-61. Les Portes du Ciel. Visions du monde dans l’Égypte ancienne (2009). Paris: Musée du Louvre. LIPTAY, Éva (2006a) – Between heaven and earth II. The iconography of a 21st Dynasty funerary papyrus. First part. Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 104, p. 35-61. LIPTAY, Éva (2006b) – Between heaven and earth II. The iconography of a 21st dynasty funerary papyrus. Second part. Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des BeauxArts 105, p. 11-39. LIPTAY, Éva (2012) – The bull coming out of the mountain. Changing context and connotations of an iconographical motif. In KÓTHAY, Katalin A., ed. – Art and Society. Ancient and Modern Contexts of Egyptian Art, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, 13-15 May 2010. Budapest: Museum of Fine Arts, p. 169177. LIPTAY, Éva – Panther-head on the cloak. In KOUSOULIS, Panagiotis; LAZARIDIS, Nikolaos, eds. – Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists, University of the Aegean, Rhodes 22–29 May 2008. Leuven: Peeters. Forthcoming. MANNASSA, Colleen (2007) – The Late Egyptian Underworld: Sarcophagi and Related Texts from the Nectanebid Period (Ägypten und Altes Testament 72,1). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. MANNICHE, Lise (1997) – Reflections on the Banquet Scene. In TEFNIN, Roland, ed. – La peinture égyptienne ancienne. Un monde de signes à preserver. Actes du Colloque international de Bruxelles, avril 1994 (Monumenta Aegyptiaca VII, Série IMAGO 1), Bruxelles: Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, p. 29-35. MÜLLER-ROTH, Marcus (2008) – Das Buch vom Tage (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, 236). Freiburg: Academic Press – Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1989) – Studies on the Illustrated Theban Funerary Papyri of the 11th and 10th Centuries B.C. (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, 86). Freiburg: Universitätsverlag – Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1995) – La seconde trouvaille de Deir el-Bahari – Sarcophages (Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 60296068). Cairo: Conseil Suprême des Antiquités de l’Égypte; Institut d’Archéologie Mediterranéenne au Caire; Centre Polonais d’Archéologie Mediterranéenne au Caire NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1999) – The Second Find of Deir el-Bahari - Coffins (Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 6069-6082), Cairo: Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt; Institute of Archaeology of the Warsaw University; Polish centre of Mediterranean Archaeology in Cairo. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (2004) – Sarcofagi della XXI Dinastia (CGT 10101-10122) (Catalogo del Museo

Egizio di Torino [Serie seconda – Collezioni Vol. IX]). Torino: Ministero per i Beni e la Attività Culturali; Soprintendenza al Museo delle Antichità Egizie. PIANKOFF, Alexandre; RAMBOVA, Natacha (1957) – Mythological Papyri (Egyptian Religious Texts and Representations, Bollingen Series XL.3). New York: Pantheon Books. PIANKOFF, Alexandre (1954) – The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 1–2 (Egyptian Religious Texts and Representations, Bollingen Series XL.1), New York: Pantheon Books PICCIONE, Peter A. (1994) – The Gaming Episode in the Tale of Setne Khamwas as Religious Metaphor. In SILVERMAN, David P. ed. – For His Ka: Essays Offered in Memory of Klaus Baer (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 55). Chicago: The Oriental Institute, p. 197-204. PIEKE, Gabriele (2006) – Der Grabherr und die Lotusblume. Zu lokalen und geschlechtespezifischen Traditionen eines Motivkreises. In BÁRTA, Miroslav, ed. – The Old Kingdom Art and Archaeology. Proceedings of the Conference Held in Prague, May 31 – June 4, 2004. Prague: Czech Institute of Egyptology; Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, p. 259-280. PINCH, Geraldine (1993) – Votive Offerings to Hathor. Oxford: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum. PISCHIKOVA, Elena (2008) – ‘Cow Statues’ in Private Tombs of Dynasty 26. In D’AURIA, Sue, ed. – Servant of Mut. Studies in Honor of R.A. Fazzini, Leiden, Boston: Brill, p. 190-195. PRIES, Andreas H. (2011) – Die Stundenwachen im Osiriskult. Eine Studie zur Tradition und späten rezeption von Ritualen im Alten Ägypten (Studien zur spätägyptischen Religion 2). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. PUSCH, Edward B. (1984) Senet. In HELCK, Wolfgang – WESTENDORF, Wolfhart, ed. – Lexikon der Ägyptologie, V. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 851-855. REFAI, Hosam (2007) – Zu den Schlußszenen in mythologischen Papyri. ‘Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale’ 107, p. 157-169. ROBERSON, Joshua A. (2012) – The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Earth (Wilbour Studies in Egypt and Ancient Western Asia). Atlanta: Lockwood Press. SALEH, Mohamed (1984) – Das Totenbuch in den thebanischen Beamtengräbern des Neuen Reiches (Archäologische Veröffentlichungen 46). Mainz am Rhein: Zabern. SCHÄFER, Heinrich (1986) – Principles of Egyptian Art. Oxford: Griffith Institute. SCHMIDT, Heike C. (1995) – Szenarium der Transfiguration – Kulisse des Mythos: Das Grab des Nefertari. Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur 22, p. 237-270. SCHMIDT, Valdemar (1919) – Sarkofager, Mumiekister, og Mumiehylstre i det gamle Aegypten, Typologisk Atlas. København: J. Frimodts. SCHULZ, Regine; SEIDEL, Matthias, ed. (1997) – Ägypten. Die Welt der Pharaonen. Köln: Könemann.

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Éva Liptay: Representations of passage in ancient Egyptian iconography TAYLOR, John H. (2007) – The earliest Egyptian hippocampus. In SCHNEIDER, Thomas; SZPAKOWSKA, Kasia ed., – Egyptian Stories. A British Egyptological Tribute to Alan B. Lloyd (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 347). Münster: UgaritVerlag, p. 405-416. TAYLOR, John H., ed. (2010a) – Journey through the afterlife. Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. London: The British Museum Press. TAYLOR, John H. (2010b) – Egyptian Mummies. London: University of Texas Press; The British Museum Press. VAN DER VLIET, Jacques (1988) – Raising the djed: A rite de marge. Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur’ Beihefte 3, p. 405-411. WAITKUS, Wolfgang (1987) – Zur Deutung einiger apotropäischer Götter in der Gräbern im Tal der Königinnen und im Grabe Ramses III. Göttinger Miszellen 99, p. 51-82. WAITKUS, Wolfgang (2002) – Die Geburt des Harsomtus aus der Blüte. Zur Bedeutung und Funktion einiger Kultgegenstände des Tempels von Dendera. Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur 30, p. 380-382. VAN DE WALLE, Bauduin (1972) – Rc-wDA comme épithète et comme entité divines. Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 98, p. 140149. WIEBACH, Silvia (1986) – Die Begegnung von Lebenden und Verstorbenen im Rahmen des thebanischen Talfestes. Studien zur altägyptischen Kultur 13, 263291.

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Crossing the landscapes of eternity: parallels between Amduat and funeral procession scenes on the 21st Dynasty coffins1 Cássio de Araújo Duarte São Paulo University (São Paulo, Brazil) Abstract The scene of the funeral procession, a characteristic theme on the iconographical mortuary repertoire since the Old Kingdom, became included in the pages of the Book of the Dead and was continuously replicated in a diversified number of ways on tomb walls during the New Kingdom. By the middle of the 21st Dynasty and with the established practice of covering coffins with an overflowing language of metaphorical symbols, attention was directed to a selection of royal funerary books, among them the Amduat. However, this composition was used neither alone nor isolated and was mixed with many vignettes among which the traditional funeral procession stand out. In the following text, we aim to analyze the idiosyncracies of the combination between the theme of the solar boat from the Amduat and the scene of the funeral cortège seen on the 21st Dynasty coffins.

Scenes1showing the funeral procession ceremony are a constant element seen on tombs since the Old Kingdom. This category of images is quite variable in their depiction and could include a number of personages and items. In the copies of the Book of the Dead for example we can confirm the wealth of variety in this regard.2

which left traits of its special metaphorical language in the composition of these scenes. Contrary to the depictions of the funeral cortège seen during the preceding periods, during this time the landmarks between the lived experience and the concepts of the beyond are absent and the interconnections between these worlds are blended together in one same narrative. More specifically, we see on these cases and on a varied number of compositions a fusion between the solar boat theme from the Book of the Amduat and the funeral procession ritual. These renderings are presented by two ways:

Quite frequently, tomb scenes dated to the New Kingdom also included the depiction of the mummy or the coffin that encloses it being transported to the tomb3. The principal subject of the scene is the funerary vehicle which usually shows the mummy inside a shrine being pulled by a group of men and cattle accompanied by a priest dressed in a leopard skin and holding an arm-shaped censer. A procession of mourners might follow or precede the funeral vehicle and a man reading a papyrus scroll is also sometimes added. Other elements might include people bearing chests, pulling vehicles of the canopic jars or statues of the dead.

1. Coffins with scenes of the funeral procession mixed with elements of the Amduat. 2. Coffins with scenes of the solar boat derived from the Amduat with elements of the funeral procession. The most frequent representation is the adapted theme of the funeral procession seen on seven coffins: Brussels (E 5881), Helsinki (KM/Vk/14560:660), Leiden (AMM 18-h), London (EA 22941), London (EA 35287), Vatican (Inv. 25008.2.2) and Mougins (MMoCA 489). Because the coffins of Brussels, London (EA 35287) and the Vatican do not show elsewhere other motifs borrowed from the Amduat, they are less evident at first glance and will be considered further as a sub-item of this category of urns with scenes of the funeral.

In spite of the number of the elements shown from one document to another, one characteristic remains the same: all of them, even when idealistically presented, portray scenes that reflect the reality of life at this level. A frontier between this world and the hereafter is well established and only the dead alone would experience the journey beyond the gates of the horizon. This well-established subject on the funerary iconography extended its roots further through the decorative programme of some coffins of the 21st Dynasty, a period

1.Coffins with scenes of the funeral procession mixed with elements derived from the Amduat Coffins that also contain other images from the Amduat

I would like to thank Rogério Sousa for his kind invitation for my contribution to this volume. I could not also forget to thank Andrzej Niwiński for sharing his precious material and pieces of advice, to Christian Greco and Mark Merrony for allowing me to use images of coffins from the collections of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden and in the Musée d’Art Classique in Mougins. 2 QUIRKE, 2013: 6-9; RONSECCO, 1988: 194; TAYLOR, 2010: 67, 32, 92-3, 94, 97, 236-37. 3 CHERPION, 2005: 21-23, Pls. 15, 17b, 18; 1923: Pl. XLVII; 1925: Pl. XXII; 1927: Pl. 28b; 1933: Pl. XX; 1943: Pls. XC, XCIII; 1948: Pl. V; DAVIES, 1933b: Pl. XXXVIII; DAVIES, GARDINER, 1915: Pl. XII; HODEL-HOENES, 2000: 166-7,184; LEOSPO, 1989: 216, LHOTE, 1954: Pls. 14, 18; REEVES 1990: 72. 1

The coffin which best attests the level of intericonicity between elements of the funeral procession with those of the Amduat is the one in the Musée d’Art Classique at Mougins (Figure 5). Seen on the right side of the case, the scene show a funerary boat being transported on a sledge supported by two pairs of wheels and without the usual rounded end at the front. The shrine is closed and does not show the embalmed body of the deceased. The car is drawn by three women and two men pulling on a serpent 81

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Fig. 1 - Brussels E 5881. Photos by the author. funeral on the right side and, with the exception of the coffin in the Dutch collection which depicts the solar barge of the Amduat in the area of the legs on the same side, the other two have, by way of contrast, this depiction on the left side. Apart from the differences painted by the artisans according to the style of each one7 of the coffins or the available area for decoration on them, all these images show a degree of similarity – the coffins of London and Helsinki may even have been done in the same atelier to judge by certain common characteristics. In spite of the sledges which they traditionally exhibit, these funerary vehicles were shown with wheels and depict the shape of a boat with a shrine. The mummy is illustrated only on the coffins of Helsinki and London as the Ba soul flying over the car. The vehicle is pulled by five men on the British and Finnish coffins and four on the Dutch one and in all of them there is one or three individuals (London coffin) looking back similar to the gods pulling the solar vessel on the last section of the Amduat. The coffin in Leiden also presents a pair of cows helping to carry the hearse - one of them clearly depicted as Hathor.8 The procession scene that might include mourners, standard bearers and other

whose body serves as a rope, and the last woman in front of the boat is the only person who looks back. Behind the vehicle, there is a man with his left hand clenching an oar to his chest and with his right hand raised in adoration. The cortège, which is preceded by a man with his hands raised in adoration and followed by another one playing a double flute just in front of the funerary vehicle, is heading towards the image of a god with a baboon’s head and a mummified body holding an wedjat-eye similar to the deity seen on the third register of the 10th hour of the Amduat. The inclusion of two goddesses pulling the boat – in particular the one looking back – and the oarsman at the end of the procession are other elements seen in the same funerary book, but on the 12th hour. To reinforce the link with the Amduat we see on the same side of the coffin a goddess with a serpent over her head from the 10th hour and a re-interpreted scene of the solar boat from the Amduat on the other side of it. This one, too, stresses the presence of two oarsmen in the same attitude holding the oars and also following the boat. The three other urns in Helsinki,4 Leiden (Figure 2)5 and London (EA 22941- Figure 3)6 present the scene with the 4 GROTHE-PAULIN, 1988; NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 142, no 205; WALSEM, 1997: pr. 147, He 1. 5 BOESER, 1918; NIWIŃSKI 1988: p. 146, nº 225; WALSEM, 1997. 6 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 152, no 262; WALSEM, 1997: pls. 145, fig. 366 Lo

4, 146, figs. 369 Lo 4, 370 Lo 4 and 372 Lo 4, 147, Lo 4. 7 For a detailed description of these scenes cf. WALSEM, 1997: 225-39. 8 Whose symbology is reinforced by the menat pending on the arm of a man who guides the animals holding a sekhem scepter.

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Fig. 2 - Leiden AMM 18-h. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. the fact that the Helsinki and London urns present exactly the elements of the boat scene with the gods looking back derived from the 12th hour9 and positioned at the same area of the legs as in the funerary procession scene.

characters ends with a mummy upright in front of its tomb on the cases of Helsinki and Leiden cases. Contrary to the scene on the Mougins coffin, the illustrations on these urns could pass unnoticed by virtue of their conventional presentation. But it is the constant inclusion of individuals looking back while they pull the funerary vehicle that does not seem to be pure coincidence, especially considering that, on balance, these same coffins also illustrate scenes of the solar boat derived from the Amduat. And even more pertinent to our observations is

The Mougins mummy case shows, on the other hand, a procession scene apparently adapted from a depiction The coffin of Helsinki mixes the register of the gods carrying the serpent ‘World Encircler’ (HORNUNG, Abt 2007: 340-2) from the preceding 11th hour with the goddesses of the 12th hour.

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Fig. 3 - London EA 22941. © Trustees of the British Museum in the Book of the Earth10 and which illustrates groups of both Ba souls and goddesses looking back as uraeus with raised arms pulling ropes attached to the prow of the solar vessel. But, because this motif is followed by two oarsmen and individuals towing the boat and looking back, it is very convincing that intericonicity with the 12th hour of the Amduat is suggested. Facing the procession is a mummified and anthropomorphic seated god crowned by a solar disk that could – with a certain degree of caution be interpreted as a variant of the god Osiris in the end of the 12th hour.

The Belgian coffin11 is the only one that maintains the traditional illustration of the funeral vehicle being dragged on long sledges not on wheels as seen in the other scenes. On them we find two men wearing leopard skins standing – the first one looking back. In front of the vehicle there is a man reading a papyrus scroll, another one wearing a coat similar to the one the king wears during the Sed festival and holding a flagellum and the heqa sceptre and finally a man pouring water on the floor in order to make the movement of the vehicle easier. This one is pulled by four men looking forwards and by four cows – one of them depicted as Hathor – led by another man. The procession is preceded by a group of women holding offerings, by mourners and, following just behind the car, by four men holding oars close to their chests and an individual with his left hand turned to his face. All of them are holding a rope in their right hand that comes from the rear side of the boat. In this case, however, there is no individual pulling the funerary boat and looking back as in the other coffins mentioned above, which does not necessarily suggest that a connection to the Amduat could not be implied here, since other sections of the book show the

Coffins that do not contain other images from the Amduat Now we can advance to the sub-category of coffins that illustrate the funeral cortège but which do not show any scenes extracted from the Amduat: Brussels (Musée du Cinquantenaire, inv. E 5881 - Figure 1), London (British Museum, EA 35287), Vatican (Museo Gregoriano Egizio, Inv. 25008.2.2). 10 HORNUNG 1999: 104; PIANKOFF 1954a: 346-7, fig. 102-3; 1954b: pls. 117-118; ROBERTSON 2012: 139, fig. 5.3., p. 157, fig. 5.6.

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NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 112, no 47.

Cássio de Araújo Duarte: Crossing the landscapes of eternityy on the last coffin, finishes with the image of the upright mummy without the depiction of her tomb.

gods looking forwards. However, what is noteworthy in this iconographical narrative is the presence of the group of men holding oars exactly as were the gods on the last scene of the final section of the Amduat. This same subject is found in the same context on the coffin in Mougins and the quoted theme is frequently associated in the same way with the solar barge iconography from the Amduat as represented on the coffins and papyri of the 21st Dynasty. For this reason, it is very compelling to deduce that the conventional ritual funerary scene depicted on the Belgian coffin is also hiding a metaphor of the solar boat journey. This concept is reinforced by the geographical situation of the Theban hills to the west and the actual way the funeral procession took, i.e. following the path of the sun.

Some significant idiosyncracies relating to the quoted examples should be noted here: on the coffins that show both the funerary procession and the solar boat scene only the vignettes which present the mundane funerary ritual suffer a symbolic influence of the Amduat and not the opposite. The variations seen on the solar barge theme are essentially derived from the Amduat itself, the Book of the Earth (Mougins) or are metaphors relating to the divine world. Thus, the funerary ritual, as depicted on the coffins of the 21st Dynasty, could be seen as a staging of two dramas at the same time: the process of death and rebirth of both the deceased individual (as Osiris) and of the sun.

The coffin in the Vatican12 illustrates a long funeral cortège on its left side. The wheeled car, pulled by four men and two cows illustrated in the manner of the cow-goddess Hathor, and carrying the body of the deceased is displayed in the centre. In contrast to the previous urn, this one presents one of the men pulling the vehicle and looking back but with no oarsmen following the procession. At the head of the cortège, which comprises a variety of individuals, lies the upright mummy.

Moreover, in spite of the absence of a parallel solar boat scene from the Amduat on the coffins discussed above, the similarities of style and details of the funeral cortège of these urns to those seen on coffins with the Amduat14 content is striking and should be considered side by side. Another interesting idiosyncracy considered by René van Walsem15 and one which we would like to emphasise is the sudden ‘massive’ depiction of funerary vehicles with wheels on coffin scenes in contrast to illustrations on tombs and on the Book of the Dead during the New Kingdom. This variation could indicate the progressive adoption of four-wheeled wagons in response to changes in rituals and in the symbolism of the funeral ceremony,16 perhaps as a symptom of the evolution of the solar cult.

Finally, the other coffin in the British Museum collection (EA 35287)13 shows a resemblance to the Vatican mummy case in the area of the legs on its right side. Apart from the differences in the iconography of the other individuals and in the layout of the scene, here two of the five men pulling the funerary vehicle are looking back. The procession, as

Fig. 4 - London EA 22942. © Trustees of the British Museum Van Walsen’s scheme on plate 147 is very useful to compare some of the coffins here discussed: Leiden AMM 18h, London (EA 22941 and EA 35287), Helsinki (Km/Vk/14560:660), Vatican (Inv. 25008.2.2). 15 WALSEM, 1997: 227-30. 16 As, for example, the result of a wider influence of the sun-god cult (cf. KÁKOSY apud WALSEM, 1997: 229, ntt. 650-1). 14

GASSE, 1996: 20, pl. II.1; NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 175, n 40; WALSEM, 1997: 238, pl. 147 Va 1. 13 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 153, no 271; WALSEM, 1997: pls. 145, figs. 365 Lo 1, 367 Lo 1, 368 Lo 1, 146, fig. 371 Lo 1, 147, Lo 1. 12

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Fig. 5 - Mougins MMoCA489. Courtesy of the Mougins Museum of Classical Art. By another hand the case on the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin (Figure 7) presents on its left side the solar vessel being pulled by three gods accompanied by the serpent ‘World Encircler’ and three goddesses looking backwards – a register unquestionably derived from the 12th hour of the Amduat. The rope tied to the prow is in fact a cobra and on the boat we notice the principal god illustrated with the imentet sign as his head. He is protected by the serpent Mehen, behind him there is a goddess and on the prow we see another symbol of the West and a scarab horizontally placed. These elements are followed by three adoring gods – another vignette seen on the last row of the funerary book - in front a mummy who stands with her back to the tomb. On the same side and before the quoted boat scene there is the image of the god Atum holding the wings of a four legged bearded serpent (11th hour).

2. Coffins with scenes of the solar boat from the Amduat with elements of the funeral procession The other kind of representations we will discuss here, i.e. the scenes of the solar boat from the Amduat with elements of the funeral procession, are seen only on three coffins: Athens (ANE 3422 (3339) – Figure 6),17 Berlin (58 Figure 7)18 and London (EA 22942 - Figure 4).19 None of these present another ‘pure’ Amduat solar boat scene nor a proper funerary procession vignette on the same coffin. Both subjects are closely connected, but with a particular emphasis on illustrating the solar boat followed by (not intermixed) elements from funerary ritual. The coffin in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (Figure 6) illustrates on its right side the scene of the divine boat sailing over a narrow watercourse and being pulled by three deities – the one in the middle being a woman. The most important deity here, identified as Osiris, is painted seated on a cubic throne and inside a shrine, with a mummiform appearance, holding the heqa and the flagellum but having a hare’s head as its own. On the prow are depicted an unidentified god and the goddess Neith. The cortège walks in the direction of the representation of the Theban mountain with a tomb and with the solar disk and a superimposed ram’s head, being received in the arms of a goddess. Between the three deities pulling the vessel and the necropolis is a man with his arms in an attitude of adoration in front of a pile of offerings.

Finally the British Museum coffin (EA 22942 - Figure 4) is a bit more complex on its depiction of the solar barge. Only the front half of the vessel is represented navigating over a broad stream of water. Seven gods with animal and human faces both male and female – only the male have animal heads – pull the boat towards two mummiform gods: the first one, which is human, is holding the insignia of Osiris and has a solar disk over him while the other has a serpent as his head with a feather over it. On this depiction the tomb and the mummy in front of it are placed on the vessel and behind a mummiform anthropomorphic god - probably a depiction of Osiris - holding the hook and the flagellum and whose throne is supported by the sign for festival. On the same left side of the coffin we notice the same vignette of Atum with the winged serpent seen on the German case.

NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 106, no 12. GERMER, KISCHKEWITZ, LÜNING, 2009: 71-78, figs. 96, 97; NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 108, no 24 . 19 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 152, no 263. 17 18

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Fig. 6 – Athens ANE 3422 - Drawing by the author

Fig. 7 - Berlin 580001 – Drawing by the author. tomb might also allude to mummy of Osiris illustrated on this same section of the Amduat but on a different way.20

The first two coffins of this second category of scenes apart the differences in style have two principal characteristics in common for our analysis:

Therefore it seems very likely that this category of a mixed depiction of both Amduat and funerary narratives was conceived as another metaphor that establishes a parallel between the end of the funerary rites with the ending of the journey of the sun. Despite the coffin in the British Museum (EA 22942) illustrates the scene on a different manner it might have had the same meaning as a result of

1. Both respect the same layout of the narrative showing the vessel being pulled by a group of gods towards the necropolis represented by the upright mummy, the tomb and the Theban mountains; 2. Between the necropolis and the gods there is one (Athens) or three (Berlin) individuals raising their arms in adoration or to the setting sun or to the mummy, images that synthesize the conclusion of the funerary cortège.

If we agree with René van Walsem about the meaning of the mummy representation in the German coffin is the god Osiris of the 12th hour (1997: 238, 13.) we do not believe that the example given by the author (the coffin in the Metropolitan 90.6.120 A/B) might be related to the same passage of the Amduat. The scene consists of an image of a slightly recumbent mummy in front of a tomb over which a male individual pours water from a jar. Between them there is a table of offerings and behind a mummified baboon-god with an atef crown holding a snake with a sun disk over her head. Even if this deity is a rereading of the god holding the wedjat-eye from the 10th hour a link between this vignette with the mummy of the 12th hour is not clear and the complete image has not a single element that could bring to our mind any resemblance to the scenes with the Amduat we exposed above. 20

These male adoring individuals could be closely related to the gods on the same attitude shown on the upper and lower rows of the last hour of the Amduat, when the sun disk is being received by the god Shu on the Eastern horizon. On the German case the link to the 12th hour is clear by the depiction of the serpent ‘World Encircler’ and of the gods - both male and female - looking back while they pull the divine boat to the East. Besides, the mummy in front of the 87

Body, Cosmos and Eternity characteristic mixing elements from both Amduat and the funerary rites. Besides on the funerary ceremony scene on the Mougins coffin there is only a single reference to a different section than the 12th hour. But from the coffins with scenes of the first category (funeral procession with elements from the Amduat) this one is the most convincing because of its cross references between the funerary ceremony and Amduat themes and to the existence of a parallel solar boat scene with elements of the 12th hour on the other side of the case.

the prodigious symbolic mind of the 21st Dynasty and its infinite metaphorical resources. Looking carefully the frequency of subjects chosen on the depiction of the first category of scenes we can check the same relation between the funeral procession and 12th hour by the following depictions: Brussels (E 5881)

followers of the funerary vehicle holding oars. Helsinki (Km/Vk/14560:660) individual pulling the vehicle looking back. Leiden (AMM 18 h) individual pulling the vehicle looking back. London (EA 22941) individual pulling the vehicle looking back. London (EA 35287) two men pulling the vehicle looking back. Mougins (MMoCA 489) woman pulling the vehicle looking back and a man behind the car holding an oar. Vatican (Inv. 25008.2.2) two men pulling the vehicle looking back

Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the emphasis on the set of coffins here reunited was on the last section of the Amduat on both categories of scenes: those of the funeral procession mixed with elements from the Amduat and those of the solar boat with elements of the funeral procession. Another interesting observation is that all these urns are dated to a period which covers the end of the 21st and to the beginning of the 22nd Dynasty21 being the introduction of the funeral cortège scene contemporary to the inclusion of the Amduat motifs on coffins. Based on this finding we could conjecture if coffins whitch show only the Amduat boat scene were not intended to make indirect metaphorical references to the funeral procession too.

On all the cases above quoted the oar bearers are depicted on the same way seen on the 12th hour, and with the exception of the urns in Brussels, London (EA 35287) and Vatican - which have no Amduat scenes – these coffins also show a parallel depiction of the boat scene and other vignettes which make references to the last section of the royal funerary book:

It is also important to observe that on several coffins the principal god in the solar vessel is Osiris – sometimes mummified - and not Atum as seen on the original Amduat. This aspect is significant because it reinforces the relation between the solar boat with the funerary vehicle by associating the deceased with Osiris.

Helsinki (Km/Vk/14560:660) goddesses pulling the boat looking back and gods holding oars. Leiden (AMM 18 h) gods holding oars and goddesses with serpents on their shoulders London (EA 22941) gods pulling the solar boat looking back accompanied by the serpent ‘World Encircler’ Mougins (MMoCA 489) Serpents and Ba birds with arms and human heads looking back pulling the solar boat followed by gods holding oars.

Shortly what we notice on the quoted scenes is the depiction of two complementary realities: the concrete world of the living and the imagined one of the hereafter mixed together on a same narrative with no boundaries between them. The procession responsible to transport the deceased is clearly identified with the divine cortège pulling the solar boat, and based on this observation we might conjecture if the influence of the Amduat was not extended to the actual funeral rites. Particularly interesting in this case is the participation of the living in the posthumous travel of the dead: as we remarked above funeral procession scenes in tombs and on the Book of the Dead always respect the landmarks between the respective domains of the living and of the dead, as for example in Tutankhamun’s tomb paintings. There the theme of the funeral procession on the East wall does not show a single motif borrowed from the Amduat, which is, by another hand, represented on the opposite wall by the first hour. However, it is reasonable to conjecture if a relation between the iconography of these two opposite walls was not implied, even because they are linked by the axis of the pathway of the sun.

It is important to quote that the urns in Helsinki and Leiden also have images from the 11th hour side by side with the solar boat scene or part of it (goddesses seated on serpents on the first case and gods holding the serpent ‘World Encircler’ in front of the vessel on the second). The coffin in Mougins, on the other hand, makes references to the 10th section on the scene of the funeral procession (mummiform god with baboon head holding an wedjat eye) and on a different scene on the same side (a goddess with a cobra over her head).

The northern wall on a first glance could contradict our supposition that the world of the living was not mixed

Anyway, it might be stressed that on both Scandinavian and Dutch mummy cases the mentions to the 11th hour are on the ‘pure’ solar boat theme and not on the funeral procession one - a scene that matters for us because of its

21

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According to Niwiński’s typology (1988).

Cássio de Araújo Duarte: Crossing the landscapes of eternityy Leiden, London EA 22941, and Mougins). On these cases, the solar boat theme is not mixed with other subject than the Amduat itself and the Book of the Earth (Mougins). Then, we named these depictions as ‘pure’ because they are free from elements of the funeral ceremony or rituals of the living.

with the realm of the gods: just after the cortège scene on the East wall we see the Mouth Opening Ceremony of the dead king presided by the new pharaoh Ay followed by two scenes of Tutankhamun on the divine world becoming Osiris, with no clear division between this world and the next. In spite of the apparent mixing of elements seen on that wall – the mortuary ceremony and the reception of Tutankhamun by the gods – these different contexts were smartly divided by means of a very subtle detail: the living are the only individuals wearing sandals on all the scenes of the tomb.22 Thus due to the particular conditions the sepulchre needed to be decorated23 and to the space restrictions this was the way chosen to clearly separate the afterlife content (lived exclusively by the king) from the earthly ceremonies. The only scene in which Tutankhamun is represented shod, on the southern wall, he is leaving the world of the living to be received on the afterlife.24

Scenes of the funeral procession, on the other hand, equate the traditional depiction with elements clearly derived from the royal funerary book like oarsmen and people looking back while they pull the funerary vehicle. In the case of the Mougins coffin the rope attached to the car is a serpent and the cortège directs itself to a baboon god holding an wedjat-eye. Therefore these urns present this double aspect: if the funeral procession is clearly influenced by the Amduat boat scene on its constitution, the solar boat motif properly is, on the other hand represented undisturbed by elements of funerary rituals showing only elements of the divine world.

What we see on the 21st Dynasty mummy cases, on the contrary, is a fusion between Amduat and funerary rituals content, perhaps as result of how the funerary ceremony was seen and performed by the individuals who played part on it during that period. Moreover the frequent illustration of funerary vehicles with wheels on coffins might be an evidence for this transformation on funerary rituals according to new religious conceptions.

Other coffins of the first category (Brussels, Vatican), however, show just the ceremony without any mention to the Amduat. Here the funerary book influence is supposed both by the similarity of these scenes with those seen on coffins with a clear influence of the Amduat and by their common chronology. Our second category of sources (represented by the coffins of Athens, Berlin and London EA 22942) – those that show a reinterpretation of the solar boat motif – is, like the correspondent illustration on coffins of the first class, never mixed with elements of the funerary procession like priests, flute players, weepers, etc., and the gestures of the gods follow the model seen on the Amduat. What change in this class of scenes is the final destiny of the cortège which walks towards the tomb/mummy creating then a bridge to the scenes of the funeral noticed on our first category. The British coffin shows a particular rendering with the tomb and the mummy in front of it on the boat while the procession is directed to two mummiform deities.

By these scenes we get the impression that the real Theban landscape which once inspired the creation of the mythical geography of the beyond was, during the 21st Dynasty, perceived as part of this proper invented world and not simply a place with a religious symbolism. And while they joined together the two opposed sides of the narrative (the funeral procession and the last hour of the Amduat) the Egyptians of that age established an intimate relation between the extremes of the process of resurrection (the mundane and the beyond) as a single lived unity. 3. Conclusion We proposed here a cross-comparison analysis between the two principal categories of scenes illustrated on the sides of coffins from the late 21st Dynasty to the beginning of the 22nd: 1) coffins with scenes of the funeral procession mixed with elements derived from the Amduat; 2) coffins with scenes of the solar boat from the Amduat with elements of the funeral procession.

Our comparison between the two variants of the first category and then with the second one brought us to the conclusion that an inter connexion between the last hour of the Amduat with the final stages of the funerary ceremony was established. On illustrations here classified as the second category (Berlin, London EA 22942) a parallel between the mummy in front of the tomb and the body of Osiris - seen in the end of the inferior row of the twelfth section of the Amduat – is very suggestive. Moreover, some mummy cases (Athens, Berlin) present gods adoring the setting sun or the mummy just in front of the cortège proposing then a connection with the deities seen on the first and last rows of the 12th hour.

The first important thing to remark is that the first category of coffins may also contain other elements (specially the sun boat scene) directly extracted from the Amduat to reinforce the influence of this funerary book on the funeral cortège illustration (for example on the coffins at Helsinki, 22 The only image of Tutankhamun wearing sandals, on the south wall, shows the pharaoh being conducted by Anubis and being received by the goddess of the West. On this specific case the sandals represent the transition of Tutankhamun from the world of the living to the afterlife. This subject was better explored in an article published few years ago (DE ARAÚJO DUARTE, 2007: 293-304). 23 Cf. HORNUNG, STAEHELIN, 2004: 75-78. 24 DE ARAÚJO DUARTE, 2007.

The ‘pure’ Amduat boat scene when illustrated alone on coffins without a parallel funerary cortège scene might be symbolically related to the funeral itself according the relation we see between these matters on the urns here studied. In support to this impression we remember 89

Body, Cosmos and Eternity Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/ Schnell/Steiner. GROTHE-PAULIN, Elina (1988) – Der ägyptische Sarg in Helsinki. In ‘Studia Orientalia’ 64, p. 7-75. HODEL-HOENES, Sigrid (2000) – Life and death in ancient Egypt. Scenes from private tombs in New Kingdom Thebes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. HORNUNG, Erik (1999) – The ancient Egyptian books of afterlife. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. HORNUNG, Erik; ABT, Theodor (2007) – The Egyptian Amduat: The Book of the Hidden Chamber. Zurich: Living Human Heritage Publications. HORNUNG, Erik; STAEHELIN, Elisabeth (2004) – The Valley of the Kings in the 18th Dynasty. In WIESE, A.; BRODBECK, A. – Tutankhamun, the golden beyond. Tomb treasures from the Valley of the Kings. Basel: Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, p. 5782. LEOSPO, E. (1989) – Riti propiziatori, aspetti della vita quotidiana, attività lavorative e ricreative nelle pitture lintee e nelle decorazioni parietali. In A. M. ROVERI Donadoni, ed.- Civiltà degli egizi: Le arti dela celebrazione. Milano: Electa: p. 186-247. LHOTE, André (1954) – Les chefs d’oeuvre de la peinture égyptienne. Paris: Hachette. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1988) – Twenty-first Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies. Mainz am Rhein: Phillip von Zabern PIANKOFF, Alexandre (1954a) – The tomb of Ramesses VI, texts. New York: Pantheon Books. PIANKOFF, Alexandre (1954b) – The tomb of Ramesses VI (plates). New York: Pantheon Books. QUIRKE, Stephen (2013) – Going out in Daylight – prt m hrw the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: translation, sources, meanings. GHP Egyptology 20. London: Golden House Publications. REEVES, Nicholas (1990) – A la découverte de Toutankhamon. Le roi, la tombe, le trésor royal. Paris: Inter-Livres. ROBERTSON, J. (2012) – The ancient Egyptian Books of the Earth. Atlanta: Lockwood Press/Brown University. RONSECCO, Paolo (1988) – I libri funerary del Nuovo Regno. In A. M. ROVERI Donadoni, ed. – Civiltà degli egizi: Le credenze religiose. Milano, Electa: pp.188-197. TAYLOR, John, ed. (2010) – Journey through the afterlife. Ancient Book of the Dead. London: The British Museum Press. WALSEM, René van (1997) – The coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, I. Technical and iconographic/ iconological aspects. Egyptologische Uirgaven. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten.

the direct relation between the deceased depicted on his funerary car with Osiris as the principal god on many reinterpreted boat scenes of the Amduat seen on the 21st Dynasty coffins. Another interesting particularity presented on these scenes is the manner the two realities of the existence (the life on earth and on the beyond) are mixed on a same iconographical narrative including the characters of the funeral procession in the posthumous destiny of the deceased – a characteristic not seen on the traditional representation of the funerary rituals (Book of the Dead and tomb paintings) for example. This motif might be a result of a development on the performance of the funerary rituals and on solar religious beliefs during the 21st Dynasty that also resulted on a more frequent use of wheels on funerary vehicles and a reinterpretation of the landscape of the Theban hills as part of the world of the beyond. Bibliography BOESER, P. (1918) – Mumiensärge des Neues Reiches, Dritte Serie. Ägyptische Sammlung Niederländischen Reichesmuseums der Altertümer in Leiden. Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. CHERPION, Nadine (2005) – Deux tombes de la XVIIe dunastie à Deir el-Medina (MIFAO 114). Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. DAVIES, Nina, GARDINER, Alan (1915) – The tomb of Amenemhēt (no 82). London: The Egypt Exploration Fund. DAVIES, Norman (1923) – The tomb of Puyemrē at Thebes (2 vols). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. DAVIES, Norman (1925) – The tomb of two sculptors at Thebes. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. DAVIES, Norman (1927) – Two Ramesside tombs at Thebes. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. DAVIES, Norman (1933a) – The tomb of Neferhotep at Thebes. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. DAVIES, Norman (1933b) – The tombs of Menkheperrasonb, Amenmose, and another. London: The Egyptian Exploration Society. DAVIES, Norman (1943) – The tomb of Rekhmirē‘ at Thebes 2 vols. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. DAVIES, Norman (1948) – Seven private tombs at Kurnah. London: Egyptian Exploration Society. DE ARAÚJO DUARTE, Cássio (2007) – A simbologia da transição nas cenas de personagens da realeza calçados no Egito da segunda metade do Reinado Novo. In Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia 17, 293-304. GASSE, Annie (1996) – Les sarcophages de la Troisième Période Intermédiaire du Museo Gregoriano Egizio. Aegyptiaca Gregoriana III. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. GERMER, R.; KISCHKEWITZ, H.; LÜNING, M. (2009) – Berliner Mumiengeschichten. Ergebnisse eines multisziplinären Forschungsprojektes. Berlin: 90

‘Spread your wings over me’: iconography, symbolism and meaning of the central panel on yellow coffins Rogério Sousa Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos (University of Coimbra) Abstract During the 21st Dynasty, coffin decoration increased in complexity and innovative solutions, particularly in the context of the Theban necropolis. The strong innovative nature of these objects raises important methodological questions for their iconographic study. This article presents the first findings of an extensive systematic study on the iconography and symbolism of yellow coffins, focusing on the central panel of the lid. This section extends from the floral collar (or forearms of the deceased) to the lower section (or in some cases the foot-board) of the lid. Our concern is to identify the key-elements of this iconographic tableau, its ‘lexicon’ of symbols and images and the various methods used to increase its complexity, constantly reinterpreting older creations. We will support our reading of the iconographic development on a ‘genealogical’ sequence linking the older tableaux to the later and by far more complex compositions. This analysis allows us to detect patterns of cultural interaction that reflect broader cultural trends active in the Theban necropolis during the 21st Dynasty.

bigger size of the foot-board, whereas running all along the edge of the wall on the case. — Foot-board – sculpted in the round on the lid, suggesting the shape of the feet, whereas composed by a single flattened wall on the case.

1. Introduction It is consensual among scholars that yellow coffins form a unique and exceptionally rich corpus of the Egyptian funerary culture.1 Due to the density of their decoration and high degree of variability, the systematic study of the iconography of these coffins is a complex and difficult task. Attempts to proceed with the characterization of the iconography on yellow coffins need to have a comparative and systematic perspective with a view to identify the patterns underlying variability and change.

Note that all these components are common to the lid and case. In addition to these sections, we propose a fifth one which is only detected on the lid: the central panel. This section is a large iconographic tableau inserted between the upper and the lower section of the lid. Sometimes, on exceptional cases, this composition covers the entire surface of the lid below the upper section, reaching the foot-board (see Figure 16 – chapter 1). Therefore, the widness and complexity of this composition is highly variable.

In our previous work on the study of the Eighth Lot of Antiquities of Bab el-Gasus,2 we paid especial attention to the identification of the formal components of the yellow coffins, aiming to prepare methodological ground for subsequent comparative studies on the materials from the collective tomb of the priests and priestesses of Amun. Generally speaking, the following components were proposed for yellow coffins (Figure 1):

Unlike the other sections of the lid, the central panel is composed of a single tableau, (hence our designation of ‘panel’) composed of a variable number of registers, each one involving either a large depiction of a winged deity or a symmetrical composition. Moreover, the central panel is specifically associated with the yellow coffins and it seems to play a crucial role in the decorative programme of these objects.

— Head-board – corresponding to the rendering of the head and wig. — Upper section – usually very well delimited by the contour of the forearms, elbows or floral collars. — Lower section – slightly different length on the lid and on the case: shortened on the lid due to the

Given its unique character, the central panel by itself provides an excellent perspective in understanding the dynamics of coffin decoration during the 21st Dynasty. This study adopts a systematic and comparative approach so as to apprehend the main iconographic features of the central panel and detect the patterns of its development behind variability. With this goal in mind, we worked with a relatively wide sample of yellow coffins, always focusing our attention on the same component – the central panel - and, at the same time, paying attention to the global organization of the lid as a whole. Since the exact dating of a particular object can be a difficult, if not impossible, task

I would like to express my gratitude to Dr René van Walsem for supervising this research and contributing with his endless support to the improvement of my work. I also would like to acknowledge Dr Andrzej Niwinski for his valuable support, allowing me to research on his own documental records and to the Museums who provided me support in my research, namely to Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, Munich Egyptian Museum, Berlin Egyptian Museum, Metropolian Museum of Art and Cairo Egyptian Museum. 2 The catalogue of the coffins of the Eighth Lot of Bab el-Gasus (forthcoming). 1

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Fig. 1 – Coffin´s components (after the outer coffin of A 136) – Drawing by the author. winged goddess is entirely framed within a tableau (Figure 2), thus forming the simplest and earliest compositions of the central panel.

to undergo strictly based on textual or even archaeological information, we studied the development of the pictorial compositions of the central panel according to their degree of complexity, adopting a ‘genealogical perspective’ of the iconographic development. Our assumption is that variability is not the result of a random combination of features but instead of a constant (re)search for innovation grounded on previous developments. This approach involves seriating compositions according to their complexity, which is highly efficient to reveal ‘genealogical lines’ (iconographic key features that play a decisive role in the development of complexity) and the principles of composition that rule the organization of iconography within the central panel. While doing that, this method gives us a relative dating according to the position of one particular composition in the global ‘genealogical line’.

This new tableau was deeply rooted on the iconography of anthropoid coffins, with its antecedents going back to the Second Intermediate Period. Regarding Theban rishi coffins, the winged deity is fully depicted in avian form, as a vulture,3 on the chest of the deceased. During the 18th Dynasty, especially from the reign of Amenhotep III onwards, the depiction of Nut became clearly predominant on black coffins4 and anthropoid stone sarcophagi.5 During the Ramesside Period, the programme of the central panel soon included one more register. Typically, See coffin of Queen Ahhotep (Cairo Egyptian Museum, CG 28501) in HORNUNG, BRYAN, 2002: 109. Golden coffin of Tutankhamun (with two vultures in lateral position) in IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 214. MINIACI, 2011. 4 Coffin of Tentamentet (British Museum) in TAYLOR, 2001: 225. Coffins of Henutwejbu (Washington University Gallery) in HORNUNG, BRYAN (eds.), 2002: 66. See also KOZLOFF, BRYAN, BERMAN, DELANGE, 1993: 270-273. Coffin set of Maherpa (Cairo Egyptian Museum). 5 Anthropoid sarcophagus of Merymes (British Museum, EA 1001) in KOZLOFF, BRYAN, BERMAN, DELANGE, 1993: 279. Anthropoid sarcophagus re-used by Psusennes I (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in MONTET, 1951: Pl. XCVI. 3

2. The basic scheme The central panel of the yellow coffins is perhaps the most distinctive feature of the yellow coffins. In fact, this section results from the formal reorganization of the decoration on the yellow/gilded type during the Ramesside Period. Unlike black coffins, where the winged deity was loosely depicted heading the longitudinal band of inscriptions running down the lid, on the yellow type the 92

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Fig. 2 – Central panel. Inner coffin of Khonsu (Metropolitan Museum of Art) – Drawing by the author.

the basic scheme of the central panel displays two registers (Figures 3, 4, 5):

3. The classical scheme Throughout the 21st Dynasty, the decoration of the central panel increased in complexity as well as density. The process which originated the third register of the central panel is not clear, but it seems that it may have been originated from the lower friezes that decorate the area bellow the wings of Nut. In a small sample of objects, this lower secondary frieze is large enough to be considered an autonomous register on its own.7 At first, the composition of this register was not standardized and it created a strong contrast with the other two registers. However, the development of the third register progressed into a growing dependence towards the first register. This vertical symmetry between the first and the third register originated what can be called the ‘classical’ composition of the central panel.

— First register: composed of a nuclear block – usually a depiction of a pectoral, an amulet or a scarab - which is the central element of a symmetrical register involving centripetal and/or centrifugal blocks. — Second register: presenting the winged goddess, usually with her wings delimiting a U-shaped area above her arms. In most cases, secondary compositions can be found above and below the wings of the goddess. This organization of the central panel is typical of the late Ramesside Period and the first half of the 21st Dynasty. Moreover, coffins with the central panel presenting ‘basic scheme’ features are consistently associated with Niwiński´s type II (see Figures 7, 10 – chapter 3; Figure 4 C – chapter 12; Figure 4 – chapter 13). In these earlier objects, depictions are large and tend to follow the naturalistic Ramesside style, usually with low density of decoration.

Perhaps after the first half of the 21st Dynasty, the central panel became a tableau composed of three registers (two symmetric compositions evolving around the scarab and one register composed of a winged deity – see Figure 6). This arrangement is consistently associated with coffins from Niwiński´s type III (see Figure 13 – chapter 3). The style of these tableaux is more schematic and the compositions are heavier, displaying a highly variable degree of quality. Moreover, greater attention is given to the volume of certain key-features (scarabs, solar disks or enthroned gods) by adding plaster.

Occasionally, the basic scheme is used on late 21stDynasty coffins, probably seeking for an archaizing style.6 However, the style of later objects – sometimes combining features of the Niwiński´s type III or V – is highly schematic and the weight of the liminal elements (or space fillers) is heavier, which makes their later dating easy to detect.

The stability achieved through this new scheme is only apparent since, once established, it gave rise to a new search for complexity and innovation. However, the

Only seldom, coffins of a later date (Niwiński´s type III) display a central panel with basic scheme features. Anonymous coffin from Bab elGasus, unknown A number (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, F.93/10.4), in BOESER, 1916: Pl. I.

6

7

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A.2, coffin (Musées Royaux d´Art et d´Histoire).

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Fig. 3 – Central panel. Outer coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art) – Drawing by the author.

Fig. 4 – Central panel. Mummy-cover of Diukhonsuiry (A.49, Cairo Egyptian Museum) – Drawing by the author. 94

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Fig. 5 – Central panel. Inner coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art) – Drawing by the author. attention now moved from the main registers to the liminal areas. The liminal areas are those that provide a frontier either between the main registers of the tableau or between those and the outer limits of the lid.

cases, they figure fully enthroned,11 sometimes forming entire cult scenes on their own.12 It is important to note that, in order to display this increasingly more complex frieze of symbols, the arms and wings of the goddess had to be stretched horizontally and the once typical U-shaped arrangement of her wings became obsolete (Figure 6).

Once again, it is from the winged Nut that the new impetus for complexity seems to have arisen. This time, however, the new elements that irradiated to the liminal areas originated from the upper composition next to the arms of the winged goddess. Whereas, on earlier compositions, symbols such as scarabs, cobras, ankh signs or heb bowls8 are loosely arranged along the arms of the goddess, they soon evolve to form careful and methodologically arranged friezes composed of alternating cobras, shetayet shrines, scarabs and vultures (Figure 6).9 This frieze of symbols arranged over the arms of the winged goddess eventually involved more complex elements, such as falcon gods, long twisted cobras and squatted mummiform gods together with their respective shrines.10 Gradually, these secondary depictions of gods became larger and, in some

The elements depicted in these friezes were soon used on new pictorial areas, such as the upper corners of the panel. These areas became available on Niwiński´s type III coffins. When the depiction of the forearms became obsolete, the shape of the floral collar interfered directly with the upper limits of the central panel, thus creating new pictorial areas (see the contrast between the upper contour of the central panel in Figure 5 and in Figure 6). As a result of such changes, secondary registers, usually of triangular shape, were formed involving vultures, mummiform squatted gods, cobras, scarabs and shetayet shrines.13 Sometimes these elements create semi-autonomous blocks allusive to cult scenes.14

A.108, mummy board (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29663), see NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. IX-A. A.136, outer coffin (Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa), unpublished. 9 Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, CGT 10112.a) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. IV. Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, CGT 10106.a) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. XI. A.99, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29616), unpublished. A.139 (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1916: Pl. V. A.83, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29658), see description in NIWIŃSKI, 1995: 80-83. 10 A.110, coffin (Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa), unpublished (see Fig. 6). 8

A.18, coffin (Musées Royaux d´Art et d´ Histoire). A.33, coffin (Copenhagen National Museum, JE 29630/29729). 12 A.2, coffin (Musées Royaux d´Art et d´ Histoire). 13 A.83, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29658), see description in NIWIŃSKI, 1995: 80-83. A.18, coffin (Musées Royaux d´Art et d´Histoire). 14 Those scenes consist of mummiform gods depicted in shrines. A.110, coffin (Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa), unpublished (see Fig. 11

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Fig. 6 – Central panel. Coffin of Shedsutauepet (A 110, Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa) – Drawing by the author. A similar process occurred at the outer borders of the central panel, almost creating a ‘frame’ of iconography disposed around the three main registers.

This new pattern of decoration using secondary motifs has led contemporary authors to consider them merely as space fillers and to explain this process as a horror vacui. In our perspective, these symbols should be seen as liminal compositions that evolved as an extension of the protective role of the winged deity. Such interstitial compositions should therefore be seen as a whole, performing a protective role around the main registers either with hieroglyphs or with sacred symbols. This trend became so important that the size of the main registers had to be reduced to increase the area devoted to the liminal compositions.16

All these liminal compositions present a considerable degree of autonomy towards the three main registers. Their elements are loosely displayed according to the available space but it does not mean that they are designed randomly. In fact, it is not rare to find short sentences allusive either to Nut or to Osiris (Figure 6) among the liminal compositions.15

A.108, inner coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29663), see NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. IX-A. A.139, coffin of Gautseshen (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1916: Pl. V. A.83, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, CG 6051), see description in NIWIŃSKI, 1995: 80-83. Inner coffin of Padiamon (Mummification Museum).

16

6). Coffin of Pashedkhonsu (Michael Carlos Museum, 1999.I.15) in LACOVARA, TROPE, 2001: 51. 15 A.110, coffin (Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa), unpublished (see Fig. 6).

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5. Irregular compositions

Miniaturist panels

Progressive and retrograde trends

The increasing use and dimensions of the liminal areas (typical of coffins of Niwiński´s type III or V) led to the progressive miniaturization of compositions17 and to a deep change of style, which became schematic and highly stylized.18 Miniaturist panels display the three registers according to the same vertical symmetry of the classical scheme but present larger interstitial areas: the three main registers are thus ‘absorbed’ and involved by liminal compositions. In the best objects, the composition evolved to form a careful and well planned design of the tableau as a whole, presenting a strong sense of geometry and unity in spite of the multiple semi-autonomous iconographic blocks that decorate the interstitial areas (Figure 9 A-B, chapter 11).19 Those liminal blocks can be composed of isolated ‘vignettes’ depicting fairly complex scenes such as rituals,20 recumbent gods and shrines.

Central panels provided with multiple registers attained a significant degree of complexity. Such tableaux resulted from the unprecedented development of the miniaturist trend. The style is schematic and the density of depiction is only possible due to a careful planning of the panel as a whole. This miniaturist trend evolved into different directions. — Progressive programmes continued to be planned, seemingly searching for the object’s sense of uniqueness. This is visible in the alternate inclusion of different types of winged goddesses, vultures or winged scarabs. Other processes were used to attain the uniqueness of the object through a ‘systematic method’: • Introduction of unusual iconographic features in unexpected places, such as the depiction of the ba as a ram between the wings of the protective goddesses25 or the inclusion of snake-headed sphinxes.26 On other occasions, rare details are included, such as Osiris clad in Heb Sed garments instead of his usual mummiform appearance, or the god Heh used as a nuclear block of the symmetric compositions.27 • Replication of a motif or an entire iconographic sequence. Such replication can affect either the nuclear block – the scarab28 – or any other element of the composition, such as the protective goddess behind the Osirian throne29 or the enthroned gods,30 or even, in the most extreme cases, the symmetric replication of the entire register. The coffin of Asetemkhebit from TT320 is one of the most remarkable examples of this trend.31 — Retrograde programmes. Archaism, as a revivalist recovery of features considered ‘old fashioned’ became a new trend of innovation on miniaturist panels. This is clearly visible in the recovery of the basic scheme – with its typical two registers – but now designed according to the new miniaturist and schematic style, displaying the typical density and profusion of the interstitial compositions.32

Multiple registers Interesting variations were attempted through the constant addition of new registers into the classical tripartite scheme of the tableau. At first, the process was simple, consisting in the alternate addition of the two main types of registers used on the central panel (winged deity or symmetric compositions).21 A typical sequence would be formed by the following elements: winged solar disk, Osirian symmetric composition, winged goddess, Osirian symmetric composition, avian deity.22 The replication of registers may simply reproduce variations of the first register after the classical tripartite panel is complete.23 In any of these cases, the size of the central panel is significantly expanded to the area traditionally decorated with the lower section. At the same time, the size of the floral collar expanded. These combined aspects affected the lower section, which became reduced to the lower legs or, in the most extreme cases, was even removed from the lid. In fact, on occasions, the central panel covers the entire surface of the lower section of the lid (see Figure 16 - chapter 1).24

17 Outer coffin of Tabakmut (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Coffin (Kunsthistorishes Museum, ÄS 6263) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 23. Inner coffin of Tabakmut (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 18 A.149, outer coffin (Berlin Egyptian Museum). 19 Outer coffin of Tabakmut (Metropolitan Museum of Art). 20 Coffin (Kunsthistorishes Museum, ÄS 6269) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 2009: Pl. 28. 21 Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, CGT 10102) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. IV. A.47 (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1916: Pl. IV. 22 Anonymous coffin (British Museum, 48972). 23 A.124, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29696 ), see description CHASSINAT, 1909: 1-3. 24 A.136 (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1916: Pl. VIII. A.41 (Copenhagen). A. 29, inner coffin (British Museum).

Coffin (Kunsthistorishes Museum, ÄS 6265) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 18. 26 Coffin (Kunsthistorishes Museum, ÄS 6271) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 9. 27 A.55, inner coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29637), see description in NIWIŃSKI, 1995: 63-64. 28 Coffin (Kunsthistorishes Museum, ÄS 6271) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 9. 29 Inner coffin of Tabakmut (Metropolitan Museum of Art). 30 A.132, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29612), unpublished. 31 Outer coffin of Menkhepere (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Outer coffin of Asetemkhebit (Cairo Egyptian Museum, CG 26198) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. L. 32 A.91, outer coffin (Berlin Egyptian Museum). 25

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Fig. 7 – Central panel. Mummy-cover of Padiuamun (A 87, Cairo Egyptian Museum) – Drawing by the author.

be made to those whose impact in the overall organization of the tableau seems to be more extensive.

Unusual compositions The general layout of the central panel may be significantly transformed creating compositions with an even higher degree of irregularity. Such compositions are usually associated with coffins of exceptional quality. Although it is virtually impossible to characterize all types of irregularities that may occur, reference will nevertheless

Very exceptional compositions are created by blurring the frontier between the upper section and the central panel to the point of forming a continuous tableau traversing the central axis of the lid from the head-board to the lower section (Figure 7). In these objects, the upper section 98

Rogério Sousa: ‘Spread your wings over me’ or by winged goddesses.39 The later motif is remarkably similar to the decoration detected on the pectorals actually found in the royal tombs of Tanis.40

does not simply disappear. On the contrary, the large collar is depicted, as well as the hands of the deceased. The difference is that the central panel breaks through the central axis of the upper section, thus creating a single composition mingling depictions typical of both sections.

Solar barque . In a limited sample of 21st-Dynasty coffins, the nuclear block of the first register depicts the solar barque (Figure 4). Royal funerary jewellery did include pectorals of this kind and it is possible that these scenes were inspired by such objects.41 When the solar disk is depicted, lateral compositions include the divine crew, usually forming centripetal compositions. Outside the barque may figure cosmic symbols such as the pet sign and the signs of the East and the West, thus suggesting the solar navigation in the sky.42 Another variation consists in the depiction of the winged (ram-headed43) scarab navigating in the solar barque. This central motif is depicted together with centrifugal blocks displaying twisted cobras44 or jackals45 below the wings of the scarab.

One of the finest examples of this kind is found on the mummy board of the High Priest Pinedjem II.33 Designed according to the classical scheme of the central panel, the composition presents three main registers with the winged goddess replaced by a large falcon. The adherence to the ‘classical scheme’ is blurred with the introduction of additional – almost independent - blocks disposed in the liminal areas creating a multitude of secondary registers. Additionally, the area above the three main registers displays a vertical sequence of registers, each one presenting a nuclear block (heart amulet or pectoral) inspired on the earliest versions of the central panel.

Collar with a scarab. Associated with the basic scheme, it consists in the depiction of a funerary pectoral in the shape of a winged scarab supported on suspender-like bands and floral elements (lotus flowers and buds) adorning its lower fringe (Figure 5). These depictions seem to reproduce the features of funerary pectorals whose actual existence is archaeologically attested.46

An identical scheme is detected on the mummy board of the priest Padiamun (A.87) found in Bab el-Gasus, with the area above the traditional tripartite scheme evolving into the head-board with a large nuclear block combining the heart amulet and the winged scarab. 6. The iconographic ‘lexicon’ of the central panel Symmetrical registers: The nuclear block

Solar scarab. Typically associated with the classical scheme of the central panel. Probably as a development of the depictions mentioned above, the solar scarab alone eventually became the focal element of the symmetrical compositions without an explicit association with a pectoral, a collar or the solar boat (see first register of Figure 6). However, given the context, connotations with the heart scarab are likely. The typical depiction consists in a (ram-headed) scarab,47 with the upper legs holding the solar disk and the hind legs flanking a shen ring.48 The solar disk is inserted within a multi-coloured ring from which two cobras emerge wearing ankh signs at their necks.

The nuclear block rules most of the features of the symmetric compositions and originates significant variations on the general layout of the register. The following types of nuclear blocks are detected: Naos-shaped pectorals. It can be found on Ramesside or early 21st Dynasty coffins. The area above the pectoral is decorated with solar compositions involving the akhet sign34 or the solar disk35 (Figure 3). The pectoral itself is decorated with variations of the vignette depicting the solar god alone36 or integrated in groups of mummiform gods.37 Other variations include the solar god flanked by a falcon38

Late Ramesside mummy board of Nesyamun (Leeds City Museum D. 426-426a.1960). 40 See MONTET, 1941: Pl. XXVI (Pectoral of Sheshonk II). See also STIERLIN, 1993: 169. See pectoral from the reign of Tutankhamun REEVES, 1990: 151. This motif is also common in the decoration of the shrines of the sacred barque of Amun. 41 See pectoral from Tutankhamun´s tomb in STIERLIN, 1993: 69. See also pectoral from the mummy of Sheshonk II STIERLIN, 1993: 195. 42 Coffin of Nesyamun (Leeds City Museum, D. 426-426a.1960) in COONEY, 2007: fig. 187. Mummy board of A.49 (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29733) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. V. 43 Inner coffin of A.68 (Kunsthistorishes Museum, ÄS 6267a) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 8. See also A.151, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum). The latter presents the triple atef crown. 44 Coffin A.46 (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29651) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. VII. Mummy board of Tauhert (Cairo Egyptian Museum), in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. LVII. 45 Inner coffin of A.68 (Kunsthistorishes Museum, ÄS 6267a) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 8. 46 See STIERLIN, 1993: 188 (pectoral of Sheshonk II). 47 Winged compositions are not common in these tableaux. When a winged scarab is depicted, its wings are usually feathered, following the model of the falcon wings. Mummy board of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Mummy board (Michael Carlos Museum). Outer coffin of Pinedjem II (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XLII. 48 Inner coffin of Amenhotep (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1917: Pl. I. 39

DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XLIV. The akhet-sign can figure alone – see outer coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art), outer coffin of Masaharta (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 26195) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. III, or displayed within wider compositions which may include the wedjat-eyes – see Ramesside mummy board of Nesyamun (Leeds City Museum D. 426-426a.1960), coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, 10101a) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. I. 35 The solar disk is usually encircled by cobras. See coffin A.81 (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29649) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. LXIV. Outer coffin of Maatkare (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXIX. 36 Inner coffin of Tjuiu (Cairo Egyptian Museum, CG 51006-7) in QUIBELL, 1908: Pl. X. See also anthropoid sarcophagus of Ramessu (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 72203) in SALEH, SOUROUZIAN, 1987: no. 200. 37 See coffin A.81 (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29649) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. LXIV. Outer coffin of Maatkare (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXIX. Also outer coffin of Masaharta (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 26195) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. III. Mummy board of Khaemipt in COONEY, 2007: fig. 213. First depictions of the solar barque in the pectoral may be detected already in the Ramesside Period. See coffin set of Henutmehyt (British Museum, 48001) in TAYLOR, 2001: 227. 38 Outer coffin of Paser (Louvre Museum, N 2570, N 2581). 33 34

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Fig. 8 – Central panel. Inner coffin of Tjenetipet (A 119, Cairo Egyptian Museum) – Drawing by the author.

Other signs (djed or was) are attached to these, creating a column on both sides of the scarab.49 The scarab emerges from a heb bowl50 or a nub basket.51 More exceptionally, it emerges from a lotus flower,52 a djed pillar53 or even from the arms of a squatted deity.54

Symmetrical register: Lateral compositions The nuclear block is the centre of symmetrical compositions that spring from the centre towards both sides of the lid. Most of these compositions involve centripetal blocks and sometimes centrifugal blocks. Distinct subjects are consistently associated with each of these blocks.

Heart amulet. This symbol is typically associated with the upper section but it can be exceptionally included in the first register of the central panel, sometimes erasing the barrier with the upper section (Figure 7). The use of the heart amulet in the central panel is typically detected in exceptional compositions where several irregular elements or combinations are possible55 (Figure 8).

Centripetal blocks: The wedjat eye56 is a recurrent subject in this block (Figures 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8). Compositions involving squatted/standing (winged) goddesses are also very common57, usually displaying the wedjat eye between their wings, together with the ba bird in adoration (Figure 5)58 or even the Sons of Horus.59 These goddesses are normally identified as Isis and Nephthys60 (Figure 5, 6, 7),

49 Inner coffin of Amenhotep (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1917: Pl. I. 50 Anonymous coffin from Bab el-Gasus, unknown A number (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1916: Pl. I. 51 A.86, mummy board (Cairo Egyptian Museum). See description in CHASSINAT, 1909: 74-75. 52 Mummy board of Gautseshen (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1916: Pl. VIII. 53 Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, 10105) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. X . Coffin of Hor (Inv. No. 525, Rio de Janeiro), see KITCHEN, 1990: 109. Mummy board of Henutaneb (Grenoble) in KUENY, YOYOTTE, 1979: 109. 54 See A.28, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum). See also mummy board of A.111 (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29667) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. VI. 55 A.109, inner coffin of Djedmaeiuesankh.

Coffin set of Henutmehyt (British Museum, 48001) in TAYLOR, 2010: 98, 117. Mummy board of Khaemipt in COONEY, 2007: fig. 213. 57 Inner coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). 58 Mummy board of Tanethereret (Louvre Museum, E 13034). outer coffin of Padiamun (A.114, JE 29666), in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. XI. Outer coffin of Maatkare (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXIX, Coffin of Paser (Louvre Museum, N 2570, N 2581). Inner coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Inner coffin of Masaharta (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXVI. 59 Outer coffin of Pinedjem II (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XLII. Mummy board of Nany (Metropolitan Museum of Art). 60 Mummy board of Panebmontu (Inv. E 13046, Louvre Museum). Mummy board of Gautseshen (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) BOESER, 1916: Pl. VIII. 56

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Rogério Sousa: ‘Spread your wings over me’ Ptah-Sokar76 or mummiform gods77) or even complete cult scenes.78

but occasionally the name of Neith is also referred to.61 Cobra goddesses62 can appear as secondary elements and are usually identified as manifestations of Neith. When the available space is limited – especially on mummy boards – the centripetal block is directly juxtaposed to the nuclear block, forming a group composed by the winged goddesses flanking the solar god which is a motif typically used in the decoration of the shrine of the divine barque of Amun-Re. The winged goddesses are also abundantly attested on the decoration of divine or funerary shrines.63

The winged deity Dividing line In the basic scheme of the central panel, it is not uncommon to find a horizontal line dividing the two main registers of the central panel (Figures 3, 4, 5). In this context, this feature became very common and only exceptionally is omitted.79 If the nuclear block of the first register is a pectoral, this line is traced on its lower limit80 (Figure 3). When enthroned gods are depicted in the centrifugal blocks, this line can be absent and long mats positioned underneath the thrones can be depicted instead (Figure 5). In that case the dividing line between the first and the second register is interrupted near the centre of the composition.81 When the nuclear block is a solar barque, this division usually takes the form of a long pet sign82 (Figure 4), sometimes decorated with stars.83 Aquatic connotations of the sky are emphasized with the depiction of a fish pulling out from the water84 which also alludes to the word besy, meaning ‘introduction’, with strong religious connotations related to the ‘ascent’ to heaven, the divine realm inhabited by the gods.85 With the classic scheme this feature became obsolete.

Centripetal blocks can also display offering scenes, clearly inspired on temple decoration, such as the god Thoth performing a ritual (usually offering the wedjat eye) before the enthroned god, sometimes followed (or substituted) by the deceased in festive garment (presenting offerings)64 or as a ba bird presenting libations. Scenes with Ptah-Sokar in avian form65 are also common. Centrifugal blocks. They are normally used together with the centripetal blocks66 and depict mummiform gods (squatted67 or seated on a throne) facing outwards,68 such as Osiris (in full human depiction – see Figures 5 and 6) or the falcon-headed god Ptah-Sokar.69 Exceptionally, the enthroned gods are depicted as royal ancestors from the New Kingdom, such as Horemheb.70 Standing (winged) goddesses (sometimes identified as Isis and Nephthys71) protect the back of the enthroned god. In the most elaborate compositions, the centrifugal block (enthroned gods and protective female deities) is entirely depicted inside a shrine.72

Winged goddess In most of the compositions, Nut figures as the central deity. She is depicted – from her point of view - facing left,86 as a squatted woman wearing a divine dress usually knotted with a long red belt. In most cases, the goddess wears a headband,87 a modiu (Figure 3),88 or a royal crown adorned with cobras,89 sometimes together with a sun

Additional blocks. Additional blocks are inserted on the available areas. These semi-autonomous elements are composed of sacred animals (such as the ba depicted as a ram73 or the god Anubis as a jackal74), hieroglyphic compositions (usually involving the wedjat eye and the nefer sign75), secondary shrines (sheltering deities such as

A.95, inner coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, CG 6008), in CHASSINAT, 1909: 23-26. 77 A.16, inner coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29692), in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. V. 78 A.105, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29661), in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. XI. 79 A.114, outer coffin of Padiamun (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29666) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. XI. 80 Outer coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Mummy board (Munich Egyptian Museum, ÄS_12a.9). 81 Mummy-cover of Amenhotep (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden), see BOESER, 1917: Pl. I. 82 A.49, mummy board (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29733) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. V. Outer coffin of Pasebakhaienipet (Brooklyn Museum), see BLEIBERG, 2008: 96-97. 83 A.68, coffin of Ankhefenmut (Kunsthistorishes Museum, ÄS 6267a) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 8. Also coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, CGT 10104a) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. VIII. 84 Outer coffin of Pasebakhaienipet (Brooklyn Museum), in BLEIBERG, 2008: 96-97. 85 See KRUCHTEN, 1989: 163-167. 86 The inner coffin of Khonsw, from the tomb of Sennedjem (TT 1), is a remarkable exception of this rule, where the goddess is facing right. This is the only exception to this rule known to us (see Figure 2). 87 Coffin set of Tamutneferet (Musée du Louvre, N 2631, N2571, N 2623, N 2620). 88 Outer coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). 89 A.68, coffin of Ankhefenmut (Kunsthistorishes Museum, AS 6267a) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 8. 76

Mummy board of A.111 (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29667) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. VI. 62 Mummy board (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). A.68, mummy board of Ankhefenmut (British Museum, EA 24797). 63 See the funerary shrines from Tutanhamun´s tomb: PIANKOFF, 1952: Pl. III, Pl. X, Pl. XII, Pl. XV, Pl. XVII. 64 Inner coffin of Masaharta (Cairo Egyptian Museum), in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXVI. 65 Coffin of Panebmontu (Louvre Museum, Inv. E 13029). 66 Exclusively centrifugal compositions are rare Coffin of Padiamun (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 26220 / CG 61011) in COONEY, 2007: fig. 175. 67 A.136, inner coffin (Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa), unpublished. 68 Inner coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). 69 Mummy board of Nesyamun (Leeds City Museum, D. 426-426a.1960) in COONEY, 2007: fig. 187. Also coffin (Munich Egyptian Museum, ÄS-12c). 70 Mummy board of Gautseshen (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1916: Pl. VIII. 71 Coffin from Bab el-Gasus, unidentified A number (Cairo Egyptian Museum, CG 6034). See NIWIŃSKI, 1995: 23-24. 72 Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, CGT 10104a) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. VIII. 73 Mummy board of Panebmontu (Louvre Museum, Inv. E 13046). A.86, mummy board (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29711), see description in CHASSINAT, 1909: 74-75. 74 Coffin of Hor (Inv. No. 525, Rio de Janeiro), see KITCHEN, 1990: 109. 75 Mummy board of Panebmontu (Louvre Museum, Inv. E 13046). 61

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity disk.90 Occasionally, the winged goddess wears the symbol of Neith on top of her head.91

• ‘Words spoken by Nut, the great one. Words spoken by Isis, the mother of gods’105 • ‘Words spoken by Nut, the great one (…) she gives daily offerings, all the good and pure things’106 • ‘Words spoken by Nut, the great one who gives birth to the gods, who conceived Re, lady of the Amentet, may she give all the good and pure things’ 107

The goddess grasps feathers,92 ankh or djed signs.93 Typically, large U-shaped wings irradiate from her open arms (Figures 3, 4, 5, 7, 8). Less often the winged deity is fully depicted in avian form, either as a falcon94 (see Figure 4 A – chapter 11) or as a vulture.95 Exceptionally, a winged solar disk may also figure in this context.96

Iconographic arrangements became more common with the classic scheme of the central panel where the wings of the goddess are stretched horizontally. The iconographic compositions are displayed over the wings, usually forming centripetal compositions on both sides of the head of the winged goddess. These friezes display several subjects:

Secondary compositions: the upper record In the basic scheme, the U-shaped wings of the goddess97 create an empty space between the first register and the winged deity. This space is used to write short inscriptions or a secondary iconographic composition. Texts and inscriptions refer to the name and titles of Nut98 (frequently combined with the depiction of the wedjat eyes99 - see Figure 4, 5). The goddess is referred to as:

— (Winged) cobras with twisted bodies108 - sometimes combined with usual inscriptions referring to Nut (basic scheme).109 Occasionally, the winged cobras are identified as manifestations of Neith.110 In other instances, this area is decorated with cobras pending from the horizontal pet sign above,111 sometimes wearing solar disks or even the pshent crown. — Frieze of symbols. Secondary motifs involving various symbols became arranged according to a stable sequence (Figure 6): (winged) wedjat eyes,112 solar falcons,113 cobras,114 shetayet shrines, scarabs and vultures.115 These sequences decorating the area above the arms of the winged goddess became increasingly more frequent on later coffins.

• ‘lady of the sky, lady of the gods’100 • ‘Nut, the great one of the horizon’101 • ‘Nut, the great one that gives birth to Re, the lady of the Amentet’102 • ‘Nut, the great one that gives birth to the gods, may she give offerings’103 • ‘Nut, the great one, mother of gods, daughter of Re, who is in the House of Life (Per-Ankh), lady of the House of Beauty (Per-Nefer), may she give all things’104 Short spells of Nut are sometimes included:

Secondary compositions: the lower record On earlier objects, the area below the wings of the central deity is usually left undecorated116 (Figures 3-4). However,

90 A.68, coffin of Ankhefenmut (Kunsthistorishes Museum, AS 6267a) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 8. 91 Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, 10102.a) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. IV. A.19, coffin (Copenhagen National Museum, JE 29723). A.121, coffin (Victoria Museum, JE 29709). A.38, inner coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29655), unpublished. 92 Outer coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Outer coffin of Masaharta (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXVI. Outer coffin of Paser (Louvre Museum, N 2570, N 2581). A.46, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29651), in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. VII. 93 A.68, mummy board of Ankhefenmut (British Museum, EA 24797). 94 A.114, outer coffin of Padiamun (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29666). Mummy board of Maatkare (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 26200), in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XL. 95 Outer coffin of Maatkare (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 26200) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXIX. 96 See Fig. 17 from chapter 3. 97 Mummy board of Khaemipt in COONEY, 2007: fig. 213. 98 Coffin set of Tamutneferet (Musée du Louvre, N 2631, N2571, N 2623, N 2620). Mummy board and inner coffin (Munich Egyptian Museum, ÄS_12). Outer coffin of Masaharta (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXVI. Inner coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). 99 Coffin in COONEY, 2007: fig. 166. Mummy board of A.49 (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29733) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. V. Coffin of Panebmontu (Louvre Museum, E 13029,). Inner coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). 100 Outer coffin of Khonsw, in COONEY, 2007: fig. 132. Coffin (Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, no.10832) in COONEY, 2007: fig. 54. 101 Inner coffin of Khonsw in COONEY, 2007: fig. 135. 102 Mummy board of Khamipt in COONEY, 2007: fig. 213 103 Outer coffin of Masaharta (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXVI. 104 A.68, coffin of Ankhefenmut (Kunsthistorishes Museum, AS 6267a) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 8.

105 Coffin set (Die Städtische Galerie Liebieghaus, 1651 a-f) in COONEY, 2007: fig. 25. 106 Coffin in COONEY, 2007: fig. 166. 107 Coffin of Panebmontu (Louvre Museum, Inv. E 13029). 108 Outer coffin of Pasebakhaienipet (Brooklyn Museum), in BLEIBERG, 2008: 96-97. Anonymous coffin from Bab el-Gasus, unknow A number (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, F.93/10.4) in BOESER, 1916: Pl. I. 109 A.68, coffin of Ankhefenmut (Kunsthistorishes Museum, AS 6267a) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 8. Inner coffin and mummy board of Tauhert (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. LIV-LVII. Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, CGT 10104.a) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. VIII. 110 A.95, inner coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29617), in CHASSINAT, 1909: 23-26. 111 These cobras are depicted in groups (usually four - two at each side) and they can be depicted together with a small inscription referring to Nut. Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, CGT 10105) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. X. Coffin of A.19 (Copenhagen). A.68, mummy board of Ankhefenmut (British Museum, EA 24797). Sometimes, eight or even ten cobras are depicted. 112 Mummy board of Amenhotep (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1917: Pl. I. 113 A.68, coffin of Ankhefenmut (Kunsthistorishes Museum, AS 6267a) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 8. 114 A.38, inner coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29655), unpublished. 115 Outer coffin of Pinedjem II (from TT 320, Cairo Egyptian Museum), see DARESSY, 1909: PL. XLII . A.28, outer coffin (Cairo Egyptian Museum), unpublished. A.27, mummy board (Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa), unpublished. 116 A.49, mummy board (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 29733) in NIWIŃSKI, 1988: Pl. V. Mummy board of Nesyamun (Leeds City

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Rogério Sousa: ‘Spread your wings over me’ from the secondary compositions that gravitate around Nut’s image, which bears witness to the importance and significance of the winged deity in the overall programme of the central panel. In particular, the importance of the liminal elements (the so-called ‘space fillers’) is due to their ability to extend the magical protection provided by the winged goddess to all the areas of the tableau. Their prevalence on later compositions thus exposes a desire to strengthen the magical protection provided by the heavenly mother goddess to the coffin´s components.

it became increasingly frequent to display centrifugal compositions in this area involving wedjat eyes,117 the Anubis jackal118 (Figure 5), (Winged119) cobras120 among others. 7. The symbolic elements of the central panel Winged deity The large depiction of Nut on the lids of the 18th-Dynasty anthropoid coffins is the result of a long tradition dating back to the Old Kingdom. It evolved from inscriptions written on Middle Kingdom coffins but the texts themselves were borrowed directly from the Pyramid Texts, in which the goddess is regarded as the king’s mother through his identification with Osiris (son of Nut).121 The goddess could be symbolically identified with the coffin and so, when the dead man was sealed inside this, it was as if he was being placed within the body of Nut, his divine mother, thereby reaching a state from which he could begin a new life. Indeed, in texts of the Old Kingdom, the word for the chest of a sarcophagus is mwt (mother) – a clear allusion to this concept.122

Wedjat eyes On Ramesside coffins, the depiction of wedjat eyes in the central panel is prevalent. They are usually disposed symmetrically around the nuclear block of the first register. In this context, the symbolism of the wedjat eyes is twofold. Given the prevalence of magical symbols on the central panel associated with amulets used to protect Ramesside mummies (pectorals, solar barque and scarabs), it is possible that the large wedjat eyes depicted on the tableau might be allusive to the amulet with the same shape supposed to be positioned in the abdominal area to protect the incision of the embalmers.125

As the personification of the sky, the depiction of the winged deity in the central panel resumes the symbolism of the lid itself: Oh, my mother Nut, spread yourself over me, so that I may be placed among the imperishable stars and may never die.123

However, the symbolic associations of the wedjat eyes in the context of the central panel might be more complex. It is certainly not accidental that the symmetry of the large wedjat eyes depicted on the Ramesside central panels may suggest the design of the eye panel. In fact, we can trace back the origin of this motif on the eye panel traditionally depicted on the left side of the rectangular troughs. Anthropoid sarcophagi of the late 18th Dynasty display the eye panel in its traditional position on the left side of the case,126 while Ramesside coffins already display a pair of wedjat eyes on the left shoulder of the lid.127 The wedjat eyes depicted on the central panel thus seem to have migrated from the left side of the lid, where they first appear. The migration of this motif is extremely significant for the subsequent development of the decoration detected on the central panel and on the lid. One has to keep in mind that the eye panel is usually associated with the false-door motif, thus being closely related to the symbolism of passage between the worlds of the dead and of the living. As a result of the migration of the wedjat eyes from the eye panel of the case to the central panel of the lid, the symbolism of the ‘passage’ was introduced in the later, thus imprinting to the lid new symbolic associations related to the idea of a sacred gate between the world of the living and the realm of the dead. In

The depiction of Nut originated from a particular trend that consisted in the addition of ‘vignettes’ next to the bands of texts inscribed on the surfaces of the coffin. Thus, Nut’s image illustrates the text inscribed on the longitudinal band running down the centre of the lid.124 The tableau depicted in the central panel of the Ramesside yellow coffins is deeply embedded in this set of beliefs related to the king’s immortality. The winged goddess alludes to the magical protection given by the goddess of the sky and to her ability to provide rebirth for the (‘royal’) deceased. The subsequent development of the tableau is also rooted on this subject. Both the third register and the liminal elements derive Museum, D. 426-426a.1960) in COONEY, 2007: fig. 187. 117 Coffin set of Tamutneferet (Musée du Louvre). 118 Inner coffin of Henut-taui (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Mummy board of Tanethereret (Louvre Museum, E 13034); Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, CGT 10104a) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. VIII. 119 Inner coffin of Masaharta (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in DARESSY, 1909: Pl. XXXVI. Anonymous coffin from Bab el-Gasus (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden) in BOESER, 1916: Pl. I. A.68, coffin of Ankhefenmut (Kunsthistorishes Museum, AS 6267a) in EGNER, HASLAUER, 1994: Pl. 8. 120 Coffin (Turin Egyptian Museum, CGT 10105) in NIWIŃSKI, 2004: Pl. X. Mummy board of Gautsesehen (National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden), in BOESER, 1916: Pl. VIII. 121 TAYLOR, 1989: 11. 122 TAYLOR, 1989: 11. 123 TAYLOR, 1989: 11. See also DELANGE, 1993: 274 124 The depiction of Nut in the central panel of the lid resumes the identification between the lid and the mother goddess, fully displaying the protection and regeneration granted by the goddess in the Duat. TAYLOR, 1989: 11.

125 Compositions involving the wedjat eyes include hieroglyphic arrangements such as neb neferu, ‘The lord of Beauty’, a title related to the mummification process, when amulets and pectorals such as those depicted in the central panel were positioned in the wrappings of the mummy. The same idea is conveyed by the recurrent depiction of the Anubis jackal, sometimes depicted over a shrine – a symbol allusive to the canopic chest. 126 See, for example, the inner sarcophagus re-used by Psusennes I, in MONTET, 1951: Pl. XCVI 127 Coffin of Henutwdjebu (Washington University Gallery of Art) in HORNUNG, BRYAN (eds), 2002: 67.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity fact if we consider the earlier depictions of the central panel (Figure 2) it is clear the resemblance with the decoration of the lintels of Ramesside tombs (see lintel from Nefertari´s tomb - Figure 17 in chapter 1), which, together with the bands of text inscribed on the lower section, could be seen as the depiction of a sacred gate.

panel. Its image refers to the rebirth of the sun god: ‘As with most representations in tombs, on coffins and on pectorals, the scarab represents Khepri, referring to the phase of the mounting movement from the netherworld to heaven. It functions as a symbol of a solar resurrection in which the deceased hopes to partake. Usual attributes are sun disks between its forelegs or a shen ring between its hind legs, pendent protective uraei, apparently originating from the usual configuration of sun disk with uraei’.134

Pectorals The depiction of a pectoral on the chest of anthropoid coffins128 and sarcophagi129 is rarely found in the 18th Dynasty, but it became increasingly common during the Ramesside Period.130 At first, the regular position of the pectoral was on the upper section (on the chest of the deceased) but its location became gradually lower, perhaps with the purpose of associating the solar significance of this object with the symbolism of the winged goddess depicted in the central panel.131 Eventually, the pectoral was included in the central panel, where it became the nuclear block of a new register, thus triggering the development of the central panel as a whole. Thus, the basic scheme of the central panel results from associating the imagery of the protection provided by the heavenly mother goddess with symbolism of the sun god’s rebirth.

Either alone or integrated in a naos-shaped pectoral or a solar barque the (winged) scarab is, together with the winged goddess, one of the main symbols of the central panel. Given that all other nuclear elements of the central panel seem to be closely related to the amulets displayed within the wrappings of the mummy, it is logical to suppose that the solar scarab, so insistently depicted in the nuclear block of symmetric compositions, may be allusive to the magical role of the heart scarab.135 Some symmetric compositions present the scarab flanked by mummiform gods, extending the symbolism of this register to the idea of solar-Osirian union, a central subject of Theban theology. Such compositions allude to the union of the sun god with his own corpse – a central subject of the iconographic compositions of the Books of the Hereafter depicted on royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings. In fact, the sacred scarab depicted in the central panel can be seen as a short abbreviation of the compositions of the Amduat referring to the solar rebirth. This is an additional reading that ought to be kept in mind to understand the most extreme developments of the symbolism of the central panel, such as those large panels extending to the entire lower section of the lid. With repetitive depictions of winged deities, these compositions strongly suggest the typical arrangements on the ceilings (detected in the decoration of shrines, temples or royal tombs) and the dynamism of the solar journey through the Duat (see Figure 16 – Chapter 1).

It is noteworthy that naos-shaped pectorals introduced the imagery of the divine shrines in the central panel. As such, it summoned the role of the naos of a temple assuring contact with the world of the Duat, where the regeneration of the sun god took place. The depiction of the pectoral thus seems to have strengthened the ‘architectonization’132 of the lid already pursued with the inclusion of the wedjat eyes. Curiously enough – just as it happened with the wedjat eyes – the architectonization of the lid progressed hand in hand with the inclusion of symbols used in mummification or in funerary rites (amulets and pectorals). In fact, such pectorals depict actual funerary objects whose existence is archaeologically attested. An important collection of funerary pectoral involving sacred scarabs was uncovered in the wrappings of the mummy of Tutankhamun and in the royal tombs of Tanis.133

The heart amulet The depiction of the heart amulet in the context of the central panel is consistently associated with highly exceptional compositions. In these cases, the heart amulet seems to be used to blur the formal distinction between the central panel and the upper section. Such compositions were probably not created just for the sake of singularity or uniqueness. The symbolism of the heart amulet, revolving around the justification of the deceased,136 is combined with symbols of the central panel – usually alluding to mummification and rebirth. Tableaux such as these combined two distinct ritual sets: the central panel

Solar scarab The sacred scarab figures in the nuclear block of almost every symmetric composition depicted on the central 128 See inner coffin of Tjuiu (Cairo Egyptian Museum, CG 51006-7) in QUIBELL, 1908: Pl. X. See also Coffin of Katabet, (British Museum, EA 6665) in COONEY, 2007: fig. 21. 129 Coffin of Ramessu (Cairo Egyptian Museum, JE 72203) in SALEH, SOUROUZIAN, 1987: no. 200. 130 The symbolism of these objects is usually focused on solar rejuvenation and rebirth. See WALSEM, 1997: 121. 131 An interesting example can be found in the outer coffin of Tamutneferet (Louvre Museum), in COONEY, 2007: fig. 42. See also coffin lid of Muthotep, in COONEY, 2007: fig. 170. 132 On the concept of ‘architectonisation’ of coffins see WALSEM, 1997: 361. 133 Apparently these objects were not found in the wrappings of the mummies of Bab el-Gasus, which may suggest that the pectorals depicted on yellow coffins may have had a substitutive role, thus aiming to provide the magical protection of an object that was probably no longer included in the funerary equipment of the mummy. DARESSY, 1907: 3-38.

See WALSEM, 1997: 149. GOFF, 1979: 209-220 Eventually the solar scarab alone became the focal element of the first register without an explicit association with a pectoral. However, given the strong association of the previously discussed scenes with magical objects (funerary pectorals or amulets), it is a strong possibility that the solar scarab depicted in the central panel may in fact be allusive to the heart scarab. 136 SOUSA, 2011a: 8-9; 47-48. 134 135

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Rogério Sousa: ‘Spread your wings over me’ recreation of a magical ‘sphere’ (borrowed from temple and tomb decoration) that provides regeneration.

was focused on the protection to the mummy itself (thus concerned with the corporeal self and the secrecy of the burial chamber), whereas the upper section was centred on justification rituals (concerned with the social self of the deceased and with rituals supposed to be performed in the superstructure of the tomb). The entire cycle of funerary beliefs related to the afterlife was thus condensed in these exquisite compositions. Their exclusive character is another aspect to consider when estimating their symbolism. In fact, such tableaux can only be found in coffins of refined craftsmanship. Considering that the upper section was traditionally associated with symbols revealing the deified status of the deceased, it is possible that the blurring of the frontiers between the central panel and the upper section might have been seen as a rather exclusive way of displaying social status.

On the other hand, the chthonic god is depicted in the centrifugal blocks. Clearly, the symmetrical register revolves around the mythological constellation of Osiris, with Isis and Nephthys providing the resurrection of the god. It is noteworthy that the motifs included on these blocks are borrowed from temple ou funerary decoration which certainly plays a part in the identification of the central panel with the magical territory of the Duat, seen as a sacred realm where the regeneration of Osiris took place. The vertical reading The genealogy of the compositions depicted in the central panel suggests that this area was clearly dedicated to the idea of rebirth provided by the mother goddess. Grounding its roots on the symbolism of royal rishi coffins, which depicted the deceased as a newborn ba-bird, the central panel evolved specifically from the depiction of the mother goddess (first depicted as a vulture and later as the goddess Nut)139 embracing the deceased with her life-giving wings.

7. The meaning of the central panel: rebirth and passage Regardless of the complexity of the tableau, two main readings are identified in the compositions of the central panel: — Vertical reading – of solar significance – involving the winged deity and the sacred scarabs depicted in the nuclear blocks of the symmetrical compositions. — Horizontal reading – of Osirian significance revolving around symmetric compositions.

As we have seen, the depiction of Nut in the central panel of the lid resumes the identification between the lid and the mother goddess. The repetitive depiction of the winged goddess is borrowed from the decoration of the ceilings of the funerary temples, especially in the Theban necropolis.

The horizontal reading

Solar symbolism is clearly dominant in the nuclear blocks of the symmetrical compositions, where the depiction of the solar scarab, the very image of solar rebirth, is the rule.140

With a variable degree of complexity, two main themes seem to dominate these symmetric compositions, both revolving around the idea of the resurrection of Osiris: — The wedjat eye, alluding to the magical protection and healing provided to the mummy. — The winged goddesses presenting the typical V-shaped pose.

These alternate compositions – winged goddess and sacred scarab ­– assumed an ascending movement towards the light. For this reason, the central panel is equipped with devices prepared for communication between the Duat and the world of the living, such as the wedjat eyes or the naos, reminiscent of the eye panel.

In fact, the arrangement of the wings of the female deities ‘is a convention used in two-dimensional representations, as evidenced by bronzes and other statuettes where the wings are parallel. The winged goddesses represent protection as well as provision with the breath of life in funerary context. The wings were taken from Nut, the oldest winged protective goddess on coffins’.137 It is also noteworthy that symmetric depictions of winged deities are common on royal sarcophagi of the New Kingdom, precisely to convey to the royal mummy – the embodiment of Osiris – the restoration of its vital powers.138 Such depictions are also common in the decoration of shrines and pectorals, alluding to the rebirth of the god. The winged goddesses depicted in the central panel thus suggest the

Note that, in some coffins, the rising sun heads the entire composition, either depicted within the akhet sign or as an imposing winged sun disk, thus suggesting the identification of the central panel with the horizon from which the sun springs each morning.141

139 Given the hieroglyphic meaning of the vulture (mwt, mother), the depictions of this bird might have been used not so much as the symbol of the goddess Mut but as a symbol for ‘mother’. The depictions of the vulture and the goddess Nut on the lid are thus largely equivalent. 140 See pectoral CG 12204, in REISNER, 1907: Pl. XII. See also the pectoral of Sheshonq II, in STIERLIN, 1993: p. 189 or the pectoral of Tutankhamun in STIERLIN, 1993: 178. 141 The association of the ba-bird with the central panel is also not accidental since it probably corresponds to the area of the mummy where the union of the ba bird with its own corpse was supposed to occur. In fact, in the scenes depicted on the central panel, the ba bird witnesses the mysteries of the Duat: the regeneration of the sun god and his union with Osiris.

WALSEM, 1997: 146 The earliest occurrence of this motif is attested in the sarcophagus of Akhenaten, where Nefertiti figures at the four corners of the object. The winged goddesses are introduced in this decorative context in the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun and this scheme will be kept by his immediate successors, Ay and Horemheb. See IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 260.

137 138

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity Architectonisation thus shapes the central panel of the lid with several features borrowed from the decoration of funerary shrines (either from their ceilings, doors or walls), from lintels or ceilings of the royal tombs/funerary temples.

workshops that could easily produce ‘innovative’ coffins without the need of a formal supervision: this goal could be achieved by simply observing the basic guidelines ruling the decoration of each section of the coffin. This trend achieved its highest expression with the coffins produced from the pontificate of Pinedjem II to the end of the dynasty. Interestingly enough, the style evolved to adapt to this highly standardized context, becoming increasingly schematic and miniaturist.

The adoption of such pictorial schemes recreated the magical territory of the Duat in the central panel and the association of the vertical and horizontal readings of the tableau provided the combined action of Nut with Isis and Nephthys. Together, they assured the union of the sun god with Osiris and the subsequent rebirth of the sun god (the ba of Osiris) and the regeneration of Osiris (the corpse of Re).

Complexity thus became mastered by means of well standardized principles of composition, allowing a wider degree of variability and, at the same time, the observance of a very stable pattern. On the other hand, while standardization achieved its apex, exquisite irregular compositions were also created, apparently following systematic procedures. Those are the most interesting procedures used to originate singular and truly unique compositions:

8. Preliminary notes on standardization and variability in coffin decoration The development of the central panel illustrates on itself the complexity of the phenomena involved in coffin decoration. In the first place the creation of this new section reflects the global reorganization of the coffin decoration. Although grounded on traditional features, this section was reinterpreted and enriched with a vast number of new elements taken from temple and tomb decoration as well, revealing the intericonicity typical of the 21st Dynasty.

— Blurring the frontier with the upper section, creating a vertical extension of the central panel. These versions display a combination of the typical depictions of the upper section (heart amulets and winged scarabs) with elements of the central panel (pectorals). In some objects, the formal distinction was observed, but the heart amulet – typically associated with the upper section – was introduced in the first register in the nuclear block. — Adopting archaizing features typically observed in compositions of the basic scheme - such as the U-shaped wings of the winged deity presiding over the second register, or the large pectorals typically displayed on the nuclear block of the first register in the typical arrangement of the classic scheme. — Or introducing highly irregular features in the third register either on its nuclear blocks (tail of the winged deity or the legs of the standing goddess, solar barque, pectorals, etc.), on lateral compositions (with the depiction of a wider range of deities) or on additional blocks forming secondary registers.

With this rearrangement a vast array of symbols were borrowed from tomb or temple decoration (or even funerary artifacts) and begun to be used in coffin decoration probably to suggest the identification of the coffins´ components with specific architectonic or even ritual contexts. As a result, the iconographic resources of the 21st Dynasty coffins expanded significantly. On the other hand, the complexity involved in the infinite possibilities introduced by such wide iconographic resources seems to have been mastered through an increasingly higher ‘iconographic normalization’ or ‘standardization’ of the compositions. In fact, complexity did not evolve randomly during the 21st Dynasty. If we attend to the central panel in particular, it is clear that each tableau is guided by specific principles of composition: regardless of the apparent complexity of the compositions, only two main types of registers are depicted, each one composed with semi-authonomous blocks with a relatively stable iconographic lexicon. Large iconographic tableaux could thus be easily composed observing the rules in use for the creation of a particular type of panel (basic scheme and classical scheme with its variations). The high degree of autonomy observed between the registers or even between the iconographic blocks themselves, increased variability: unique compositions could thus be created by simply adding or eliminating certain blocks or sequences, according to the available space or to the global style of the coffin.

This erudite combination of archaizing motifs with highly innovative arrangements created outstanding compositions displaying a strong and vivid sense of uniqueness. Such compositions reveal the astonishing ability of their authors to use the conventions previously established in unexpected manners. Both aspects - standardization and innovation - introduce us to another type of problems of sociological scope. Since the beginning of the 21st Dynasty, innovation and individualism seems to have taken primacy over the observance of traditional canons for coffin production. Clearly, each coffin was meant to be unique but – at the same time – it observed the normative code that ruled the overall layout of each section. Coffin production thus involved paradoxical processes of ‘normalization’ and ‘individualization’, each one defining different aspects of the identity of the deceased: on one hand he/she was

Through this normalization it was possible to provide a well-defined canon of iconographic resources – thus largely benefiting the activity of coffin production in local 106

Rogério Sousa: ‘Spread your wings over me’ part of a professional corporation (the priesthood of Amun-Re) and on the other hand he/she was personally committed to a personal and unique relationship with Amun-Re, the supreme god. Through ‘normalization’ and ‘individualization’, the priesthood of Amun was able to guarantee the full expression of both roles.

by the priesthood of Amun, who also controlled – at least in theory - all the available resources of the necropolis, as well as the activity of workshops. It is thus expected that the patterns detected on workshops (namely on coffin decoration) might be consistent with the patterns detected in the management of the necropolis as a whole.

In the 21st Dynasty, each coffin thus presents an unique outcome that resulted from the tension between these two poles. It is expected that the most exquisite coffins presented a higher degree of individualization resulting from the direct involvement of ‘scholars’ responsible for the key decisions that contributed to the esoteric symbolism of the coffin. This type of decoration is clearly dominant on coffins dating to the first half of the dynasty. Later on, it is clear that coffin production increased in numbers and with it standardization became the rule. However, even ordinary and highly standardized coffins – most of them anonymous - presented unique features,142 which on itself showcases how much the sense of uniqueness of the coffin was highly revered even in ordinary artefacts.

In fact, later coffins were provided with highly standardized decoration, clearly not intending to be used by a particular person. Such kind of artifact could have been commissioned or bought by the corporation of Amun itself and that was the main reason to leave empty the area corresponding to the name of the deceased. The management of the burial equipment by the priesthood of Amun also explains the high rates of ‘usurpation’ detected in Bab el-Gasus and the differences of style detected on the objects belonging to the same coffin set.145 In fact, at some point in the middle of the Dynasty, the previous 21st Dynasty burials seem to have been dismantled and their equipment re-used either preserving its original composition146 or combining objects from different burials.147

This trend achieved its full completion from the pontificate of Pinedjem II until the end of the dynasty. After a period of intensive recycling and re-use of funerary structures, new building activities were being carried out, such as the excavation of the collective tomb of Bab el-Gasus, as well as DB 320 and possibly other tombs, still uncovered. To my point of view this was a turning moment in what concerns the patterns of occupation of the Theban necropolis: until then the Theban necropolis was used as a network of small caches installed in re-used tombs, most certainly with burial equipment commissioned for those individuals. But now a different pattern seems to emerge: a completely new type of tombs appeared - collective in nature - clearly intended to be used and managed by a corporation.143 Structures as Bab el-Gasus and DB 320 will remain unique to the late 21st Dynasty with no parallels with the Theban caches of the 1st millennium.144 The construction and occupation of these tombs required a careful management

All these practices suggest that in the second half of the 21st Dynasty the role of the priesthood of Amun, as a corporation, was clearly dominant. It was the membership to this corporation that defined the access to the necropolis and to the tomb. Moreover, each one of the mummies buried in Bab el-Gasus should thus be seen as a member of the priesthood of Amun and as such he/her contributes to recreate this corporation within this tomb. In fact, the distribution of burials within the tomb is not accidental, with the most important ones located in the funerary chambers and the transversal gallery, while lower ranking burials seems to have been concentrated in the first section of the longitudinal gallery. It is thus expected that the individuals buried in Bab el-Gasus might have been selected in order to reproduce a sample of the corporation of Amun itself. DB 320 was also managed under the same principle but its purpose was to gather the genealogical line of the royal ancestors who ruled over the priestly community of Amun-Re.

SOUSA, 2010. SOUSA, 2011b: 79-100; SOUSA, 2012:131-149. 144 According to Elias, a coffin cache is defined as ‘a cluster of roughly contemporaneous coffins which is associated with a solitary and confined burial zone (a single chamber or hall). Implicit in connection with the term ‘cache tomb’ is the notion that interments were added to the burial zone over an extended period, the tomb being entered on a repeated basis until perceived as ‘filled’’. In ELIAS, 1993:145. We believe that this definition should also include the idea of re-use, typical of these structures. In fact, the notion of ‘cache’ finds its applicability in a typical phenomenon of the Third Intermediate Period which consists in the reuse of former private tombs, individual in nature, to shelter a variable number of burials. This means that, in order to be used as a ‘cache’, the tomb is disinvested of its original purpose being then occupied by intruder burials. This is not by all means what happens with the ‘Royal Cache’ or Bab el-Gasus, where the expression ‘collective tombs’ seems more suitable, given the specific purpose with which they were invested from the start. Although the architectural features might be different from KV 5, the collective burials of the 21st Dynasty should also be regarded as tombs prepared for a collectivity. Instead of the brotherhood composed by the sons of the Pharaohs, the collective tombs of the 21st Dynasty held a collectivity of priests and priestress (in the case of Bab el-Gasus), or the lineage and close family of the high priests of Amun (including the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom joined in the tomb as full-members of this lineage and not only as ‘refugees’). 142

Besides theological concepts, which will be dealt with in future studies, coffin decoration was fully used to display concepts related to identity and social status of the corporation of Amun-Re. Standardization and codification of iconography of the yellow coffins is one of the many features suggesting that by the end of the Dynasty these funerary artefacts were not prepared to be used by an individual with a career of his own (as it happened with the royal bureaucracy of the New Kingdom), but by a member (either anonymous or highly revered) of the priesthood of Amun-Re.

143

145 See for instance the equipement of A.2 (coffin dating to the first half of the dynasty and mummy-cover from the seconda half) or A.136 (outer coffin with a lid decorated with later features and case showcasing an archaizing type of decoration). 146 Such as it happened in the coffin set of A.110 originally belonging to Shedustauepet and later used by Djedmutuiesankh. 147 See coffin set of A.2.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity KRUCHTEN, Jean-Marie (1989) - Les Annales des Prêtres de Karnak (XXI-XXIII Dynasties) et Autres Textes Contemporains Relatifs à l´Initiation des Prêtres d´Amon (avec un chapitre archéologique par Thierry Zimmer). Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 32. Louvain: Departement Oriëntalistiek. KUENY, Gabrielle; YOYOTTE, Jean (1979) - Grenoble, Musée des Beaux-Arts. Collection Égyptienne. Paris: Reunion des Muséss Nationaux. KÜFFER, Alexandra; SIEGMAN, Renate (2007) - Unter dem Schutz der Himmelsgöttin: Ägyptische Särge, Mumien und Masken in der Schweiz. Zürich: Chronos. LACOVARA, Peter; TROPE, Betsy (2001) - The Realm of Osiris: Mummies, Coffins and Ancient Egyptian Funerary Arts in the Michael C. Carlos Museum. Atlanta: Emory University. MANLEY, Bill; DODSON, Aidan (2010) - Life Everlasting: National Museums Scotland. Collection of Ancient Egyptian Coffins. Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland. MASPERO, Gaston (1914) – Les Monument égyptiens au Musée de Marseille. Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes 36, p. 128-145. MEEKS, Christine; MEEKS, Dimitri (1990) – Cahier du Musée d´Archéologie Méditerranéenne: La collection égyptienne (guide du visiteur). Marseille: Musée d´Archéologie Méditerranéenne. MINIACI, G. (2011) - Rishi coffins and the funerary culture of Second Intermediate Period in Egypt. London: Golden House Publications. MONTET, Pierre (1951) - Les constructions et le tombeau de Psousennès I à Tanis. Paris. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1988) - Twenty-first Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies. Mainz am Rhein: Phillip von Zabern NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1995) – La seconde trouvaille de Deir el-Bahri – Sarcophages (Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 6029-6068). Caire: Conseil Suprême des Antiquités de l´Égypte, Institut d´Archéologie de l´Université de Varsovie, Centre Polonais d´Archéologie Mediterranéenne au Caire. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (2004) – Sarcofagi della XXI Dinastia (CGT 10101-10122) (Catalogo del Museo Egizio di Torino [Serie seconda – Collezioni Vol. IX]). Torino: Ministero per i Beni e la Attività Culturali; Soprintendenza al Museo delle Antichità Egizie. OSGOOD, Susan; DZIOBEK, Eberhard; SOUSA, Rogério; LOURENÇO, Alexandre, eds. (2013) Explorations: Egypt in the Art of Susan Osgood. Porto: Porto University. QUIBELL, James (1908) - The tomb of Yuaa and Thuiu (Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 51001-51191). Cairo: Institut Français d´Archaeologie Orientale. REEVES, Nicholas (1990) – The Complete Tutankhamun. London: Thames and Hudson.

Bibliography BLEIBERG, Edward (2008) – To live forever: Egyptian treasures from the Brooklyn Museum (with an essay by Kathlyn Cooney). Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum. BOESER, P. A. (1917) - Mumiensärge des Neuen Reiches: Zweite Serie. Leiden: Beschreibung der Aegyptischen Sammlung des Niederländischen Reichsmuseums der Altertümer in Leiden. BOESER, P. A. (1916) - Mumiensärge des Neuen Reiches. Leiden: Beschreibung der Aegyptischen Sammlung des Niederländischen Reichsmuseums der Altertümer in Leiden. CHASSINAT, Émile (1909) - La seconde trouvaille de Deir el-Bahri – Sarcophages (Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 60016029). Leipzig: Karl W. Hiersemann COONEY, Kathlyn (2007) - The Cost of Death: The social and economic value of ancient Egyptian funerary art in the Ramesside Period. Leiden: Egyptologische Uitgaven 22, Netherlands Institute of the Near East. DARESSY, Georges (1909) - Cercueils des Cachettes Royales (Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 61001-61044). Cairo: Institut Français d´Archaeologie Orientale. EGNER, Roswitha; HASLAUER, Elfried (2009) - Särge der Dritten Zwischenzeit (II). Ägyptisch-Orientalische Sammlung, Corpus Antiquitatum Aegyptiacarum Mainz/Rhein: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. EGNER, Roswitha; HASLAUER, Elfried (1994) - Särge der Dritten Zwischenzeit (I). Ägyptisch-Orientalische Sammlung, Corpus Antiquitatum Aegyptiacarum Mainz/Rhein: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. ELIAS, Jonathan Paul (1993) – Coffin Inscription in Egypt after the New Kingdom: A Study of Text Production and Use in Elite Mortuary Preparation. Ann Arbor, Michigan University Microfilms International. Chicago: University of Chicago, PhD Dissertation. HAYES, William C. (1935) – Royal sarcophagi of the XVIII dynasty. Princeton: Princeton University Press. HAYES, William C. (1959) – The scepter of Egypt. A background for the study of the Egyptian antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part II: The Hyksos Period and the New Kindom (1675-1080 B.C.). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. HORNUNG, Erik; BRYAN, Betsy (2002) - The Quest of Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt. Washington: National Gallery of Art. IKRAM, Salima; DODSON, Aidan (1998) - The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the dead for Eternity. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. KITCHEN, Kenneth (1990) – Catalogue of the Egyptian collection in the National Museum, Rio de Janeiro. Vol. 1: Text. Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional. KOZLOFF, Arielle; BRYAN, Betsy; BERMAN, Lawrence; DELANGE, Élisabeth (1993) - Aménophis III, le Pharaon-Soleil. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux.

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Rogério Sousa: ‘Spread your wings over me’ REISNER, George (1907-1958) - Amulets I-II (Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 5218-6000, 12001-13595). Cairo: Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale. SALEH, Mohamed; SOUROUZIAN, Hourig (1987) - The Egyptian Museum: The Official Catalogue. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern. SOUSA, Rogério (2007) - The meaning of the heart amulet in Egyptian art. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 43, p. 59-70 SOUSA, Rogério (2010) - The coffin of an anonymous woman from Bab el-Gasus (A.4) in Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 46, p. 185-200 SOUSA, Rogério (2011a) - The Heart of Wisdom: Studies on the Heart Amulet in Ancient Egypt. (British Archaeological Reports International Series 2211). Oxford: Archaeopress. SOUSA, Rogério (2011b) - O portal dos sacerdotes: uma leitura compreensiva do espólio de Bab el-Gassus. Cadmo 21, p. 79-100. SOUSA, Rogério (2012) – Área de acesso reservado: Tradição e mudança na organização da necrópole tebana. Cultura, Espaço e Memória, 3, p. 131-149. SOUSA, Rogério (2014) – Facing Eternity: The catalogue of the Eighth Lot of Bab el-Gasus (Coffins). Forthcoming. SPURR, Stephen; REEVES, Nicholas; QUIRKE, Stephen (1999) - Egyptian Art at Eton College: Selections from the Myers Museum. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art & Eton College. STIERLIN, Henri (1993) - L´Or des Pharaons. Paris: Terrail. TAYLOR, John (1989) - Egyptian Coffins. Aylesbury: Shire Egyptology. TAYLOR, John, ed., (2010) - Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: Journey through the afterlife. London: British Museum Press WALSEM, René van (1997) - The coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, I. Technical and iconographic/ iconological aspects. Egyptologische Uirgaven. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten.

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Resurrection in a box: the 25th Dynasty burial ensemble of Padiamunet Cynthia May Sheikholeslami Cairo, Egypt

Egyptologists and others have long sought to understand the funerary beliefs of ancient Egyptians, and to compare and contrast them with the beliefs of other systems in the past and still today. One of the primary sources of information for ancient Egypt is the composition and iconography of burial equipment from different periods of pharaonic history and different regions and social strata. Of course these can only give us an approximation of the actual belief system(s) of ancient Egyptians. Further information may be gleaned from studying the texts that are written on pieces of burial equipment or on papyri that accompany them. In places and periods in which the dead were buried in decorated tombs, the illuminations and texts on the tomb walls also provide insights into funerary beliefs. When one examines these different sources from a diachronic perspective, despite noticeable differences, one is struck by an underlying continuity of belief system over some three millennia of Egyptian civilization, a remarkable testament to cultural continuity and cultural memory. However, different aspects of the belief system are emphasized in different contexts over time.

burial equipment of a lower-ranking group of temple staff members during this period has been discussed elsewhere.2 Padiamunet’s burial equipment was discovered in the winter of 1932-1933 by Émile Baraize in a shaft cut into the floor of the upper terrace of the temple of Hatshepsut, outside the entrance to the Southern Chapel. No details were published with the announcement of his discovery,3 and it wasn’t until after his death that a brief report, focusing on titles and genealogy, was published by Bernard Bruyère in 1956.4 The discovery by Baraize included the funerary equipment of at least four individuals: the priest of Montu Padiamunet (iii), his nephew the priest of Montu Nespaqashuty, a woman named Heresenes who is possibly either the wife of Padiamunet or the mother of Nespaqashuty, and another woman named Tashaaiu whose equipment was not well enough preserved to determine if she had any relationship to the other persons whose burials were in the shaft. A reconstruction by the Egyptian-Polish Mission to the Temple of Hatshepsut has shown that the four sets of burial equipment could have been accommodated in the shaft in front of Hatshepsut’s Southern Chapel, which the mission recently re-excavated.5

The early and middle 25th Dynasty in Egypt is one of the periods in which those who could afford to provide themselves with relatively elaborate funerary ensembles did not make use of decorated tombs. (Such tombs reappear at Thebes later in the dynasty, for example, the tombs of Karakhamun [TT 223], Ramose [TT 132], and Harwa [TT37], probably all constructed for these elite individuals during the reign of Taharqa). It is usually supposed that the reasons for this were economic, but in Thebes it may also have been due to a lack of previously unused space in the necropolis to construct new rock-cut tombs. Therefore burials typically included only the coffin ensemble, usually placed in a relatively crude and shallow shaft cut into the floor of an extant tomb from an earlier period or into the floors of temples and their outbuildings.1 For most of this period, funerary papyri were not included in the burial equipment. Thus our only source of information for the funerary beliefs of this period is the burial ensembles themselves.

Like the other individuals whose burial equipment was placed in this crudely cut and undecorated shaft, Padiamunet’s ensemble consisted of a rectangular wooden qrsw sarcophagus containing two wooden coffins in the form of the mummified god Osiris, and his bandaged mummy covered with a red linen shroud and a faience bead net. A canopic chest with four jars containing the viscera removed from the body during mummification also survived (Figure 1). Unfortunately Padiamunet’s shabti boxes and shabtis seem not to have been recovered, but a Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figure (Figure 2) belonging to him was also included.6 There was no wooden funerary stela. As the mummy is still unwrapped, it is not possible to determine whether a funerary papyrus roll may have been included SHEIKHOLESLAMI, 2014: 453-482. SERVICE DES ANTIQUITÉS, 1933: 258. 4 BRUYÈRE, 1957: 11-33. 5 SZAFRANSKI, 2013: 136-139. 6 The qrsw, formerly Neferu register no. 52, and the inner coffin with the mummy, formerly Luxor Museum J346, are now in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC), Cairo. The middle coffin is Luxor Museum J845 and the canopic chest with canopic jars is Luxor Museum J75. The present whereabouts of the Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figure are unknown; it is illustrated in Ancient Egyptian Art: the magnificent collection formed by M. A. Mansoor (1952), p. 38-39, no. 133. 2 3

This paper discusses the burial equipment of a member of the elite temple establishment in 25th Dynasty Thebes, the priest of Montu Padiamunet (iii). Padiamunet’s burial ensemble reveals some new and also some virtually unique features of Theban coffin decoration at this time. The 1

ASTON, 2003: 138 ff.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity within the wrappings, but it is not common for papyri to be included with 25th Dynasty burial ensembles. The components and decoration of Padiamunet’s funerary ensemble indicate that it was meant to be a complete tomb in and of itself, and that the decoration painted on its plastered wooden surfaces and the texts inscribed within and without the parts of the set can indicate the funerary beliefs of Padiamunet at the time of the preparation of this burial ensemble in the middle to later part of the 25th Dynasty. Support for this idea can be seen in Theban Tomb 132, belonging to the treasurer of Taharqa, Ramose, which has a vaulted burial chamber decorated to resemble an outer rectangular sarcophagus (no other part of this tomb was decorated).7

Fig. 1 - Padiamunet’s Canopic Equipment (Luxor Museum J75). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami.

We do not know at what point in a person’s life his burial equipment was prepared, but the similarities between the equipment of Padiamonet (iii) and his nephew Nespaqashuty suggest that they may have been prepared at about the same time in the same workshop, perhaps well in advance of the death of either individual. We are fortunate in possessing a lot of genealogical information about Padiamunet and his family, so the dates of his flourit can be relatively well determined. Padiamunet (iii) was a descendant of an illustrious Theban family whose ancestry can be traced back into the 22nd Dynasty, the earliest known being a man named Iahweben who probably lived ca. 850 BC but whose titles, if any, are not known. Possibly he was originally from Abydos. His son Penoupoqer served in the temple of Amun at Karnak, where his responsibilities included being ‘deputy treasurer of the temple of Amun’ and ‘scribe of the divine offerings’. Penoupoqer was also designated ‘eyes of the king of Upper Egypt’ and ‘ears of the king of Lower Egypt’, and his connections to the ruling dynasty are indicated by the fact that his memorial statue (Cairo JE 36938), set up in the House of the Phoenix at Karnak, was given as a favor by the king (unfortunately unnamed).8 A number of Penoupoqer’s descendants served as viziers as well as having priestly titles.9 Penoupoqer’s grandson, who was also Padiamonet (iii)’s great-grandfather, the vizier and 3rd prophet of Amun (3PA) Pami (ii), probably a contemporary of Osorkon III (ca. 791-763 BC), is the last attested viceroy of Kush before the Kushite conquest of Thebes in ca. 750 BC.10 An indication of the status of the family in Thebes is the fact that Takelot III (ca. 768755 BC), apparently as part of a policy to obtain Theban recognition of the Libyan 23rd Dynasty, married two of his daughters into it: Irbastetwedjanefu A was married to the vizier Pakharu and Diesenesyt A was married to his nephew the vizier Nespaqashuty B, father of the priest of Montu Padiamunet (iii).11 The vizier Pakharu was the son of the vizier Pami (ii), and Nespaqashuty B was Pakharu’s GRECO, 2014: 193-197. LEAHY, 1999: 185-192. 9 MORET, 1913: 298-301 (CCG 41036). 10 SHEIKHOLESLAMI, 2009: 370-371. 11 ASTON, 2014: 28-33. 7

Fig. 2 - Ptah-Sokar-Osiris Figure of Padiamunet (after Ancient Egyptian Art, 1952: 39)

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Cynthia May Sheikholeslami: Resurrection in a box: the 25th Dynasty burial ensemble of Padiamunet nephew, the son of Pami (ii)’s son the vizier Padiamunet (ii).12 Thus we can be reasonably certain that Padiamunet (iii)’s flourit was ca. 700-675 BC. The family tree can be set out in part as follows:

During the 25th Dynasty, the vizierate passed into the family of Montuemhat, the great 4th prophet of Amun and mayor of Thebes during the reign of Taharqa (690-664 BC), many of whose ancestors were also priests of Montu, attesting to the ascendancy of this cult during the Kushite rule of Thebes.13 The principal titles accorded to Padiamunet (iii) on his funerary equipment are Hm-nTr mnTw nb wAst ‘Hm-nTr priest of Montu, lord of Thebes’ and imy-Abd.f Hr sA 3-nw pr imn ‘monthly-service priest in the temple of Amun in the 3rd phyle’. However, on the sides of the lid of his innermost coffin, Padiamunet (iii) is also entitled it-nTr mry-nTr ‘god’s father, beloved of the god’, smAty wAst ‘stolist of Thebes’, Hpt-wDAt n mwt nbt pt ‘embracer of the udjat-eye of Mut, mistress of the sky’, Hm-wn ‘priest of light’, Hm-nTr qbHw ‘libation priest’, and Hm-nTr mnTw nb nst tAwy ‘Hm-nTr priest of Montu, lord of the thrones of the two lands (an epithet more frequently associated with the god Amun)’. On his qrsw sarcophagus, he is also termed it-nTr mry-nTr, smAty wAst, Hpt-wDAt, and wab wAst ‘purification-priest of Thebes’. The titles of smAty wAst and Hm-wn are associated with the Osirian cult in Thebes,14 which increased in importance during the 25th Dynasty,15 and are probably connected with rites during the feast of Khoiak, during which the god Montu as the Theban Horus paid homage to the ancestor gods of Thebes entombed in the mound of Djeme at the small temple of Medinet Habu.16 The function of the Hpt-wDAt priest of Mut, mistress of the sky, is not yet well understood, but is probably related to the mythology involving the Eye of Re and the Distant Goddess, who returned to Egypt with the life-giving inundation (which was also related to the fertility of Osiris) in mid-summer, an event celebrated during the feast of drunkenness in the

Fig. 3 - Padiamunet adoring the divine assessors (Book of the Dead spell 125) on the box of his middle coffin (Luxor Museum J845); notice the lighter areas of colored plaster used to fill and smooth the wooden surface Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami.

precinct of the Mut temple at Karnak.17 Thus Padiamunet (iii) had priestly duties involving all the major temple complexes at Karnak: the Montu temple itself in North Karnak, the Amun temple in central Karnak and the associated Osirian chapels around it to the north and east, and at the Mut temple in South Karnak. It is thus not surprising that a priest with the prestigious lineage and range of cultic activities that Padiamunet (iii) had should have provided himself with a sumptuous burial ensemble. The background color on the outside of his innermost coffin, coated inside and out with fine white plaster, is golden yellow, perhaps in imitation of the metal that would have been used for royal burial containers. The middle coffin has the inscription and decoration applied directly to the natural sycomore wood, which has been carefully filled and finished to provide a smooth surface (Figure 3). The outermost rectangular wooden sarcophagus, also covered in white plaster inside and out, has bright yellow as a dominant color on the exterior. On all parts of the ensemble, the paint is carefully applied and the texts are written in elegantly-drawn hieroglyphs. The carving of the face masks on the two coffins in the

ASTON, 2014: 33. BIERBRIER, 1979a: 116-118; BIERBRIER, 1979b: 306-309; KITCHEN, 1996: 483-484, Table 15. 14 COULON, 2006: 6. 15 COULON, 2012: 1-27. 16 ZIVIE-COCHE, 2009: 183. 12 13

DARNELL, 1995: 47-94; BRYAN, 2005: 182. The present author is preparing a study of this title. 17

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Fig. 4 - Face of Padiamunet from the lid of his middle coffin; missing sections of the red wax have been restored with red coloring (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. shape of the mummy of Osiris is masterful, and they are carefully covered with a layer of red wax with the details of eyebrows, eye outline, and beard in black (Figure 4). The paintings of the figures of deities and of Padiamunet himself are miniature masterpieces (Figure 5). It is clear that the execution of the ensemble was carried out by skilled artisans, and that much care and attention was devoted to the task. The choice of decoration was certainly not haphazard either, but a carefully thought-out iconographic program. Padiamunet (iii)’s outermost rectangular sarcophagus, with its four posts projecting at the corners of the vaulted lid (on which falcons perch in some similar examples), is in the shape of the shrine in which the god Osiris reawakened. This composition is first attested on the ceiling of the subterranean ‘sarcophagus’ chamber in the cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos, designed to replicate the tomb of Osiris.18 It appears also in the tombs of Ramesses VI and Ramesses IX in the Valley of the Kings, in the tomb of Sheshonq III at Tanis, in TT 132 of Ramose and TT 33 of Padiamunope at Thebes, and on the closely parallel qrsw-sarcophagus of the priest of Montu Ankhefenkhonsu I (CCG 41001 bis), and

later in the Theban Asasif tomb of Mutirdis (TT 410) and in the tombs of Qalhata and her son Tanutamani at el-Kurru in Nubia.19 In this composition, still bandaged Osiris lies prone on his stomach in his shrine, lifting his head towards the eastern horizon to receive the signs of life (ankh), stability (djed) and power (was) which his son Horus extends to his nostrils. The shrine itself is placed on a lion-headed bier, beneath which are arrayed items from the royal regalia (crowns, kilts, staffs, etc.). The rectangular shrine is topped with a frieze of cobras with their hoods flared (uraei) and at the corners are placed posts with a palace-façade decoration below paired eyes on top of which a figure of a falcon stands. The scene is flanked by 36 protective deities divided into two groups, headed by the four sons of Horus: Imseti and Hapy on the eastern side, and Duamutef and Qebehsenuef on the western side.20 In the cenotaph, and in the three Egyptian royal tombs and in that of Mutirdis, the reawakening of Osiris composition is accompanied by a ‘transit’ scene above it, separated from it by the band of water that, in Egyptian cosmology, separates 19

18

ROBERSON, 2013: 1; GRECO, 2014: 196.

Fig. 5 - Padiamunet at the door of the hall of judgement (Book of the Dead spell 125 vignette detail) from the box of his middle coffin (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami.

20

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SHEIKHOLESLAMI, 2010: 380. ROBERSON, 2013: 9-13.

Cynthia May Sheikholeslami: Resurrection in a box: the 25th Dynasty burial ensemble of Padiamunet

Fig. 6 - The goddess Nut inside the vaulted lid of the qrsw of Padiamunet, with figures of the goddesses of the hours of the night (left, with stars on their heads) and day (right, with sun disks on their heads) flanking her outstreched body (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. mat with the day and night hours of the Stundenritual is first attested in the Southern Chapel of Hatshepsut on the upper terrace at Deir el-Bahari, in front of which Padiamunet (iii)’s burial equipment was discovered. The theme is thus of long continuity in ancient Egypt, but seems first to be combined into a single composition showing the mummified Osiris reawakening in his shrine in the 19th Dynasty at Abydos.

the upper atmosphere from the underground realm. The ‘transit’ scene shows the morning barque of the sun god in the east and his evening barque on the west, both with mats hanging over their prows on which a swallow perches on the eastern one, and a child with its finger in its mouth sits on the western one. Behind them are the emblems of east and west, respectively, and hovering above the boats is the winged solar disk of the Behedite (Horus of Edfu) above a column in which the name of the king is written flanked by streams of djed (stability) and ankh (life) signs, standing on the hieroglyhic emblem smA-tAwy ‘uniting of the two lands (of Upper and Lower Egypt)’.21 This composition refers to the solar afterlife, in which the deceased passes through the nocturnal underworld as the night sun (the god Atum) in his boat, who is united with Osiris during the darkest period, and is reborn at dawn as the day sun (the god ReHorakhty) who journeys through the diurnal sky by boat. The whole composition embodies the Egyptian concepts of solar-Osirian unity that the deceased wishes to attain in the afterlife. The association of pairs of solar boats, representing the total cycle of solar motion around (i.e., above and below) the earth, with tombs is attested at least from the 1st Dynasty. The connection of a solar boat with a child on the 21

In the cenotaph of Seti I, the composition is at the eastern end of the ceiling of the sarcophagus chamber, adjoining a large composition showing the goddess Nut arched over the earth while the sun passes through her body after she swallows it in the evening, to be reborn between her legs at dawn. The passage of the night is marked by the 36 hourly periods or decans which mark off the passing of the night during the three 10-day weeks of the ancient Egyptian 30day month. The association of the awakening of Osiris during the night hours with Nut hearkens back to a belief first attested in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts, when the dismembered corpse of Osiris is reassembled in the body of his mother Nut during the 12 hours of the night.22 At least by the 6th Dynasty, the stone sarcophagus of Teti in his

ROBERSON, 1913: 13-17; 128-140.

22

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BILLING, 2002: 108-162.

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Fig. 7 - Head end of the lid of the qrsw of Padiamunet with the rising sun in the center and the emblem of the east on the left and of the west on the right above the figures of the birds and jackals (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami.

Fig. 8 - The day barque of the sun god on the eastern side of the lid of the qrsw of Padiamunet (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. 116

Cynthia May Sheikholeslami: Resurrection in a box: the 25th Dynasty burial ensemble of Padiamunet

Fig. 9 - Padiamunet adoring the text of the second hymn from Book of the Dead 15 and the arriving day barque of the sun god on the lid of his qrsw sarcophagus (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. pyramid at Saqqara was identified with Nut, and could be thought of as her womb in which Osiris was regenerated.

and Nespaqashuty during the 25th Dynasty, another innovative feature of their decoration.24

The identification of the sarcophagus with Nut persists throughout Egyptian history. By the New Kingdom, the goddess Nut is often embodied in the sycamore fig tree, which fruits productively throughout the year. When the wood or fruit is cut, a milky latex-like substance seeps out, reminiscent of the milk of a mother nursing her newborn infant. The wood of the sycamore fig was the most commonly used in coffin construction. In the outermost rectangular qrsw sarcophagus of Padiamonet (iii), the central plank on the vaulted lid is inscribed on the exterior with a text stating that mother Nut spreads herself over the deceased.23 Inside the vaulted lid, the figure of Nut is outstretched down the center, flanked by images of the goddesses of the hours of the night on her left (the west) and of the day on her right (the east) (Figure 6). These images from the Hour Rital (Studenritual) appear uniquely inside the vaulted qrsw lids of Padiamunet (iii), Heresenes,

The foot end of the exterior of the vaulted lid of Padiamun (iii)’s qrsw-sarcophagus was unfortunately damaged by water that seeped into the burial chamber where it was placed, and by termites. The head end is preserved, with a decoration showing the red disk of the sun rising from the mountain, flanked by the emblems of the east (on the proper left) and the west (on the proper right), each above a trio of long-legged birds and a pair of striding jackals (Figure 7). At the head end of the corresponding western (proper right) side of the lid the ram-headed sun god Ra appears in his shrine in his night barque with the swallow on the mat covering the prow towed by ibis- and humanheaded deities towards the foot end, where the expected adoring figure of the deceased awaiting them has been lost (Figure 8). The text below indicates that Ra and the deceased are rowing to the west and the tomb (is, written with a determinative of a qrsw sarcophagus, a further indication that the burial set of Padiamunet (iii) was a The texts for the Hour Ritual were not written in Padiamonet’s sarcophagus, but they appear in the other coffins of his family; see SHEIKHOLESLAMI, 2010: 381-385. 24

23

For Nut text and its variants, see ELIAS, 1993: 601-615.

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Fig. 10 - The night barque of the sun god on the western side of the lid of the qrsw of Padiamunet (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. tomb in and of itself). On the eastern (proper left) side of the lid at the head end a figure of the deceased wearing a priestly panther skin garment over his shoulder and torso and a long white linen kilt raises his arms in adoration (Figure 9). In front of him is a text including hymn 2 from Book of the Dead spell 15, hailing Re-Horakhty in his dawn form as Khepri rising from the eastern horizon.25 Ram- and human-headed gods tow the solar barque, which has passed through the night, with the child sitting on the mat over the prow, from the foot end of the lid towards the deceased at the head end (Figure 10). Only traces of two kneeling goddesses with arms upraised in adoration of a now-lost emblem remain on the foot end of the vaulted lid. The head end of the box of the qrsw sarcophagus features an image of the goddess Nephthys, in her accustomed position protecting the head of the deceased Osiris inside the shrine. At the opposite foot end are traces of the goddess Isis guarding the deceased god’s feet. Along each of the sides of the box are protective deities in shrines. On the proper left (eastern) side facing the head end are cynocephalus ape-headed Hapy, falcon-headed Qebehsenuef, jackalheaded Anubis xntt sX-nTr and another deity, perhaps Geb, whose name and image are mostly lost. On the proper right 25

QUIRKE, 2013: 46.

(western) side is the eye panel of a false door (Figure 11), an archaizing feature recalling Old and Middle Kingdom sarcophagi in stone and wood. Through this doorway the resurrected deceased could exit to join the sun god in his cosmic journey.26 Facing this panel in their shrines with accompanying texts are three deities: human-headed Imseti and the two jackal-headed figures of Duamutef and Anubis imy-wt. The primary deities protecting the deceased on the long sides of the rectangular qrsw sarcophagus are the same four sons of Horus who flank the shrine in which Osiris reawakens in the scene from the cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos. Although the layout is different, the qrsw sarcophagus box can be seen to replicate the shrine in which Osiris reawakens. The lid embodies the chief components of the transit scene above it in the cenotaph: the morning and evening barques of the sun god that are essential components of the cycle in which the Osirian deceased in the underworld is reunited with the sun whom he hopes to accompany on his journey sailing through the daytime sky throughout eternity, the essence of his being alive again. As the ultimate aim of funerary ritual was to enable the deceased to live again eternally, the iconography of the qrsw sarcophagus, with its cycle of solar-Osirian unity, 26

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SHEIKHOLESLAMI, 2010: 383.

Cynthia May Sheikholeslami: Resurrection in a box: the 25th Dynasty burial ensemble of Padiamunet

Fig. 11 - Head end of the western side of the box of the qrsw of Padiamunet with the false door panel and Imsety in his shrine (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Neferu register no. 52). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. soil), and 126 (in which the deceased acts as the priest of the sun god).28

provided the essential framework in which the rebirth of the deceased could take place. The middle and inner coffins, in the form of the deceased and mummified Osiris, were the ritual embodiment of the Osirian component of this cycle. They actually enclosed the mummified remains of the deceased person who wished to be reawakened into eternal life, like the mummified Osiris, inside the coffin ensemble.

The decoration middle coffin of Padiamunet (iii)’s set reveals another theme that was of particular importance to the deceased: the weighing of his heart (the seat of intelligence) in a balance against the feather of the goddess Maat to determine that he deserves to become a ‘justified’ (literally: ‘true of voice’ mAa xrw) being who can be led by the god Thoth into the presence of Osiris and other deities. The vignette from Book of the Dead spell 125 appears at the foot end of the proper left side of the box of the middle coffin (Figure 12). In this scene, Padiamunet, wearing a long kilt under the priestly panther-skin garment, stands to the right inside the door of the judgment hall, with his arms raised in a gesture of innocence and a small figure representing the goddess Maat, the principle of truth and justice, with her head replaced by her symbolic ostrich feather, embracing him from behind. In front of him, the falcon-headed Horus and jackal-headed Anubis steady the balance pole and weigh the deceased’s heart in the left-

The texts on the interior of the qrsw sarcophagus are all drawn from the Book of the Dead.27 The head and foot end and the proper right-hand long side between are occupied by Book of the Dead (BD) spell 1 (in which the deceased is identified with Thoth, who plays a key role in funerary rituals; in effect, the deceased thus both performs and benefits from these rituals); the proper left-hand long side contains BD spells 17 (in which the deceased is identified with the sun god and appeals to him for rescue), 94 (in which the divinized deceased is recognized in the earthly

27 I am grateful to Kenneth Griffin for his assistance in identifying the Book of the Dead spells on Padiamunet’s burial equipment.

QUIRKE, 2013: 6, 10-11 (BD 1); 52 (BD 17); 213 (BD 94); 278 (BD 126). 28

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Fig. 12 - Vignette of Book of the Dead spell 125 on the exterior of the box of Padiamunet’s middle coffin (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami.

hand pan against the image of Maat in the right hand pan, finding the balance is perfect (as always). The god Thoth in his baboon form sits atop the pole of the balance to ensure it is correctly operated. To the left of the balance the monster known as the Devourer sits on top of a shrine-shaped chest waiting to consume the heart of the deceased if he is not judged to be blameless. To its left the ibis-headed Thoth, lord of Hermopolis, records the judgment with his scribal palette held above a figure of a child seated on a crook, representing the deceased who is being presented to the mummiform god Osiris, foremost of the westerners, the great god, lord of Abydos, lord of the sky, holding a crook and flail, who is seated in his shrine supported by a lotusbud column on the opposite side of a table of offerings over which a large bouquet of lotus buds and blossoms has been laid. This version of the judgment scene is first attested on the coffins of Padiamunet (iii)’s family during the 25th Dynasty, an indication of innovation in coffin design.29 The lid of Padiamunet (iii)’s middle coffin is undecorated except for the face with an artificial divine beard, a yellow and blue striped wig cover, and a broad floral collar (Figure 13). On the top of the head, as on the head end of the qrsw sarcophagus, is the red disk of the sun rising above the eastern mountain. Down the center of the lid are seven columns of texts (mostly the titles and genealogy of Padiamunet), with the middle three columns headed by the vignette from Book of the Dead spell 154,30 the mummy lying on a lion-headed couch with four canopic jars underneath, with the revivifying rays of the sun shining from the sky onto the mummy from head to foot (Figure 14). At the foot end of the proper right side of his middle coffin, Padiamunet (iii) is shown adoring the deities associated with the text of Book of the Dead spell 125, the so-called ‘negative confession’ (see Figure 3).31 This text consists of 42 ‘protestations of innocence’, each beginning with an address to a particular divine assessor who is 29 30 31

SEEBER, 1976: 242 (Typ E I/a/1). QUIRKE, 2013: 383. QUIRKE, 2013: 269-276.

Fig. 13 - Detail of the head and shoulders of the lid of the middle coffin of Padiamunet (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. related to a particular wrong-doing or ‘sin’, and continuing with the transgression which has not been committed during the lifetime of the deceased. In the Libyan Period (22nd –23rd Dynasties), this text was presented in the bipartite tabular form characteristic in Book of the Dead papyri for this spell on the lids of coffins. Towards the end of the 8th century BC in Thebes, a new format appeared in which the tabular presentation was replaced by a sequence 120

Cynthia May Sheikholeslami: Resurrection in a box: the 25th Dynasty burial ensemble of Padiamunet

Fig. 14 - Vignette of Book of the Dead spell 54 on the lid of Padiamunet’s middle coffin (Luxor Museum J845). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami. of separate panels or slots around the outside edges of outer coffins in the shape of the mummy of Osiris.32 Each text panel alternated with a standing mummiform figure representing the assessor. This system of presentation was used on all the middle coffins of the family of Padiamunet (iii) discovered by Baraize at Deir el-Bahari. This shift in presentation is further evidence of innovative design in this coffin set, and support for dating the preparation of Padiamunet (iii)’s burial equipment to ca. 700-675 BC.

Fig. 15 - Detail of the face of Padiamunet on his inner coffin lid showing the remains of the red wax covering over the carved wooden face with details of the eyebrows and beard rendered in black wax (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Luxor Museum J346). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami.

The interior of Padiamunet (iii)’s middle coffin box is also inscribed with spells from the Book of the Dead. They are written with black paint directly onto the smoothed and finished wood in horizontal lines which extend all the way across the interior – down the left side, across the bottom, and up the right side. On the floor of the box at the head end is painted the vignette from BD 71 that becomes standard in the Ptolemaic period papyri: Mehetweret as a cow facing a falcon with a wrapped body and outstretched wings. From head to foot, the spells are BD 71 (addresses to separate deities asking for knots – perhaps in the bandaged mummy – to be untied), 68 (a litany for power over the body and any enemies), 69 and 70 (asserting rebirth and identity with Osiris and ability to father a son with Isis), and 133 (a transfiguration composition related to the boat of the sun god).33 The choice of images and texts adorning the exterior and interior of the lid and box of the middle coffin, in the form of the mummified god Osiris, are relevant to the concept that it represents the deceased as Osiris reawakening in his shrine, the outer qrsw sarcophagus.

mummy of the god Osiris (Figure 16). Below a blue and yellow striped wig is a broad floral collar, at the base of which the goddess Nut kneels on a palace façade with her wings stretched out across the shoulders of the deceased as Osiris, protecting him. The lid is covered with funerary texts written alternately on dark and pale yellow grounds bordered by frames of multi-colored rectangles. The five columns down the center below Nut, also repeating the titles and genealogy of Padiamunet, are headed with the vignette from Book of the Dead spell 89, showing the ba-soul of the deceased hovering over the mummy with which it is united.34 Arranged perpendicularly to the central panel are images of protective funerary deities and their accompanying texts, six on each side. On the deceased mummified god’s left hand side these deities are cynocephalus ape-headed Hapy, jackal-headed Qebehsenuef, jackal-headed Anubis imy-wt ‘who is in the embalming hall or the bandages’, falcon-headed Horus (m)xnty irty ‘Mekhentiirti’, ibis-headed Thoth Xry bAk.f ‘who is under his moringa tree,’ and human-headed HqAmAA it.f ‘ruler who sees his father’. On the god’s right-hand side are human-headed Imsety, falcon-headed Duamutef, jackal-headed Anubis xnty sX-nTr ‘in front of the divine

The innermost coffin of Padiamunet (iii), enclosing his mummy, has a face covered with red wax (Figure 15), a practice otherwise unknown to me and perhaps unique to Padiamun’s coffin set (as the same treatment is given to the face on the middle coffin), with a divine beard attached. The whole coffin is in the shape of the wrapped ELIAS, 1993: 382-383. QUIRKE, 2013: 170-172 (BD 71); 167 (BD 68); 169 (BD 69-70); 297 (BD 133). 32 33

34

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QUIRKE, 2013: 205.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity and power’ (to the reawakening Osiris within) (Figure 17). The mummy inside is carefully wrapped and covered with a red shroud and a blue faience bead net on which were placed gilded cartonnage pieces of a winged scarab (the god Khepri, the reborn sun who rises in the eastern horizon at dawn) and the mummiform figures of the four sons of Horus. It has not yet been possible to study the texts written in black paint on a bright white plastered ground inside the lid and box of the inner coffin, but presumably they are further spells from the Book of the Dead. Thus the inner coffin too is a simulacrum of the deceased mummified god Osiris, enclosing the actual mummy of Padiamunet (iii), who hoped that within his burial containers he too would reawaken as Osiris did, and, resurrected from within his shrine, be united with the sun god, and take his place in the eternal cosmic cycle. Thus the set of burial containers for the mummy of Padiamunet (iii) served functions that elsewhere would have included not only the coffin-set, but also the decoration on the walls of the tomb and texts and vignettes on papyri placed within it. It was a self-contained unit, but it embodied all the elements seen elsewhere in decorated rock-cut Theban tombs. The iconography of the decoration and the choice of texts inscribed on the burial containers of this member of the priestly elite during the 25th Dynasty drew on traditions that had a millennia-old history in the Egyptian funerary tradition, but they were combined for Padiamunet (iii) in often innovative ways, worthy of his status in Theban society. Bibliography

Fig. 16 - Lid of the inner coffin of Padiamunet (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Luxor Museum J346). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami.

booth’, Geb r-pat nTrw ‘hereditary prince of the gods’, ‘Hewho-creates-his-own-name’ (irt rn.f Ds.f), and Horus nD it.f ‘who protects his father’, the last three all with human heads. The first pair on each side consists of two of the four sons of Horus, who also protect the contents of the canopic jars, and head the rows of protective divinities flanking the shrine in which Osiris reawakens. On the top of the head of the inner coffin lid, the goddess Nephthys kneels with her wings spread protectively across the garlanded crown. The top of the toes of the lid feature a seated image of the goddess Isis, wings outstretched, guarding the feet of the mummy. The pedestal base is adorned with an alternating pattern of ankh-signs flanked by was-signs on a neb-basket, which may be read as ‘all life

Ancient Egyptian Art: the magnificent collection formed by M. A. Mansoor (1952) – Sale Catalogue, January 30 and 31. New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc. ASTON, David (2003) – The Theban west bank from the twenty-fifth dynasty to the Ptolemaic period. In STRUDWICK, Nigel; TAYLOR, John H., eds. – The Theban Necropolis: Past, Present and Future. London: British Museum Press, p. 138-166. ASTON, David (2014) – Royal burials at Thebes during the first millennium BC. In PISCHIKOVA, Elena; BUDKA, Julia; GRIFFIN, Kenneth, eds. – Thebes in the first millennium BC. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 15-59. BIERBRIER, Morris L. (1979a) – More light on the family of Montemhat. In RUFFLE, J. G.; GABALLA, G. A.; KITCHEN, K. A., eds. – Glimpses of ancient Egypt. Orbis Aegyptiorum speculum: studies in honour of H. W. Fairman. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, p. 116-118. BIERBRIER, Morris L. (1979b) – Review of VITTMANN, Günther, Priester und Beamte im Theben der Spätzeit (1978). Bibliotheca Orientalis 36.5-6, p. 306-309. BILLING, Nils (2002) – Nut: the goddess of life in text and iconography. Uppsala Studies in Egyptology, 5. Uppsala: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University.

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Fig. 17 - Pedestal base with ankh-was-neb decoration on the inner coffin of Padiamunet (National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, formerly Luxor Museum J346). Photo by C. M. Sheikholeslami.

BRUYÈRE, Bernard (1957) – Une nouvelle famille de prêtres de Montou trouvée par Baraize à Deir el Bahri. Annales de Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 54, p. 11-33. BRYAN, Betsy M. (2005) – The temple of Mut: new evidence on Hatshepsut’s building activity. In ROERHIG, Catherine H. et al., eds. – Hatshepsut: from queen to pharaoh. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 181-183. COULON, Laurent (2006) – Les sièges de prêtre d’époque tardive. À propos des trois documents thébains. Revue d’Égyptologie 57, p. 1-31. COULON, Laurent (2012) – Le culte osirien au Ier millénaire av. J.-C. Une mise en perspective(s). In COULON, Laurent, ed. – Le culte d’Osiris au Ier millénaire av. J.-C. Actes de la table ronde international tenue à Lyon Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée (université Lumière-Lyon 2) les 8 et 9 juillet 2005. Bibliothèque d’Étude, 153. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale. DARNELL, John Coleman (1995) – Hathor returns to Medamûd. Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 22, p. 47-94. ELIAS, Jonathan P. (1993) – Coffin inscription in Egypt after the New Kingdom: a study of text production and use in elite mortuary preparation. PhD thesis, University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.

GRECO, Christian (2014) – The forgotten tomb of Ramose. In PISCHIKOVA, Elena; BUDKA, Julia; GRIFFIN, Kenneth, eds. – Thebes in the first millennium BC. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 173-199. KITCHEN, Kenneth A. (1996) – The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100-650 BC), 3rd ed. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. LEAHY, Anthony (1999) – In the House of the Phoenix at Thebes (Cairo JE 36938). In LEAHY, Anthony; TAIT, John, eds., Studies on Ancient Egypt in honour of H.S. Smith. Egypt Exploration Society Occaisonal Publications, 13. London: Egypt Exploration Soceity, p. 185-192. MORET, Alexandre (1913) – Sarcophages de l’époque Bubastite à l’époque Saïte. Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire (Nos. 41001-41041). Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale. QUIRKE, Stephen (2013) – Going out in daylight prt m hrw: the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: translation, sources, meanings. London: Golden House Publications. ROBERSON, Joshua A. (2013) – The awakening of Osiris and the transit of the solar barques: royal apotheosis in a most concise book of the underworld and sky. Orbis biblicus et orientalis, 262. Fribourg: Academic Press/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity SEEBER, Christine (1976) – Untersuchungen zur Darstellung des Totengerichts im Alten Ägypten. Münchner Ägyptologische Studien, 35. München/ Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag. SERVICE DES ANTIQUITÉS (1933) – Une nouvelle cache funéraire à Deir el-Bahri. Chronique d’Égypte no. 16 (juillet), p. 258. SHEIKHOLESLAMI, Cynthia May (2009) – The end of the Libyan Period and the resurgence of the cult of Montu. In BROEKMAN, G. P. F.; DEMARÉE, R. J.; KAPER, O. E., eds., The Libyan period in Egypt. Leiden: Nederlands Institute voor het Nabije Oosten and Leuven: Peeters. SHEIKHOLESLAMI, Cynthia May (2010) – The night and day hours in twenty-fifth dynasty sarcophagi from Thebes. In BARES, L.; COPPENS, F.; SMOLÁRIKOVÁ, K., eds. – Egypt in transition: social and religious development of Egypt in the first millennium BC, proceedings of an international conference, Prague, September 1-4, 2009. Prague: Czech Institute of Egyptology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, p. 376-395. SHEIKHOLESLAMI, Cynthia May (2014) – Sokar-Osiris and the goddesses: some twenty-fifth – twenty-sixth dynasty coffins from Thebes. In PISCHIKOVA, Elena; BUDKA; Julia; GRIFFIN, Kenneth, eds. – Thebes in the first millennium BC. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 453-482. SZAFRANSKI, Zbigniew E. (2013) – Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. Seasons 2008/2009 and 2009/2010. Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 22, p. 131-151. University of Warsaw: Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology. ZIVIE-COCHE, Christiane (2009) – L’Ogdoade à Thèbes à l’époque ptolémaïque et ses antécédents. In THIERS, Christophe, ed. – Documents de théologies thébaines tardives (D3T 1). Cahiers de l’ENIM, 3. Monpellier: Université Paul Valéry, p. 167-225.

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Gods at all hours: Saite Period coffins of the ‘eleven-eleven’ type Jonathan Elias AMSC Research

Carter Lupton Milwaukee Public Museum Abstract A distinct coffin style known as the Eleven-Eleven, featuring a lid format with processions of eleven gods on the right and left sides, came into prominence in the later Saite Period (likely after 630 BC). It is a style found in multiple regions throughout Upper Egypt. Examples have been found at Akhmim, Thebes and Edfu. The current study presents new findings arising from analysis of an ElevenEleven coffin manufactured around 600 BC for the funerary preparer Djed-hor son of Padiamon and Neshmut-Renenutet from Akhmim (Milwaukee Public Museum A10264). Critical information relating to how the Eleven-Eleven was intended to function symbolically comes from a little known container fragment found at the end of the 19th century by Naville at the Delta site of Tell el-Baklieh (Hermopolis Parva). It shows that the twenty-two gods of the Eleven-Eleven style had protective functions linked to the Day- and Night-hour goddesses of the Stundenwachen tradition. The twenty-two deities served as guardians of the deceased during the eleven divisions between the twelve hours of Day- and the eleven divisions between the twelve hours of Night. With full hours and interhourly divisions properly supervised by deities, all aspects of time were therefore protected as the transformation of the deceased into a resurrected being occurred.

In the study of Egyptian coffins, typological analysis is often assisted by our willingness to formulate memorable names for the features we encounter. When types (or for that matter any stylistic details) are named well, discussion of them is potentially energized. This is hoped to be so with the Eleven-Eleven (11-11) type: a style of Egyptian coffin which becomes prevalent toward the end of the 7th century BC, distinguished by lids with formats that contain processions of eleven gods on each side, running perpendicular to the container’s long axis. The sequences are presented in Table 1.

during the early 6th century BC; a sarcophagus fragment from Akhmim (Copenhagen AEIN 132) shows that the basic imagery and textual formulae probably persisted into the 4th century BC.1 Saite Period coffins of the type incorporate stylistic features such as the pedestals decorated with ankh-neb-was patterns and encircling serpent (ouroboros/Mehen) edge designs both of which Taylor dates after the mid-7th century BC at Thebes.2 The style is not restricted to a particular site and seems to have been distributed rather widely. Wooden examples are known from several Upper Egyptian sites including Akhmim, Thebes and Edfu (Table 2).

Our best estimate is that the Eleven-Eleven style arose at the end of the 7th century BC and continued to develop Mummy’s Right Side 1. Atum 2. Osiris 3. Imsety 4. Anubis ‘who is in the wt-fetish’ 5. Duamutef 6. Geb 7. Heqa-maa-it-ef ‘Ruler-whom his father sees’ 8. Ir-ren-ef-djes-ef ‘One who made his own name’ 9. Wepwawet 10. Isis 11. Nephthys

Mummy’s Left Side 1. Re-Horakhty 2. Khepri kheper-djes-ef 3. Hapy 4. Anubis ‘foremost of the god’s booth’ 5. Qebehsenuef 6. Horus ‘forehead without eyes’ 7. Kherybaqef ‘one who is under his moringa tree’ 8. Shu 9. Tefnut 10. Neith 11. Serqet

Table 1 - Divine Processions on Coffins of Eleven-Eleven Style 1 2

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KOEFOED-PETERSEN, 1951:pl. LXVII. TAYLOR, 2003:118-119.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity Designation Milwaukee, Wisconsin MPM A10264 British Museum EA 20650 British Museum EA 20745 Cairo CG 41056 Cairo CG 41064 Cairo CG 41065 Cairo CG 41071 Cairo CG 26032 = Cairo TR 28-9-16-15 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art O.C. 22 Chicago, Field Museum 31839 Ann Arbor, Michigan Kelsey Museum 89.1.3 Turin–Schiaparelli Excavations Valle delle Regine 1923, no. 23. Turin–Schiaparelli Excavations Valle delle Regine 1923, no. 26. Current location unknown Sarcophagus Fragment Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothèque AEIN 132, Sarcophagus Fragment British Museum no. 825

Provenience Akhmim

Occupant Djedhor

Akhmim Akhmim Thebes–Deir el-Bahri (1858) Thebes–Deir el-Bahri (1858) Thebes–Deir el-Bahri (1858) Thebes–Deir el-Bahri (1858) Akhmim Thebes–Deir el-Bahri area Thebes–Deir el-Bahri area Edfu –Nag el-Hassaia (?)

Djedhor Irethorrou Wennofer iii Hahat iii Tasherienese (f) Tadiamon (f) Pedihor Udjarenes (f) Harwa Djedhutymose

Thebes–Valley of the Queens (QV 44) Thebes–Valley of the Queens (QV 44) Tell el-Baklieh

Nesamontjamut Mutenmehihat (f) Ahmose

Akhmim

Pahat

Memphis

Nes-Qetiu

Table 2 -Examples of Eleven-Eleven Coffins and Sarcophagi

Large sarcophagi belonging to this class are known from the north of Egypt, including the granite example (British Museum no. 825) produced for Nes-Qetiu son of Ahmose, who served as chancellor and overseer of the treasury, and was interred in Campbell’s tomb in the Giza necropolis. This object shows that the twenty-two gods used in the ElevenEleven format were broadly associated with the Amduat tradition, for the barque of Iuf is inscribed on one end.3 As far as the wooden coffins are concerned, the connection with Akhmim seems particularly strong, and if the stylistic innovations of the Eleven-Eleven format derive from that city, they may be part of the ‘fluctuations in relative prosperity’ favoring Akhmim over Thebes to which Taylor referred several years ago4. The lone example attributable to the Edfu region (Ann Arbor Michigan, Kelsey Museum, 89.3.1) has recently been fully published by T. G. Wilfong5. 1. History of Research Our examination of the Eleven-Eleven type began in 1987 during the study of a mummy and its wooden anthropoid coffin which made its way from the site of Akhmim to the American Midwest. The coffin was inscribed for a temple functionary Djed-hor (a name exceedingly common at Akhmim). This particular Djed-hor was the son of Padiamon and the woman Neshmet-Renenut(et). The coffin is profusely inscribed with texts from the Book of the Dead and other spell sources. Although the texts were copied, transcribed and studied in detail, their sheer extent defied rapid publication. A brief description of the BUDGE, 1909:229. TAYLOR, 2003:119. 5 WILFONG, 2013. 3 4

coffin appeared in Ruth Brech’s Spätägyptische Särge aus Achmim (2008), under the number B7. Her treatment relied upon an article that Lupton published in 20016. That source was itself introductory and we intend to provide further clarification of the coffin’s significance at this time, focusing on features of its lid (Figure 1). Djed-hor’s coffin (Milwaukee Public Museum, Catalog Number A10264) was originally brought to the United States by Adolph Meinecke, a trustee of the Milwaukee Public Museum. Meinecke donated both mummy and coffin to the museum around September 19, 1887. Research shows that the mummy was originally called ‘Tja-hir’ or ‘Tha Hir’ and was believed, at various times, incorrectly, to date to the 11th, 21st, or 16th Dynasty.7 A letter written by Adolph Meinecke’s grandson, Ferdinand Meinecke, Jr. in 1962, suggests that the mummy and coffin were acquired during one of his grandfather’s ‘many business trips in Europe’, and possibly in association with ‘Stangen of Berlin.’ This it seems is Carl Stangen, the proprietor (with his brother Louis) of a well-regarded ‘tourists’ bureau’ established in the 1860s8 and headquartered in Berlin (10 Mohrenstrasse).9 This establishment was later absorbed into the Hapag Line in 1905.10 Stangen’s importance in the tourist trade is comparable to that of Thomas Cook. He LUPTON, 2001. LUPTON, 2001:217. 8 Founding date put variously: 1863 by Enzensberger, H. M. (2001) A Theory of Tourism, p. 128. Originally published as Vergebliche Brandung der Ferne: Eine theorie des Tourismus’ Merkur 126 1958, 701-720. 1868 by RIPM Consortium Ltd, (2006) Schlesische Theater-Zeitung (1863) Breslauer Theater-Zeitung (1864), xvii, note 1. 9 New York Times April 21, 1895, ‘Salon of Champ de Mars’ col. 4. 10 Hapag operates the former Stangen business as the ‘Hamburg-Amerika Linie Reisebüro’ beginning around 1904.http://www.hapag-lloyd.com/ en/about_us/history_between_1886_1918.html. 6 7

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Jonathan Elias and Carter Lupton: Gods at all hours: Saite Period coffins of the ‘eleven-eleven’ type appears to have been particularly interested in arranging large group movements in connection with popular world’s fairs and expositions.11 The Stangen firm ran its first tour to Egypt before 1870 and would, after 20 years of activity there, have had the connections necessary to obtain artifacts recently excavated, to ship them in a scheduled way and then re-sell them fairly easily to wealthy business clients. Carl Stangen may have imported artifactual material directly from Egypt for sale in Germany and it is known that he himself traveled there. The likelihood that Adolph Meinecke acquired his mummies in Europe (rather than in Egypt) is supported by a notice in The New York Times (dated September 27, 1885) relating to Meinecke’s recent trip there and his intention to eventually donate the material to the public.12 2. The Mummy Within: Radiological Examinations and Other Projects The mummy found inside MPM A12064 is of an older male (40-50 years of age). Unlike the owners of many Eleven-Eleven coffins, the mummy found within MPM A10264 has been extensively researched. Carter Lupton arranged for the mummy’s first CT scan on May 16, 1986 at the facilities of GE Medical Systems, New Berlin WI. A second CT scan, dated June 23, 2006, revealed the interesting fact that the mummy had undergone trepanation surgery (Figure 2). A more detailed CT scan (at .0625 mm slice thickness) performed at GE on Djed-hor’s head and attached cervical vertebrae on April 5, 2011, showed the possibility that the edges of the circular craniotomy had significantly healed.13 At the same time, it is necessary to recognize that the full significance of this trepanation, located as it is on the summit of the mummy’s cranium, does not exclude the possibility that it was performed to achieve an ideological or religious goal rather than a purely medical one. It is conceivable that the trepanation’s purpose is, broadly speaking, magical and that this procedure was intended to facilitate the individual’s transformation in addition to symbolic features of the coffin itself. 3. Indications of Persona on the Milwaukee Coffin The texts on the coffin are extensive, in keeping with practices typical of elite funerary containers of the Saite Period (664–525 BC). Copies of the hieroglyphic texts on the left and right sides of the lid (Figures 3 and 4) show the overall quality of the inscriptions, and suggest that the owner of the coffin was of relatively high status within his community. The first two deities in each of the processions suffered damage and were otherwise accompanied by very cursory formulaic texts not reproduced in our figures. Translations have been omitted here for the sake of space, but are available in an earlier textual study, under the heading ‘Canopic Spells (CS), Spells for raising the bier’.14 New York Times, April 21, 1895, ‘Salon of Champ de Mars’ col. 4. New York Times, September 27, 1885, ‘Art Notes’ col. 1 13 ELIAS; LUPTON; HOPPA 2014. 14 ELIAS, 1993:557–584. 11

12

Fig. 1 - MPM A12064. The Coffin of Djed-hor, Lid.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 2 - CT scan image of the head of mummy MPM A10264, showing trepanation in summit of the cranium (1). The coffin is of the inner anthropoid type, meaning that it was intended to contain the mummy directly, without intermediate containers. Its face is coated in green paint, to symbolically represent the flesh tone of the god Osiris. This is a feature found in many, but not all coffins of the type. All inner surfaces of the Milwaukee coffin are bare and uncoated, which is unusual for this type of burial container. More frequently, the inside surfaces of this coffin type are gessoed and inscribed, and often decorated with line drawings or even fully colored paintings of the goddess Nut on the lid interior and Amentet/Hathor on the trough interior. The name Djed-hor, son of Padiamon and Neshmet-Renenut (alternatively Neshmet-Renenutet), occurs repeatedly in the context of Book of the Dead spell material which fills nearly all of the available space on the coffin exterior. These repeated instances further indicate that he held the position of rḫty wtyw n pr-Mnw nb Ipw ‘washer [preparer] of wrapped (bodies), of the house of Min, lord of Ipu [Akhmim].’ (e.g. Figure 4, 4L). This rather uncommon title has distinct associations in the realm of funerary body-cleansing and wrapping. The best known use of the term rḫty occurs in the context of Book of the Dead spell

1, in the locative term ‘Washerman’s shores’ leaving little mystery as to the function of those so-called. We can say that the coffin owner was a mortuary specialist attached to the temple of the god Min, the fertility god of Akhmim. Confirming the identity of the mummy is, however, complicated by the existence in the British Museum of a second mummy15 carried in an inner anthropoid coffin inscribed for the same man (British Museum EA 20650) noticed in several gallery guidebooks16 and most recently discussed by Brech17 under her number B6. Although the British Museum coffin is of Eleven-Eleven type, it is not identical to MPM A10264; its face is painted in a red flesh tone, its texts are less elaborate, and its lid includes the motif of the Fetish of Abydos high up on its chest (an Akhmimic regionalism). The same stylistic The authors wish to thank Dr John H. Taylor of the British Museum for providing access to British Museum EA 20650 at various times in the course of our on-going work on MPM A10264. Our interest in and correspondence concerning the relationship between these two coffins dates back to 1987. 16 BUDGE, 1924: 90-91; SMITH, 1938. 17 BRECH, 2008: 110-113. 15

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Fig. 3 - MPM A10264. Texts from Coffin’s Right Side.

Fig. 4 - MPM A10264. Texts from Coffin’s Left Side. 129

Body, Cosmos and Eternity feature appears on coffin Cairo CG 26032 (unpublished, but displayed in the Egyptian Museum Cairo) belonging to Pedihor, whose face is similarly toned red.18 On British Museum EA 20650, there is a slight adaptation of the title met with on the Milwaukee specimen, showing that Djed-hor was alternatively known as a Hry rḫty ‘chief washer,’ suggesting that Djedhor had been promoted during the interim between the manufacture of the two coffins. The translation of the title has been viewed as being problematic. Brech’s emphasis on reading the ‘dual horns’ determinative as wp.ty is not borne out by the full orthography on Djed-hor’s coffins, on which the horns are everywhere inscribed above a horizontal line which derives from the hieratic writing of the title rḫty (Wb. II, 448). The Milwaukee specimen determines the group rḫty, with a ‘strong-arm’ determinative (Gardiner sign-list D40) with two quail chicks (ww) and a –ty ending. These are plausibly explained as the forepart of a spelling of the term wty, which relates to bandaging activity. A late limestone sepulchral stela (Cairo CG 22163)19 contains several instances of the title Hry rḫty pr-Wsir, which includes the cloth determinative (Gardiner sign-list S28) as if to say that bandaging is involved. Any doubt as to Djed-hor’s function, dissolves in the face of until now, unknown information found on the British Museum specimen. On the head end of the trough of British Museum EA 20650, Djed-hor is once described as a qrf n pr-Mnw. This title can be translated as ‘wrapper of the house of Min,’ which confirms that Djed-hor’s other titles relate to funerary preparation and that the reading of the dual horns above the horizontal line is best taken as rḫty in line with Book of the Dead spell 1 (i.e., ‘washerman’). 4. Broad Facets of the Eleven-Eleven Style Several symbolic elements on the coffin lid are closely connected with the Eleven-Eleven type, some of which are important for determining its chronological position. These include: The image of the goddess Nut set low and separate from the broad collar design This stylistic development (i.e., the lower position for the goddess) is attested on the green-faced wooden coffin of the high steward Ibi, found in the Asasif area of the Theban necropolis in 1975.20 This object, used to hold embalming residues, provides a terminus post quem for this kind of Nut positioning, in the decade following Ibi’s appointment under the god’s wife Nitocris in year 26 of Psamtik I (639 BC). Nut’s arms are stretched outward in the form of feathered wings. On coffin lids of Eleven-Eleven type, each of Nut’s hands grips an ankh lightly colored, outlined in black, with red infilling in the looped part of the glyph. These project ELIAS, 2006:9–10. KAMAL, 1905:147. 20 GRAEFE, 1975:17.

upward and wedjat-eyes flank the goddess’ head with the space they define. Nut kneels on a baseline formed of multicolored rectangles, or upon a palace façade (serekh). Unlike earlier Upper Egyptian coffins of the Saite Period, Nut is usually separated from the collar itself and even the solar disk containing the goddess’ name is kept below the collar and never superimposed on it. The lower positioning of the Nut image permits text to enter the area above her wings and below the collar design. Coffins of ElevenEleven type do not show Nut kneeling on the nwb-glyph representing gold. The Ram-on-a-standard motif, positioned to either side of the goddess Nut These elements are referred to in Gauthier’s work as rams of Amon (beliers d’Amon) on account of their double plumes, but they are better understood as guardians or power agents (b3w) associated with the Fetish of Abydos. The text that accompanies them in certain examples, indicate that they were specifically understood as that ram ‘great of dignity’ which had the power to ‘penetrate the netherworld’ and shed light upon the darkness (e.g., BD spell 9). This lightgiving interpretation is supported by the fact that the motif generally includes a candle atop the standard with the striding ram, or in front of it, to one side. A large wedjat eye is often included directly above the ram. The ouroborus serpent encircles the lid until its head meets the tail The ouroborus serpent (not necessarily identical to Mehen) conveys the sense of an eternal cycle. The head of the serpent generally meets the tail at the coffin toe. It is included on many coffins of Eleven-Eleven type; its use is central to understanding the symbolic logic of coffins so-designed. The main text apron of the lid of Eleven-Eleven coffins contains the text of BD 89 The purpose of Book of the Dead spell 89 is to facilitate the ‘mooring’ of the ba with the mummified body within the tomb. Coffins of Eleven-Eleven type include this spell in preference to other spells commonly used in the columns of the lid text apron during the Saite Period, most particularly, Book of the Dead spell 154. Very frequently, a figure of Anubis is shown standing over the mummy on its bier. The arms of this figure frequently stretch out horizontally. Such is the case with MPM A10264. 5. Function of the Eleven-Eleven Style Important clues to the meaning of the Eleven-Eleven design are provided by examining texts that occur on a fragment of an object that appears to be a sarcophagus, owned by the fkty-priest, Hry-wdb and overseer of the six temples (imy-r3 gs-pr 6) Ahmose,21 which Edouard Naville discovered at

18 19

It is interesting that a fkty-priest named Ahmose is also known from a stela found at Akhmim. This individual was involved there in activities 21

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Fig. 5 - Ahmose Fragment from Tell el-Baklieh, from Naville 1894, Plate III.

Tell el-Baklieh (Hermopolis Parva) in the north-central Delta22. This object, which we will hereinafter refer to as the Ahmose Fragment (reproduced in Figure 5) preserves in its upper register, elements of five deities belonging to the right side procession (R3-Imsety, R4-Anubis imy-wt; R5-Duamutef, R6-Geb, and R7-ḥḳᴈ-mᴈᴈ-it-f) along with texts commensurate with those found associated with these deities on MPM A10264, Cairo CG 41056, 41064, 41065 and 41071. The lower register of the Ahmose Fragment from el-Baklieh contains images of Hour-goddesses with disks on their heads and their arms angled in front of the body in gestures of adoration. Each goddess ‘exists as magical protection’ (wnn.i m s3.k) for Ahmose This lower register preserves just enough information to show that the Eleven-Eleven format is directly connected with Stundenwachen tradition related to Osiris’ protection and resurrection, namely, the names of three day-hours which are not otherwise known in connection with the ElevenEleven format: the 2nd hour of Day Ptr-HH; the 3rd hour of Day Fn-kkw and the 4th hour of Day Stt (Table 3). Deity on Coffin’s Right (Eleven-Eleven Format) Osiris Imsety Anubis imy-wt

Hour of Day Name of Hour 2 3 4

Ptr-ḥḥ Fn-kkw Stt (> Stwt)

Table 3 - Concordance of Gods and Day-Hours on the Ahmose Fragment from Tell el-Baklieh

connected the House of Life (GARDINER, 1938:173 no. 45) and coincidentally held a prophet’s post in the cult of Thoth, which could explain the presence of an object of his at Hermopolis Parva, in the Deltaic nome of Thoth. 22 NAVILLE, 1894: pl. III, A1.

One of the interesting aspects of this finding is that the Day-hour names found on the Ahmose Fragment (which stand in alignment with texts found on 11/11 style coffins) are not exactly those found in contemporary Book of Day documents, such as those inscribed on the sarcophagi of Kushite kings Anlamani and Aspelta,23 which date to the period 620–580 BC. The name of the 2nd hour of Day on the Ahmose Fragment (Ptr-HH), ‘Who millions behold’ is an abbreviated form of the fuller name of the 3rd hour of Day found on the burial containers of the Kushite kings ‘she whom the bas acclaim and millions behold.’ The 3rd hour of Day on the Ahmose Fragment (Fn-kkw perhaps an error for or Nfnfn-kkw ‘who unrolls darkness’) is not found in the Kushite version of the Book of Day, unless it is a variant for similarly-composed 2nd Day-hour name (Ḫrskkw) ‘who dispels darkness.’ The name of the 4th Dayhour, Stt, is determined by a sun disk, and unless intended to be read Stt-R’, is interpretable as simply being the word Stt > Stwt ‘rays.’ This information, fragmentary though it is, suffices to show that multiple versions of the Book of Day (and presumably Book of Night) existed in the 25th–26th Dynasties beyond those already accounted for in the Kushite royal sarcophagi, and in the sepulchre of the treasurer Ramose (TT 132), which presumably dates to the time of Taharqa (690–664 BC).24 Furthermore, the texts incorporated into the Eleven-Eleven processional formulae arose from a Stundenwachen spell source which developed independently of the textual material which gave rise to the 6th century BC Napatan version.

23 24

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DOLL, 1978:31-61. PIANKOFF, 1942.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity Furthermore, the Ahmose Fragment establishes that the twenty-two gods featured in the Eleven-Eleven style had protective functions linked to the Day- and Night-hour goddesses of the Stundenwachen tradition arising out of the Amduat. What is most interesting here is that the twentytwo deities served as guardians of the deceased during the eleven divisions between the twelve hours of Day- and the eleven divisions between the twelve hours of Night. The twenty-two gods formed an interstitial layer of protection covering the transitional phases between discreet hours in the netherworldly time. With full hours and inter-hourly divisions both properly guarded by layers of deities, all aspects of time were therefore supervised and safe as the transformation of the deceased into a resurrected being was achieved. In the case of the two coffins of Eleven-Eleven type inscribed for Djedhor we have long entertained the idea that he must have had a second coffin made for himself (British Museum EA 20650) following a promotion to the office of ‘chief washerman of the temple of Min.’ This presupposes that the coffin inscribed with the lower order title (MPM A10264) would have been seen as worthless to him. This is a rather prosaic solution and does not really fit the facts in a compelling way. If MPM A10264 was deemed irrelevant to Djedhor, and presumably sold off to another individual, why are there no signs of re-inscription? It is also the case that MPM A10264 is textually extremely full, meaning that it is covered with well-rendered, complex spell material from the Book of the Dead, and the newly recognized Stundenwachen sources, whereas British Museum EA 20650 is far less complete in this regard, meaning that its text zones (with the exception of the text apron containing Book of the Dead spell 89) are filled with repetitive formulae. We wonder then, given that both coffins are inner ones (rather than nested inner and outer types) whether we are dealing with a system where the green-faced MPM A10264 and the red-faced British Museum EA 20650 were meant to represent the transformation of a single person from a green Osirian stage to a “red stage” warm with life. Djed-hor’s promotion to the post of ‘chief washerman’ on British Museum EA 20650 might have expressed the expectation that his restored form would emerge from death in this improved social condition. Bibliography BRECH, Ruth (2008) – Spätägyptische Särge aus Achmim. Eine Typologische und chronologische Studie. Gladbeck: PeWe-Verlag. BUDGE, Ernest (1909) – British Museum: A guide to the Egyptian Galleries (Sculpture). London: Trustees of the British Museum. BUDGE, Ernest (1924) – British Museum: A Guide to the First Second and Third Egyptian Rooms. London: Trustees of the British Museum. DOLL, Susan Kay (1978) – Texts and Decoration on the Napatan Sarcophagi of Anlamani and Aspelta. Ann

Arbor: Brandeis University, Michigan University Microfilms International, PhD Dissertation. ELIAS, Jonathan Paul (1993) – Coffin Inscription in Egypt after the New Kingdom: A Study of Text Production and Use in Elite Mortuary Preparation. Ann Arbor: University of Chicago, Michigan University Microfilms International, PhD Dissertation. ELIAS, Jonathan Paul (2006) – The Akhmim Mummy Project: Preliminary Report of Work Performed 15– 23 February 2006: Part I: Inspection of Coffins in the Egyptian Museum. Submitted to the Permanent Committee of the Supreme Council of Antiquities ELIAS, Jonathan Paul; LUPTON, Carter; HOPPA, Robert (2014) – Evidence of Trepanation in a 26th Dynasty Mummy from Akhmim, Egypt. In Proceedings of the 7th World Congress of Mummy Studies. San Diego. Forthcoming. GARDINER, Alan Henderson (1938) – The House of Life. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 24. p. 157–179. GAUTHIER, Henri (1913) – Cercueils Anthropoides des Prêtres de Montou (Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 41042–41072). Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale. GRAEFE, Erhart (1975) – Fouilles de l’Assassif 1970– 1975. Le Superstructure du Tombeau d’IBI (No 36). Chronique d’Égypte 50, p. 13–21 KAMAL, Ahmed Bey (1905) – Stèles Hiéroglyphiques d’Époque Ptolémaiques et Romaine (Catalogue Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 22001–22208). Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale. KOEFOED-PETERSEN, Otto (1951) – Catalogue des Sarcophages et Cercueils Égyptiens. Publications de la Glyptothèque Ny Carlsberg No. 4. Copenhague. Fondation Ny Carlsberg. LUPTON, Carter (2001) – An historical study of two Egyptian mummies in the Milwaukee Public Museum. In WILLIAMS, E, ed. – Human remains: conservation, retrieval and analysis. Proceedings of a Conference held in Williamsburg, VA, Nov. 7-11th 1999 (British Archaeological Reports International Series 934). Oxford: Archaeopress, p. 215-225. NAVILLE, Edouard (1894) – Ahnas el Medineh (Heracleopolis Magna) with Chapters on Mendes, The Nome of Thoth, and Leontopolis. Eleventh Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. PIANKOFF, Alexandre (1942) – Le Livre du Jour dans la Tomb (No 132) de Ramose. Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 41, p. 151–158. SCHIAPARELLI, Ernesto (1923) – Relazione sui Lavori della Missione Archeologica Italiana in Egitto (Anni 1903–1920). Vol 1 Esplorazione della ‘Valle delle Regine’ nella Necropoli di Tebe. Torino: R. Museo di Antichita SMITH, Sidney (1938) – A Handbook to the Egyptian Mummies and Coffins Exhibited in the British Museum. London: The British Museum. TAYLOR, John (2003) – Theban Coffins from the Twentysecond to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty: dating and 132

Jonathan Elias and Carter Lupton: Gods at all hours: Saite Period coffins of the ‘eleven-eleven’ type synthesis of development. In STRUDWICK, Nigel; TAYLOR, John, eds. – The Theban Necropolis: Past, Present and Future. London: British Museum Press, p. 95-121. WILFONG, T. G. (2013) – Life, Death and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt: The Djehutymose Coffin. Kelsey Museum Publication, 9 Ann Arbor. Michigan: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

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Continuity in times of transition: the inner coffin of the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es in Vevey (Switzerland) Alexandra Küffer Historisches und Völkerkundemuseum (St. Gallen) Abstract The contribution presents the Egyptian coffin housed in the Musée Historique of Vevey (Switzerland) which is being studied by the Swiss Coffin Project. The coffin belonging to the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es dates to the late Twenty–fifth/early Twenty-sixth Dynasties and was given to the town of Vevey in 1858. The main elements of the decoration are outlined, focusing on the specific features of the period of its manufacture which was a time of transition, characterised by a revival of older traditions. The provenance of the coffin is not recorded but its design, inscriptions and iconography as well as the extensive genealogy featuring on lid and case point to a Theban origin, possibly the burials of priests of Montu discovered in the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari in 1858.

The Musée Historique of Vevey on the shores of Lake Geneva houses an Egyptian coffin (originally with its mummy) from the late 25th/early 26th Dynasties belonging to the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es (Figure 1). It was a gift from Vevey’s native son Gustave Burnat in 1858. The provenance of the coffin is not recorded, but its design, inscriptions and iconography point to a Theban origin, possibly the burials of priests of Montu in and around the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari.

important sources of information about the Egyptian’s religious concepts allowing us to trace developments in the mortuary beliefs over centuries. 2. A period of transition Towards the end of the eighth century BC, the composition of burial ensembles and their decoration underwent some major changes.1 Cartonnage mummy cases were gradually replaced by a new type of inner coffin which was made of wood and comprised two shallow halves (lid and case) surrounding the body closely and called bivalve.2 The new coffin type also featured a pedestal and a back pillar. These two innovations were probably inspired by statuary thus emphasizing the idea of the coffin as an image of the dead person as living being. Changes also occurred in coffin decoration. With the introduction of bivalve inner coffins it was possible once again to decorate the interior surfaces. The figured scenes became smaller and the inscriptions more prominent with text columns being an essential part of the coffin design. Whenever one could afford it, the inner coffin was enclosed in an anthropoid intermediary coffin and a rectangular outer qrsw coffin with a vaulted lid and a post at each corner that resembled a shrine, referring to the divine status of the deceased.

This contribution intends to give a first impression of this little known coffin. The main elements of the decoration are outlined, focusing on the specific features of the period of its manufacture. Further, the diary notes kept by Burnat’s uncle Jean Dollfus on his journey to Egypt in 1858 are presented, supporting the assumption that the coffin was purchased from an excavation at Deir el-Bahari led by the French consular agent Maunier at the beginning of March 1858. 1. Conceptions of the afterlife Undoubtedly, the art of dealing with death counts among the fundamental cultural achievements of humankind. The ancient Egyptians were one of the first civilizations searching for answers to the eternal question of what happens after one dies and developing concepts of how the afterlife might be like. The belief that the deceased could survive death and would be reborn to an eternal life in the realm of the dead was a conviction all Egyptians shared. Thus, preparing for the journey to the afterlife as well as caring for the dead was part of everyday life.

3. Surrounded by deities: the decoration of the outer surface of the lid The coffin in the Musée Historique of Vevey belongs to the bivalve anthropoid coffin type with pillar and pedestal that became the standard form for Theban inner coffins in the 25th and 26th Dynasties (Figure 2).3 It is made of

From early times on, coffins were the most essential item of funerary equipment in an Egyptian burial. Their images and inscriptions created a sacred environment protecting the mummy and ensuring the well-being of the deceased person in the afterlife. Thus, coffins are one of the most

TAYLOR, 1989: 53 – 61.IKRAM, DODSON, 1998: 236 – 238. TAYLOR, 2003: 111 – 116. 3 Inv.No MHV 4231 (coffin), MHV 4231/1 (mortal remains of Gem-tues). Coffin Length: L 173 cm. A short description of the coffin and its history feature in: KÜFFER, 2007; KÜFFER, 2011. The coffin was the 1 2

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Fig. 2: Right side of the coffin, showing the missing parts of lid and case next to the head. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo: pmimage.

Fig. 1: Lid of the inner coffin of Gem-tu-es. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo: pmimage. 138

Alexandra Küffer: Continuity in times of transition: the inner coffin of the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es

Fig. 3: Detail of the face on the coffin lid. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo: pmimage. sycomore wood covered with linen, plastered and painted on a white, yellow and red ground. Even though the coffin has suffered severe damage (especially in modern times) with the colours being worn off in many places, its overall appearance is still quite appealing. Since a complete burial equipment of that period consisted of three coffins, we can assume that originally this inner coffin was accompanied by an intermediate and an outer coffin whose whereabouts are unknown.

On the breast, below the collar, a kneeling figure of Nut appears.5 The sky goddess had temporarily disappeared from coffins in the 22nd Dynasty and was now reintroduced as a main motif on the coffin lids. Nut was regarded as the divine mother of the deceased who was identified with Osiris. She could also be associated with the coffin itself. By placing the dead inside the coffin, he was resting within the body of his mother Nut from which he was to be reborn eternally. In a gesture of protection, the goddess is extending her arms and wings over the breast of the coffin, symbolically linking the lid with the vault of heaven, thus ensuring that the deceased would have sky and stars above him in the afterlife too.

As is common on inner coffins of this period, the exterior surface of the lid carries the greatest concentration of images essential for the resurrection of the dead person (see Figure 1). Special attention was given to the face that was skilfully carved and seems to have been varnished. It shows an idealized, youthful image of the deceased lady. Particular emphasis was placed on the eyes: Eyebrows and eyelids are inlaid with black glass paste and the eyes themselves consist of black and white stone which give a lively and attentive expression to the face (Figure 3).4 The headdress consists of a tripartite wig with a stylized vulture headdress on top of it. The vulture headdress originally belonged to the iconography of goddesses and queens. In the Third Intermediate Period, it was adopted by private persons and appears frequently on female coffins.

The important role of Nut as protector of the dead is also expressed in the horizontal column below her figure. The text is a prayer, in which Nut is asked to spread herself over the deceased, protecting him from any enemies and harm.6 It is first found in the ancient Pyramid Texts and is an example of the revival of older traditions that became very popular in the 25th and 26th Dynasties. Below the horizontal column carrying the Nut spell, the surface of the lid is divided in two parts by a vertical line of text running to the ankles. The inscription contains an offering formula mentioning the location of the burial

subject of an unpublished Mémoire de Licence: CROTTAZ 1993. 4 A greenish colour appears along the lower lid of both eyes, indicating that a coppery element might also have been used.

The short crossed braces just above the head of Nut are a remembrance of the braces on the yellow coffins of the 21st Dynasty. 6 Nut spell, PT 368. 5

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity es herself is depicted, standing with her arms raised in adoration (Figure 4). She is wearing a tight white dress ending above the ankle with an overlying flap ending in a fringed edge. Her skin is painted green, the color associated with regeneration and eternal life. The last register is occupied by a wedjat-eye, symbol of wholeness. On the upper surface of the foot end, the winged goddess Isis completes the female deities surrounding the figure of Gem-tu-es. The location of Isis on the foot end and possibly Nephthys8 on top of the head is an archaising touch, linking the coffins of the 25th and 26th Dynasties with those of the Middle and New Kingdoms. 4. Prominence of texts: The decoration of the lid’s interior and the coffin case The text-heavy decoration characteristic for the coffins of this period is clearly seen on the interior of the lid and on the coffin case. All surfaces are completely covered with inscriptions that became effective through the power of the written word and could also be read by the deceased whenever needed.9 The main texts on the interior surfaces of the lid and the case consist of twenty-three respectively thirty horizontal columns divided by alternating red and yellow lines (Figures 5 and 6). The hieroglyphs are outlined in black and painted in blue. The first twelve lines of both inscriptions carry the genealogy of Gem-tu-es and are almost identical, thus allowing to complete some of the missing parts in both versions. The only difference between the two genealogies is the omission of Gem-tu-es‘ paternal grandfather Pastjenef on the lid. The family tree mentions the ancestors up to the paternal grandfather and to the maternal great-great grandfather. Obviously, the ancestors of Gem-tu-es’ mother were considered more important than those of her father. The maternal great-grandfather of Gemtu-es, Besi, as well as his father Pastjenef both bore the title of Priest of Montu, Lord of Thebes. Gem-tu-es was thus related to the great Theban families of Montu priests, one of the most influential and wealthy clans of the 25th and 26th Dynasties, and belonged to the upper elite of native Egyptian society. One of the prominent families dominating the priesthood of Montu was the so-called Besenmut family. The name of Gem-tu-es’ great-grandfather Besi might be a short form of Besenmut. The family of Gem-tu-es was also associated with the cult of Amun as the title ‘God’s Father of Amun’ held by her father Djed-khonsu-iuf-ankh and her maternal grandfather Nesi show.

Fig. 4: Detail of the lid, showing the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo: pmimage. place, namely Western Thebes, as well as names and titles of the coffin owner, the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es, and her parents, the God’s Father of Amun Djed-khonsuiuf-anch and the mistress of the house Djed-iset-ius-ankh. The title ‘Mistress of the house’ describes Gem-tu-es as being a married woman, but neither her husband nor any children are shown or mentioned on the coffin. The lateral zones on both sides of the central column are divided in seven registers with symmetrical groupings of deities accompanied by short vertical inscriptions. The registers themselves are separated by horizontal text columns running from the middle of the lid to the sides. The first four registers show several male deities that also appear frequently on other coffins of that period, principally the four Sons of Horus (first register), Anubis (second register), Kheribaqef and Geb (third register), Harendotes and Horus-khentenirty (fourth register).7 In the fifth register, the goddesses Isis and Nephthys appear with their hands in front of their faces in a gesture of sorrow. Their figures are almost entirely worn off but can be identified through the short inscriptions in front of them. According to mythology, Osiris was protected by the sister goddesses who were watching over his mummy at the foot and head of his bier. Figures of Isis and Nephthys on the coffin emphasized the identification of the dead person with Osiris. Below the two goddesses, Gem-tu-

As seen on numerous coffins of this period, the genealogy became an important part of the decoration. Its significance is also evident in the location of Gem-tu-es’ family tree, closely surrounding her head and upper body from above and below. Even though the ancient Egyptians had a pretty clear idea of what the afterlife would be like, death was to some extent still met with anxiety. Besides

The upper four registers show two deities on each side. Only in the first register the gods can be surely identified as the four Sons of Horus. The deities in the second register, shown on each side behind Anubis, are squatting figures holding a maat-feather, but are too worn off to be surely identified. At both ends of the third register, mummiform standing figures with chacal heads are depicted, in the fourth register the same figures with human heads appear, possibly representing the four Sons of Horus.

7

The figure painted on top of the head is almost entirely lost. Only one wing, pointing down, is visible, possibly belonging to the goddess Nephthys or to the figure of a falcon (?). 9 The flat base at the foot end features five short vertical lines of inscription containing the offering formula. 8

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Alexandra Küffer: Continuity in times of transition: the inner coffin of the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es

Fig. 5: Interior of the coffin lid, featuring the genealogy of Gem-tu-es. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo: pmimage.

Fig. 6: Interior of the coffin case, featuring the genealogy of Gem-tu-es. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo: pmimage. 141

Body, Cosmos and Eternity the disintegration of the body, one of the fears was that death would bring social isolation.10 Therefore name and titles always played a vital role as a carrier of the deceased’s identity and status in Egyptian tombs and burial equipments. During the 25th Dynasty, it obviously became especially important to also include one’s descent on the coffin. By naming her ancestors and emphasizing her affiliation with prominent personalities, Gem-tu-es ensured that she would be reunited with her relatives and thus be embedded in a social network again. Possibly, the (sometimes extensive) genealogies on the coffins could be seen in relation to the revival of motifs and traditions of the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms stressing the notion of continuity in a time of constant diverse challenges. On the interior of the lid, below the genealogy, the text continues with the spell 22 from the Book of the Dead enabling Gem-tu-es to use her mouth again. The first sentence reads ‘I have arisen from the Egg’. The word used for ‘egg’ is ‘swHt’, a term also designating the inner coffin which makes allusion to the coffin as a protected space or womb from which the deceased is eternally reborn. The interior of the foot end is decorated with a big shen-ring, the symbol of eternal protection. Following the genealogy on the interior surface of the case are the spells 213 and (the beginning of) 214 from the Pyramid Texts, identifying Gem-tu-es with Osiris and associating parts of her body with the gods Atum and Anubis. The exterior surface of the coffin case is decorated with three vertical columns of inscription in the centre, which is sculpted as a pillar, and flanked by horizontal texts (Figure 7). Unfortunately much of the decoration is lost, but it seems that at least some of the ancestors of Gem-tu-es were also mentioned here. The lateral sides inside the lid and the case contain a vertical line of inscription with the offering formula written in generous hieroglyphs and painted in different colours. Although a quite extensive genealogy of Gem-tu-es features on her coffin, it is not possible (so far) to attribute the names mentioned to specific historical individuals. The designs on lid and case roughly point to the 25th/26th Dynasties. Internal dating criteria based on iconography and orthography can be used to date the coffin more precisely, for instance: the spelling of the name of Osiris with the divine pennant determinative does not appear before the late eighth century BC;11 the costumes worn by male (short kilts) and female (tight-fitting dress with shoulder straps and sometimes overlying flaps) figures were introduced towards the end of the eighth century BC; 12 the depiction of the wings of Nut with three internal divisions was in use until the middle of the seventh century BC 13 and the head of the winged goddess Nut on the breast overlapping the lower edge of the collar is common before ca. 625 BC.14 Since some of these features are associated

ASSMANN, 2003: 54 – 88. LEAHY, 1979; TAYLOR, 2003: 102. 12 TAYLOR, 2003: 99–101 (Fig. 1, Nos. 6-11). 13 TAYLOR, 2003: 115, 118-19. 14 TAYLOR 2003: 115. 10 11

Fig. 7: The exterior of the coffin case, sculpted as pillar in the middle part. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo: pmimage. 142

Alexandra Küffer: Continuity in times of transition: the inner coffin of the mistress of the house Gem-tu-es with the 25th, rather than the 26th Dynasty, a dating of the coffin between 680 and 650 BC is proposed.

of the Theban hills and he mentions that about twenty, apparently intact, coffins were found, that were left untouched for the prince to open them.21

5. A hint at the provenance of Gem-tu-es’ coffin?

The French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette had been entrusted by Said Pasha to make the necessary arrangements for the visit of Prince Napoleon and to dig for antiquities that would be presented to the Prince along his itinerary.22 Mariette set his men to work at several sites all over the Nile Valley. As Dollfus mentioned in his diary, there was also a big excavation underway at Deir el-Bahari. Mariette may have selected the site because of Maunier’s promising finds in 1857. Dollfus’ notes further suggest that the excavation visited by him and his nephew at the beginning of March 1858 could be the one during which a large group of burials of Montu priests were discovered. Apparently Maunier was in charge of the dig during Mariette’s absences.

There are no records concerning the provenance of the coffin of Gem-tu-es in the archives of the Musée Historique of Vevey. The inventory book only mentions that the coffin was a gift from the town’s native-son Gustave Burnat in 1858. At the age of 25, Burnat (1831 – 1901) had moved to Alexandria and founded a flourishing cotton trade company. In the spring of 1858, he was visited by his brother Ernest and their uncle Jean Dollfus on their Grand Tour to Egypt and the Near East. Dollfus kept a diary entitled Voyage d’Egypte en 1858 which gives interesting (and often amusing) insights into the daily activities of the travel party and could possibly refer to the findspot of the coffin of Gem-tu-es.15 Ernest Burnat and Dollfus sailed up the Nile on a dahabya and stopped at Luxor where they stayed for one week from February 28 to March 6. Upon their arrival, they were greeted by the French consular agent Maunier who invited them to the French House where he was residing with his wife. Maunier was a well known figure in Luxor, especially among European travellers, since he also acted successfully as antiquities agent and dealer. He had excavated at Western Thebes, working for Abbas Pasha16 and Raymond Sabatier, the French consul in Alexandria, who had a permit (firman) from the ruler of Egypt to collect coffins from Deir el-Bahari.17 In the fall 1857 (or possibly earlier), Maunier discovered nine sealed tomb shafts containing over sixty burials in the Hathor chapel of the Hatshepsut temple. This especially rich find was seen by the Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch in December 1857 and probably brought Mariette to the site, who started excavating at Deir el-Bahari in 1858.18 In the first season, Mariette’s workmen cleared the Punt colonnade and also entered the northern and southern chapels of the middle terrace, discovering several burials of the Montu clergy and their families. The precise circumstances of the finds of Maunier and Mariette are uncertain. The burials were removed unrecorded and no reports were published at the time of their discoveries, making it difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct the archaeological context and sometimes even the year of the finds.

Before leaving Luxor, Dollfus commissioned Maunier to send him a ‘nice mummy’ to his home address.23 Although it is not recorded, we can assume that - inspired by the exploits and the enthusiasm of his uncle - Gustave Burnat asked Maunier for a coffin with mummy as well. The decoration of the coffin of Gem-tu-es makes it highly probable that it originally came from the burial of Montu priests beneath the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut that had become a necropolis for the elite of Theban society in the 25th and early 26th Dynasties. 6. A Mummy’s Fate Gem-tu-es’ coffin and her mummy arrived in Vevey on October 4, 1858 and subsequently disappeared in different storerooms (often adjacent to schools) for several decades. There they suffered severe damage from floodings and from curious pupils opening the coffin to catch a glimpse of the mummy. Finally in 1948, the town’s public authority intervened and decided - in view of the mummy’s poor condition – to give it a Christian burial. On December 30, 1948, the mummy of Gem-tu-es was cremated (Figure 8).24 Even if, sadly, the mummy no longer exists, the inscriptions and images on the coffin yield many informations about its owner and the period she lived in. It is hoped that further research will also lead to the reconstruction of the family ties of Gem-tu-es.

During their stay at Luxor, Burnat and Dollfus were invited by Maunier to visit the excavation he was conducting at Western Thebes. As Dollfus wrote in his diary, the dig was paid for by Said Pasha19 and took place with regard to the visit to Egypt by prince Napoleon, a cousin of Napoleon III of France.20 Dollfus was fascinated by the scenery of a hundred men working in the burning hot sand at the foot

‘100 hommes y étaient environ employés – ils fouillaient dans les terrains adossés aux montagnes de Médinet- habou (sic) pour 40 cents par jour; ils remuaient par la plus affreuse chaleur les sables brûlants; une vingtaine de caisses de momies avaient été déterrées et on les laissait sans les ouvrir pour procurer la surprise en France de toutes les choses curieuses qu’elles pouvaient contenir› (CROTTAZ, 1993: 204). Obviously Dollfus was not familiar with the sites at Western Thebes and confused Medinet Habu with Deir el-Bahari. But the description of the site as ‘leaning against the mountains’ makes it evident that the excavation mentioned took place at Deir el-Bahari. 22 REEVES, 2000: 47 – 49. The Prince’s visit was unexpectedly cancelled a few weeks later. 23 CROTTAZ, 1993: 205. It was common in those days to use the word ‘mummy’ instead of coffin. Dollfus probably bought a coffin with a mummy. 24 CROTTAZ, 1993: 15 – 17. 21

15 The unpublished document is in the archives of the Dollfus family, but is reproduced in CROTTAZ 1993, 163 – 218. 16 Abbas Pasha ruled from 1848 to 1854. 17 CROTTAZ, 1993: 203; SHEIKHOLESLAMI, 2003: 133. 18 REEVES, 2000: 47 – 49; SHEIKHOLESLAMI 2003, 133-134. 19 Said Pasha was the ruler of Egypt from 1854 to1863. 20 CROTTAZ, 1993: 204.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity Bibliography ASSMANN, Jan (2003) – Tod und Jenseits im alten Ägypten. München: C.H. Beck. CROTTAZ, Jean-Claude (1993) – Étude d’un sarcophage de la Troisième Période Intermédiaire. Genève: Faculté des Lettres, Département des Sciences de l’Antiquité, Université de Genève, Mémoire de licence. IKRAM, Salima; DODSON Aidan (1998) – The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. KÜFFER, Alexandra (2007) – Odyssee eines Sarges und seiner Mumie. In KÜFFER, Alexandra; SIEGMANN, Renate – Unter dem Schutz der Himmelsgöttin: Ägyptische Särge, Mumien und Masken in der Schweiz. Zürich: Chronos Verlag, p. 132 – 136. KÜFFER, Alexandra (2011) – The Swiss Coffin Project: Rediscovering Forgotten Treasures in Swiss Museums. Kmt – A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt 22, Number 3, p. 18 – 34. LEAHY, Anthony (1979) – The name of Osiris. Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 7, p. 141 – 153. REEVES, Nicholas (2000) – Ancient Egypt: The Great Discoveries. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. SHEIKHOLESLAMI, Cynthia May (2003) – The burial of priests of Montu at Deir el-Bahari in the Theban necropolis. In STRUDWICK, Nigel; TAYLOR John H – The Theban Necropolis: Past, Present and Future. London: The British Museum Press, p. 131 – 137. TAYLOR, John H (1989) – Egyptian Coffins. Aylesbury: Shire Egyptology. TAYLOR, John H (2003) – Theban coffins from the Twenty-second to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty: dating and synthesis of development. In STRUDWICK, Nigel; TAYLOR John H, eds. – The Theban Necropolis: Past, Present and Future. London: The British Museum Press, p. 95 – 121.

Fig. 8: The mortal remains of Gem-tu-es kept in a glass vase. Courtesy of the Musée Historique Vevey. Photo: pmimage.

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Egyptian coffins in Portugal Luís Manuel de Araújo Faculdade de Letras (University of Lisbon) Abstract In Portugal there are five coffins of the 21st Dynasty in the Museum of the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa (offered by the Egyptian government in 1893, from Deir el-Bahari), two at the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia (one of the Third Intermediate Period and the other of the Ptolemaic Dynasty), one in Museu da Farmácia, one in the Museu Arqueológico do Carmo (Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses), and another at the Museu de História Natural of University of Oporto. In this chapter we wil briefly present the main features of these objects.

The profuse thematic of the covering is divided into multiple sections of mythological nature with some gods: Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Re-Horakhty, Horus, Thoth, Serket, Neit, and some naked children identified as the four Sons of Horus, in addition to various signs such as ankh (life) and was (prosperity), along with the deceased Pabasa wearing a white linen dress at the final judgment. In another section we can see the scale where the heart of the deceased is weighed in the presence of the monster Ammut. On the base of the coffin is the Apis bull depicted on a dynamic racing pose.

The belief in eternal life led to the preparation of the bodies, which were mummified, embalmed, and placed inside sarcophagi and anthropoid coffins, along with funerary masks and viscera jars (the so-called ‘canopic jars’), as well as other materials, like small statues of Ptah-SokarOsiris, or the well-known funerary statuettes (shawabtis or uchebtis) and amulets. In Portugal there are five coffins of the 21st Dynasty in the Museum of the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa (offered by the Egyptian government in 1893, from Deir el-Bahari), two at the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia (one of the Third Intermediate Period and the other of the Ptolemaic Dynasty), one in Museu da Farmácia, one in the Museu Arqueológico do Carmo (Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses), and another at the Museu de História Natural of University of Oporto.

In the lower half of the coffin, which is better preserved, we can find a long hieroglyphic text extracted from the Book of the Dead with four vertical columns on each side. The back is illustrated by a hieroglyphic inscription witch runs inside the djed pillar, with an ankh sign on top. The inscription refers to the syncretic deity Ptah-Sokar-Osiris and shows the name of the deceased (Pabasa) and his priestly title of semati.

1. Museu Nacional de Arqueologia The coffin of Irtieru, from the Third Intermediate Period, made of cartonnage (pressed linen and plaster), and divided into several sections with different themes of mythological nature with a hieroglyphic frontal inscription interrupted at several points by crossed wings. The inscription shows the name of the owner, Irtieru, and alludes to the journey on the horizon of the sky in peace.

The text on the left side is composed of an introduction and two versions corresponding to two chapters from the Book of the Dead: chapter 30B and chapter 54. The first requested the eternal breath for the deceased and the second refers to the primordial egg. The text on the right side corresponds to passages of chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead containing the testimony of the deceased provided in the judgment hall of Maet, before the god Osiris, the ‘negative confession’.

It no longer has the divine beard, and in the decoration we can see several goddesses as Isis, Serket, Nephthys and Neith, and the gods Horus, Thoth, the four Sons of Horus: Hapi, Kebehsenuef, Imseti and Duamutef. In the middle of the coffin a falcon opens its long wings, and below is a profuse winged decoration, with the wings originating from deities and crossing the hieroglyphic text.

In his reassessment about the cartonnage mummy-case of Irtieru, Álvaro Figueiredo argues that according the style of the coffin he can be dated from Third Intermediate Period instead of the Late Period, although the name of Irtieru is typical from the 26th-30th Dynasties and the Ptolemaic Period.

The back side is occupied by a large anthropomorphized djed pillar with a human head and with small hieroglyphic inscriptions.

The Egyptian mummies of the Museum were the object of a radiological study conducted by the Lisbon Mummy Project, which is composed by radiologists Dr Carlos Prates and Dr Sandra Costa, among others, and counts with the participation of bio-archaeologist Álvaro Figueiredo, who studies at University College, London, as well as

The coffin of Pabasa, from the Ptolemaic Period, is highly decorated showing a face with well-defined lines and surrounded by a wig with parallel lists, having at the top a scarab pushing two solar disks. 145

Body, Cosmos and Eternity the archaeologist Luís Raposo (the former Director of the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia), the Egyptologist Dr Salima Ikram from the American University in Cairo, and myself.

On each side of the wig, in veneration before the falcon heads that round off the floral necklace, are the kneeling figures of Isis (right) and Nephthys (left), with their respective identifying hieroglyphs over the head. Both goddesses hold the shen-sign (protection). The hieroglyphic texts are quite repetitive, mainly insisting on the invocation of some gods and the name of the deceased, usually accompanied by the father’s name (Padihor) and, in some cases, the mother’s name (Taremenubet). Most of the texts were painted with black hieroglyphics over a yellow background, but some parts were placed on a dark background, which sometimes makes it difficult to read. In addition, several hieroglyphs were clumsily written, others disappeared, and yet others seem superfluous for the reading.

2. Museu da Farmácia The anthropomorphic coffin of the Museu da Farmácia is profusely decorated and very well maintained. It belonged to a noble lady called Irtierut, a typical name from the time when this coffin was produced. Although it is a coffin made for a woman, the chosen color for the face was a brownish red, when the usual was a lighter and yellowish color. On top of the head is a hieroglyphic inscription in two vertical columns and in a horizontal one, which involves a black scarab pushing two solar discs with the front and rear paws. At the sides there are stylized symbols of the West (Amentet) and the East (Iabet).

3. Museu da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa The sensational discover of the great tomb of Bab elGassus, officially made in 1891 allowed a more detailed study of the period of 21st Dynasty and the history of priests of Amun at Karnak and his relatives. The tomb contained more than 150 coffins, from the pontificate of Menkheperre on, and they had either buried or hidden following burial in other tombs. About 100 were double coffins, and the Museu da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa have one of them (Henuttawi).

The frontal decoration displays a floral necklace with several turns, and below is the winged goddess Nut kneeling, topped by her name and holding the two feathers of the goddess Maet. We can also see the coffin of the deceased on a bed, lit by the solar rays in the company of her ba (which is identified by the name Irtierut), with four canopic jars under the bed, each displaying lids representing the four sons of the god Horus: Imseti, Hapi, Duamutef and Kebehsenuef.

Following the discovery of the so called ‘second cache’ of Deir el-Bahari, the Egyptian government along with the Egyptian Museum of Cairo decided to offer some of the found materials to institutions from Europe and the United States. In this political and cultural operation, the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa received 87 funerary statuettes (ushebtis), already studied and published, three internal mummy-covers and five coffins.

Then we can see five columns of vertical hieroglyphic text. This central core is accompanied on the sides by several mythical figures showing various vegetal elements, which are profiled in chapels, and in the sideskirts are several gods as Thoth, perhaps Khentiamentiu (?), Hórus and RéHorakhty, Geb, Serket, Anubis and Shu.

The coffins are made of painted wood, and some of them have already lost part of their plaster, and three of them are anonymous. The other two were made for noble women, one called Shedsutaipet, who was a singer of Amun and musician of Mut (having the coffin been usurped by the lady Djedmutiuesankh), and another called Henuttawy, which exhibits the title of singer of Amun.

Along the curve of the feet is the goddess Isis with two black dogs on shrines (an evocation of Anubis) and two wedjat-eyes, with the whole surrounded by hieroglyphic texts. The base of the coffin is completed on its four sides by a hieroglyphic inscription on a yellow background. Dividing the front part from the back of the coffin is the representation of the large Ouroboros snake, displaying over the head a high white crown, and sliding upwards, following the opening that separates the two parts of the coffin, the lid and the base.

Unlike coffins made for men these show the open hands of the deceased in a frontal position bellow the breasts, which can be decorated with artistic halos, with some crossed red bands in the front. The study of the coffins and of the mummy’s internal lids from the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa is currently being done, by Rogério Sousa.

The back of the coffin is almost entirely filled by a large djed pillar, evoking the backbone of Osiris. At the bottom of the pillar are eight baboons (four on each side) in pose of veneration, and with the particularity of four of them, alternately exhibiting red erect faluses. Along each baboon are small hieroglyphic inscriptions that allude to the eight deities of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis (Khmunu), which are: Kek and Kauket, Nun and Naunet, Heh and Hauhet, Amon and Amonet. In all of them there is an identical inscription that is repeated: ‘Worship the god four times’.

4. Museu Arqueológico do Carmo The coffin exposed in the Museu Arqueológico do Carmo, which belongs to the Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses, was made in the Ptolemaic Period and is in a very bad condition, with the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the boards of the coffin’s lid barely readable. The mummy which remains inside is also very damaged, being now gutted and headless. 146

Luís Manuel de Araújo: Egyptian coffins in Portugal In the past two years some restoration work and cleaning has been done on the coffin, and in a remarkable recovery it was possible to uncover some hieroglyphs, allowing us to read an invocation to the goddess Hathor, although it was not possible to identify the owner’s name.

Bibliography ARAÚJO, Luís Manuel (1993) - Antiguidades Egípcias. Vol. I: Museu Nacional de Arqueologia. Lisboa: Instituto Português de Museus. ARAÚJO, Luís Manuel (2011) - A Coleção Egípcia do Museu de História Natural da Universidade do Porto. Porto: Universidade do Porto. ARAÚJO, Luís Manuel (2005) - O sarcófago e a múmia egípcia. In ARNAUD, José Morais; FERNANDES, Carla Varela, coords. - Construindo a Memória. As Colecções do Museu Arqueológico do Carmo. Lisboa: Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses, p. 534-545. ARAÚJO, Luís Manuel (2005) - O sarcófago egípcio do Museu da Farmácia. Cadmo’15, p. 23-32 BASSO Paula; ARAÚJO, Luís Manuel (2008) - A Farmácia no Mundo Pré-Clássico e nas Culturas Tradicionais. Lisboa: Associação Nacional de Farmácias. FIGUEIREDO, Álvaro (2005) - The cartonnage mummycase of Irtieru (Egyptian Collection, Museu Nacional de Arqueologia): a reassessment. O Arqueólogo Português, série IV, 23, p. 437-450. SCHMICK, Valdmar (1910) - Les cercueils égyptiens de la Société de Geographie de Lisbonne. Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa, 8, 20ª série, p. 55-60. SOUSA, Rogério (2010) - The Coffin of an anonymous woman from Bab el-Gasus (A.4) in Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 46, p. 185-200. SOUSA, Rogério (2012) - O ataúde anónimo (A.4) da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa: Pistas para a identificação de dinamismos económicos e sociais subjacentes à produção de bens funerários na necrópole tebana (XXI dinastia). In ARAÚJO, Luís Manuel; SALES, José das Candeias, coords. - Novos Trabalhos de Egiptologia Ibérica, II. Lisboa: Instituto Oriental e Centro de História da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, p. 1151-1162. TAYLOR, John (2003) – Theban Coffins from the Twentysecond to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty: dating and synthesis of development. In STRUDWICK, Nigel; TAYLOR, John, eds. – The Theban Necropolis: Past, Present and Future. London: British Museum Press, p. 95-121.

5. Museu de História Natural da Universidade do Porto In Museu de História Natural of University of Oporto, the fundamental group of objects connected with the tomb includes eight items from the Late Period and GrecoRoman Period, like a statuette of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris in painted wood, more complete than a similar specimen from the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, an anthropoid coffin of polychrome stuccoed wood made for Pakharu with its human mummy, and yet another female mummy without coffin which is not exposed to the public, two alabaster vessels of viscera, and one of ceramic, and a golden cartonnage funerary mask. The anthropomorphic coffin of Pakharu has multiple fractures in the coverage and the color has partially disappeared, especially in the frontal zone. It is highly decorated with diverse symbology and figures of deities, and has small hieroglyphic inscriptions scattered over the surface, some of which are not conveniently readable, being best preserved on the lateral areas. Below the neck is a large floral necklace with multiple turns, followed by six sections decorated with varied themes, where we can see the goddesses Isis and Serket, the gods Re-Horakhty and Anubis, the four Sons of Horus, and the deceased himself, the priest Pakharu, sometimes called Pakhar. 6. Conclusion In Portugal there are ten Egyptian coffins from different periods, from the 21st Dynasty (in the Museum of the Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa) until the second century BC, middle of Ptolemaic Period (Museu Nacional de Arqueologia and Museu de História Natural of University of Oporto). Other coffins in Portuguese collections are good examples of production of this type of coffins from 22th/23th Dynasties (coffin of Irtieru, Museu Nacional de Arqueologia) in 26th Dynasty (Museu da Farmácia) and Ptolemaic Period (Museu Arqueológico do Carmo, Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses, and Museu Nacional de Arqueologia). With such variety, visiting the mentioned collections can be highly didactic, especially for students, from basic to higher education levels. The Egyptian coffins in Portugal can teach a lot about the funerary ritual, the conceptions concerning another world and the iconography used in several Egyptian dynasties of the first millennium BC, including the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

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Cercueils jaunes des XXIe et XXIIe dynasties dans les collections Françaises Alain Dautant1 UMR 5095 CNRS – Université de Bordeaux Abstract In 1988, Andrzej Niwiski counted 44 Egyptian yellow coffins or fragments dating 21st and 22nd Dynasties in French collections. Then, in 1997, René van Walsem added to the inventory four new coffins of stola type, i.e. coffins with red mummy braces crossing on the chest. In the present corpus, the total number was increased to 87; two of these coffins were abroad in 1988. In addition, six nonlocalized coffins (Niw 208, 427, 428, 450, 455 and 457) were identified, two coffins were identified (Niw 331 and 332) and the five sets from Bab el-Gasus offered to France in 1893 are located. This study therefore provides an updated list of 21st and 22nd Dynasties yellow coffins in French collections and aims at clarifying the provenance of some coffins.

des collections des musées français a permis de préciser la localisation de certains cercueils.5 Sur une centaine de musées français possédant une collection égyptienne, un tiers possède un cercueil des XXIe/XXIIe dynasties (Figure 1).

1. Introduction1 Tout au long du xixe siècle, de nombreux artistes, explorateurs et scientifiques visitèrent l’Égypte et furent attirés par la beauté des cercueils des XXIe et XXIIe dynasties et leur couleur jaune vif qu’ils rapportèrent en occident pour orner les cabinets de curiosités et les musées2 ou alimenter le marché de l’art. Le lieu de découverte de ces cercueils, vraisemblablement la nécropole thébaine, reste souvent inconnu. À l’époque, rares furent les égyptologues et les collectionneurs qui ont consigné les données archéologiques de terrain ou les circonstances de leurs achats.3 En outre, les Égyptiens qui participaient au commerce d’objets d’art, n’avaient pas intérêt à révéler la provenance des antiquités afin de protéger leur commerce. Ainsi, les frères AbdelRassoul ont réussi à dissimuler pendant une dizaine d’années la découverte de la cachette royale de Deir el-Bahari, dont ils ont progressivement écoulé le matériel à la fin du xixe siècle.4 Le manque de traçabilité des objets de musées va de pair avec la dispersion et les changements d’affectation des collections. Concrètement, les collectionneurs ont donné, légué ou vendu des antiquités à des villes et/ou à des musées sans communiquer leur origine. Le récolement

Les collections sont souvent publiées sous forme de catalogues d’exposition et les inventaires complets font défaut. Sur les 87 cercueils ou fragments ici recensés, un tiers fait parti des expositions permanentes, les autres demeurent dans les réserves, à l’abri des regards. Enfin, les cercueils des collections privées ne sont connus que par les notices succinctes des catalogues de ventes publiques.6 Le présent corpus doit servir de base à une étude systématique des cercueils qui a déjà commencé.7 Ceci étant posé, les grandes lignes méthodologiques qui ont été les nôtres nécessitent d’être exposées dans le but de permettre au lecteur une utilisation aisée de cet inventaire. Afin de remédier à l’absence fréquente d’indication sur la provenance des collections, le nom du collectionneur et la date d›arrivée des cercueils dans les musées ont été mentionnés. Il est, en effet, notoire que ces données sont primordiales pour déterminer le lieu de découverte des cercueils car, d’une part, les trajets empruntés par les collectionneurs en Égypte et notamment leur(s) lieu(x) de fouilles ont pu être identifiés par les historiens ; d’autre part, les dates d’envoi des cercueils en France confirment ou invalident l’attribution d’un cercueil à une collection particulière, sachant que les égyptologues et les collectionneurs ont été présents en Égypte à des périodes déterminées. Ces informations pouvant nous renseigner sur la provenance des cercueils, nous avons opté pour une présentation par ordre chronologique des dates d’arrivée

Ce travail a été réalisé en collaboration avec France Jamen, docteur en égyptologie de l’Université Lyon 2. Je tiens à lui exprimer toute ma reconnaissance et mes remerciements. Pour sa contribution scientifique et son enthousiasme, cet article est aussi le sien. Merci à Laure Pantalacci pour la lecture critique de cet article. 2 Pour un exemple précis, à propos du voyageur nantais Frédéric Cailliaud (1787-1869), lire SEMAT, 2002; MAINTEROT, 2011. MASPERO, 1914; FAYOLLE, 1958. Les expositions contemporaines consacrées aux collections égyptiennes accordent encore une place particulière aux cercueils des XXIe/XXIIe dynasties. Par exemple, le cercueil de Seramon a été exposé en 2008 au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Besançon (MERIGEAUD, 2008), en 2010 au musée archéologique provincial d’Alicante (MARQ) (BARBOTIN et alii, 2010:144-155), puis, en 2011, à Jublains (LEGROS, PAYRAUDEAU, 2011: 49-54). 3 En l’occurrence, la localisation de la cachette découverte par Alexander Rhind en 1857 dans la nécropole de Cheikh Abd el-Gournah et estimée avoir contenu plus de 80 cercueils est perdue aujourd’hui. Elle se trouvait à ‘environ 300 yards à l’est de la maison dans laquelle vivait (Alexander Rhind)’, cf. BOUVIER, 2009:59; DODSON, 2009: 49; MANLEY, DODSON, 2010: 40; RHIND, 1862: 142. 4 BICKERSTAFFE, 2012: 13-14; MASPERO, 1889b: 515; BRUGSCH, MASPERO, 1881: 3-6. 1

LINTZ, ORGOGOZO, 2007. Nous tenons à remercier Yannick Lintz, conservatrice en chef du patrimoine, et tout particulièrement Marie-José Castor, chargée d’études documentaires, dont l’apport à cet inventaire est de la plus haute importance. 6 ‘La Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot’, revue intitulée ‘La Gazette Drouot’ depuis 2009, reste la principale source concernant les ventes de cercueils égyptiens en France. 7 DEWACHTER, 1985: 27-43. 5

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Fig. 1 - Carte de répartition des collections égyptiennes dans les musées français. En gris, collection égyptienne – En gras souligné, cercueil égyptien des XXIe/XXIIe dynasties – Un étoile indique un cercueil provenant de la seconde cachette de Deir el-Bahari. Les flèches indiquent des dépôts entre musées. des cercueils dans les musées. De plus, un tableau par lieu de conservation et une liste par anthroponyme sont accessibles en ligne : .

Le terme ‘ensemble de cercueils’ désigne un matériel varié : d’un cercueil double avec une couverture de momie9, à un élément unique (un couvercle, une cuve ou une couverture, voire un fragment). Selon Andrzej Niwiński, sur les quarante-trois ensembles des XXIe/XXIIe dynasties recensés en France,10 la plupart (trente-quatre) était conservée dans quatre musées : vingt-trois cercueils au Louvre (52-53, 55-60, 62-71, 74-77: Niw 262, 327336, 338-342, 344-349),11 six au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Grenoble (17-22: Niw 198-203),12 trois au Musée Borély à

Avant de développer les résultats de notre inventaire actualisé des cercueils jaunes, un état de la recherche sur ce sujet a été établi. Dans son inventaire des cercueils jaunes thébains publié en 1988, Andrzej Niwiński a recensé 458 ensembles de cercueils, disséminés dans les musées de vingt-sept pays.8

Aussi appelée ‘planche de momie’. NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 104-106, 111, 134, 139, 141-142, 149, 156, 163-167, 179-180. Les cercueils à fond jaune de la période ramesside (XIXedynastie) ne font pas l’objet de la présente étude. 11 Les numéros en gras renvoient au tableau 1. 12 Renseignements précisés par Hélène Vincent, conservateur en chef, 9

10

NIWIŃSKI, 1988. Dans ses remarques préliminaires, Andrzej Niwiński indique avoir eu connaissance de cercueils de la XXIe dynastie à Rennes (NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 101). Néanmoins, il n’avait pas eu accès à ce matériel, qui s’avère être, en fait, daté de la XXIIe dynastie (RANNOU, 1999).

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Fig. 2 - Document d’envoi du lot nº 1. Liste des cercueils rédigée par Émile Brugsch, en 1893, au Musée de Gizeh (Archives nationales de France, AN F/17/17240). La destination finale des objets a été indiquée au crayon au ministère de l’Instruction Publique, à Paris. Marseille (34, 35: Niw 285-286 et 36, Inv. 5171: Niw 287) et deux au Musée Calvet à Avignon (3: Niw 15;13 4: Niw 16). Le cercueil externe (E 13028), le cercueil interne (E 13030/AF 1666, déposé au Musée de la Castre à Cannes de 1952 à 1999) et la couverture de momie (E 13041, déposée au Musée de l’Empéri à Salon-de-Provence en 1982) d’Imenhetep (63: Niw 329) sont aujourd’hui rassemblés au Louvre.

à Roanne (80, le cercueil de Nesiamon; 81, deux fragments d’une cuve anonyme;17 82, le cercueil d’Aix-les-Bains en dépôt au Musée Déchelette18) (Figure 9D) et celui du Musée Champollion à Figeac (16)19 et en rattachant à ce groupe, le cercueil de Ânkhefenkhonsou (56: Niw 347) et un fragment de cuve (71: Niw 338),20 tous les deux conservés au Louvre.

Par ailleurs, Niwiński mentionne le Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de Besançon (5: Niw 41),14 le Musée des Beaux-Arts de Limoges (27: Niw 243) et le Musée SaintLoup à Troyes (87: Niw 375), qui possédaient dans leur fonds des cercueils provenant de dons et de legs.

Ces inventaires devaient être actualisés à la lumière des découvertes récentes. Ainsi, le cercueil et la momie d’Itneferamon conservés anciennement du Muséum JeanFrançois-Aimé Perrot à Nîmes21 qui avaient été perdus, ont été localisés au Musée d’Aquitaine à Bordeaux (7: Niw 455).22

En 1997, René van Walsem a établi un inventaire plus complet des cercueils de type stola15 (couvercle de Type V dans la typologie de Niwiński), dans son ouvrage consacré au cercueil de Djedmontouiouefankh conservé au Musée de Leyde. Pour la France, il porta de six (un à Avignon, un à Troyes et quatre au Louvre)16 à douze le nombre de cercueils de ce type, en ajoutant ceux du Musée Déchelette

Nous traiterons tout d’abord des cercueils provenant de la cachette de Bab el-Gousous, dans l’ordre où ils apparaissent sur la liste d’envoi (Figure 2), suivis des cercueils des collections publiques puis privées françaises dans l’ordre chronologique de leur arrivée. Les cercueils seront distingués selon leur type (● non stola, ○ non stola probable, ■ stola, □ stola probable).

Musée de Grenoble. Nous devons à Serge Rosmorduc la lecture des noms sur les fragments Inv.1993 et 1988. 13 GOYON, 2011: 58-59. 14 PAYRAUDEAU, 2011: 49-54. 15 Sur les bretelles de momie ou stola, à l’origine un attribut divin, voir WALSEM, 1997: 116-120; 349-350. Des carnets de Jaroslav Ĉerný, conservés au Griffith Institute, renfermant des notes sur des bretelles de momies de la XXIe dynastie sont en cours d’étude par Luigi Prada, cf. PRADA, 2014. 16 WALSEM, 1997: I, 376-385.

GABOLDE, 1990: 156-171, 291-298. Don du Dr Brachet en 1893. RATIE, 1984: 132-133 n° 283. 19 Cercueil, dépôt du musée de Cahors. Documentation envoyée par Stéphanie Lebreton, Chargée des publics et régisseur des collections, Musée Champollion, Figeac. DEWACHTER, 1986: 79, n° 65. 20 DELANGE, 1980: 76, fig. 139. 21 PERROT, 1845; AUFRERE, DAUTANT, 2011: 3-16. 22 DAUTANT et alii, 2011: 233-272; DAUTANT, ZIEGLE, 2011: 3-16. 17 18

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Fig. 3: Numéros des listes A, B et numéros dans le Journal d’Entrée du Musée de Gizeh. Les ensembles figurant sur le document d’envoi du lot n°1 attribués à la France (d’après DARESSY, 1907: 4-14).

boîtes à chaouabtis et de 92 chaouabtis.27 Le ministère de l’Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts a aussitôt réparti le lot nº1 entre Amiens, Boulogne, Clermont-Ferrand, le Louvre et Marseille.28 Lyon et Toulouse n’ont reçu que des statuettes funéraires et des boites à chaouabtis.

2. Inventaire actualisé des cercueils jaunes Les cercueils de la seconde cachette de Deir el-Bahari offerts à la France En 1891, Grébaut, directeur du Service des Antiquités, découvrit à Bab el-Gousous, sur le site de Deir el-Bahari, une tombe collective comportant au moins 153 cercueils, dont 101 doubles et 52 simples.23 Cette tombe dissimulée aux yeux des passants fut appelée ‘la seconde cachette de Deir el-Bahari’. Au fond de cette tombe, Daressy a établi la ‘liste A’ qui inventorie les ensembles de cercueils (Figure 3), tandis que, à l’extérieur de la tombe, Urbain Bouriant et Eugène Grébaut ont dressé la ‘liste B’ enregistrant l’ensemble du matériel contenu dans chaque équipement funéraire.24 Ces cercueils sont arrivés en mai 1891 au Musée de Giza.25 Dès 1893, le gouvernement khédivial distribua une partie de cette trouvaille entre différentes puissances étrangères. La France reçut le lot nº1 qui est décrit sur ‹le document d’envoi des cercueils› (Figure 2) et sur ‹le document d’envoi des statuettes funéraires›. Ces listes ont été rédigées par Emile Brugsch.26 Le lot n°1 est composé de cinq ensembles de cercueils, de trois

● A 141, JE 29626 (60: Niw 349) – A 8, JE 29688 (61, 31: Niw 427). Sur le document d’envoi, il est noté que ‘deux caisses’ sont envoyées au Musée du Louvre. Après acceptation du comité consultatif des musées nationaux,29 ‘les monuments’ réservés au Louvre30 sont enregistrés, le 7 décembre 1893, dans le livre d’entrée aux numéros: ‘E 10636: Deux cercueils en bois peint, à figures, avec couvercle, de la fin de la XXe Dyn.’, ‘E 10637: un cartonnage de momie’31 et ‘E 10637bis:7 grossières figurines funéraires Documents d’envoi conservés aux archives nationales (AN Pierrefittesur-Seine AF17 17240 dossier ‘Service des Antiquités égyptiennes (1890-1935)’ sous dossier ‘Antiquités égyptiennes offertes à la France 1893’). Information de Marie-José Castor du service du récolement des dépôts, Musée du Louvre. Sur les chaouabtis offerts à la France par le gouvernement khédivial en 1893, se reporter à l’article suivant en préparation. DAUTANT et alii, 2014. 28 Le Service du récolement des dépôts antiques et des arts de l’Islam au Musée de Louvre a achevé, en 2013, le récolement des objets de la ‘seconde cachette’ donnés à la France par le gouvernement égyptien en 1893 et il nous a aimablement communiqué ses conclusions. 29 Procès-verbaux du comité consultatif des Musées Nationaux - Séances du 23 novembre 1893 et du 7 décembre 1893 - AMN, 1 BB 30, p. 239240 et 246. 30 AN F/17/17240. Voir également Don du gouvernement khédivial d’une collection d’objets provenant de la découverte dite ‘série des prêtres d’Amon’. - 23 décembre 1893. AMN, AE 8. Je dois la connaissance de ce document à Alain Prévet, responsable des AMN. 31 Le ‘cartonnage’ est en fait une couverture de momie. Renseignement du 14/03/2013 de Patricia Rigault-Déon, Musée du Louvre. 27

23 DARESSY, 1900: 141-148, en particulier, 144; LIPINSKA, 1993-1994; CHASSINAT, 1909; NIWIŃSKI, 1988; NIWIŃSKI, 1996; NIWIŃSKI, 1999. 24 DARESSY, 1907: 3-38. La liste B rédigée par Bouriant a été depuis perdue. 25 Sur l’enregistrement des cercueils dans le Journal d’Entrée du ‘Musée de Gizeh’ voir DARESSY, 1907: 3. 26 Cette identification basée sur la graphologie est le fait de M.A. Escobar Clarós, EAMM Melilla (Espagne).

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Fig. 4: Couvertures de momie: (A) Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, H 2322 (dépôt du Louvre E 10637), couverture de l’ensemble A 8 de Djedkhonsouiouefânkh de la seconde cachette de Deir el-Bahari. (B) Chartres, © Musée des Beaux-arts, 6924. (C) Perpignan, Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, sans n° inv. (D) Le Mans, © Musée de Tessé, 1822-17B. (oushabti) à émail bleu, dont une brisée’. Par la suite, les cercueils ont perdu leur numéro d’entrée. Un numéro AF leur a été attribué par Georges Bénédite et ses successeurs en attendant leur nouvelle identification.

Sur sa tête, l’hiéroglyphe de son nom (une plume) est remplacé par la forme rnp’. Ces motifs sont, en effet, peu courant sur les cercueils de la XXIe dynastie. ‘À l’extérieur du cercueil, Shou est encore représenté, coiffé de la pousse rnp, soutenant le ciel, figuré par une femme dont le corps est couvert d’étoiles. De l’autre côté, scène intéressante d’Isis et Nephthys oignant le corps d’Osiris’. Philippe Virey, inspecteur au Musée de Giza32 en février 1892, a dessiné quinze cercueils provenant de la seconde cachette

Sur le document d’envoi, le cercueil extérieur attribué au Louvre porte le numéro JE 29626 (60) et appartient au ‘divin père d’Ammon’ Djedkhonsouiouefânkh. Sa décoration intérieure y est qualifiée de ‹remarquable›. Il est décrit de la manière suivante: ‘Au fond, à l’intérieur, figure de Shou supportant le ciel, deux grandes ailes, attachées entre ses épaules et sa ceinture, occupant toute la largeur du cercueil.

AN F/17/17240. Dossier 1890-93 Fouilles d’Egypte Grébaut – de Morgan - Succession Grébaut. Fo. 272 32

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity dont deux vignettes du JE 29626.33 Toutes ces informations ont permis de l’identifier formellement comme le cercueil extérieur AF 9593 (Niw 349) d’un homme anonyme ayant usurpé celui d’une chanteuse d’Amon, dont le couvercle ne s’adapte pas à la cuve.34 D’après Daressy, les cercueils JE 29626 et JE 29620 constituaient l’ensemble A 141/B 166 de Djedkhonsouiouefânkh,35 fils de Chedsouhor. Selon Daressy et le document d’envoi du Lot nº 6 conservé à Odessa,36 le cercueil interne JE 29620 aurait été envoyé en Russie.37 Virey a également dessiné une scène de ce cercueil38 qui représente une vignette du chapitre 17 du Livre des Morts où une tête de bovidé sépare deux lions dos à dos.39 Ce cercueil ne se trouve pas en Russie mais dans les caves du Musée Égyptien du Caire.40

A Giza, la couverture de momie et le cercueil interne JE 29620 de l’ensemble A 8 ont été associés au cercueil externe JE 29626 de l’ensemble A 141. Ce mélange a pu se produire en raison de l’anonymat des cercueils ou de l’homonymie des défunts qui portaient tous les deux, le titre de père-divin.47 ● JE 29629 (1: Niw 5) : Le cercueil interne au nom du ‘prêtre-pur d’Amon et scribe du domaine d’Amon’ N(y)-se-(pȝ)-kȝ-fȝj-‘, dit Neskafaâ (Figure 5),48 est arrivé au Musée de Picardie, à Amiens, le 26 octobre 1893, où il fut inscrit sur le registre d’inventaire.49 Daressy a associé par erreur, cet ensemble à l’ensemble A 23 (Figure 3).50

La couverture de momie au nom du père divin d’Amon

Nous disposons aujourd’hui d’éléments précisant les raisons de cette confusion. Tout d’abord, il faut supposer, comme l’a proposé Niwiński, que Daressy n’a pas enregistré ce cercueil dans la liste A qu’il a établie dans la cachette car ce cercueil était contenu dans un cercueil externe anonyme ou portant un autre nom, qui l’aurait dissimulé à sa vue.51 Au dehors les cercueils étaient ouverts pour faciliter leur transport jusqu’au Caire. À l’arrivée au Musée de Giza, ce cercueil a reçu un numéro d’inventaire dans le Journal d’Entrée, le numéro JE 29629. En 1893, ce numéro a été noté sur le document d’envoi.52 Quatorze ans plus tard, pour la publication de la composition du lot n° 1 dans les Annales du Service des Antiquités Egyptiennes,53 Daressy n’ayant pas accès à ce document, a dû chercher dans sa liste A le numéro du cercueil au nom de Neskafaâ. Il a trouvé le cercueil A 23 qui appartient en réalité à un homonyme, portant également le titre de prêtre-pur d’Amon.54 Ainsi, Daressy a commis une erreur d’attribution, bien compréhensible. Finalement, le cercueil JE 29629 non localisé par Niwiński en 198855 est aujourd’hui identifié et se trouve à Amiens. Son numéro dans la liste A de Daressy et donc sa localisation dans la cachette sont inconnus.

Djedkhonsouiouefânkh conservée depuis 1969 au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (31, H 2322, Haut: 1,67 m) a transité au Musée Guimet de Lyon42 où elle avait été déposée en 191243 par le Musée du Louvre (AF 102 ‘couvercle du sarcophage intérieur de Djet-Khonsou-aufankh - Bois peint. Haut: 1.65’).44 Il s’agit de la description du E 10637 (Figure 4A). 41

Sur la liste d’envoi, le nombre ‘88’ ajouté par Emile Brugsch derrière le numéro 29626, doit concerner le cercueil interne. Ce ‘88’ peut désigner soit le numéro en abrégé du Journal d’Entrée du Musée de Giza (JE 296)88, soit les numéros des listes A et B (A 8/B 8) ce qui revient au même, par pure coïncidence.45 Ce cercueil (62) actuellement non localisé doit se trouver dans les réserves du Louvre.46 VIREY, 1892: folio 14. CARATINI, 1968: p. 22; NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 167. Le cercueil (H. 2,06 m) porte une ancienne étiquette avec le chiffre 8. 35 DARESSY, 1907: 13. 36 La liste copiée, traduite et commentée par Oleg Berlev nous a été communiquée par Mykola Tarasenko (Kiev, Ukraine). 37 NIWIŃSKI, 1988 : 142. Pour Daressy, le cercueil JE 29620 aurait été envoyé à Irkutsk. 38 VIREY, 1892: folio 13. 39 TARASENKO: 2009, p. 113, fig. 2.13; TARASENKO, 2007. 40 Identification de Mykola Tarasenko (Institute of Oriental Studies, Kiev) d’après un dessin d’Andrzej Niwiński (Université de Varsovie). 41 JAMEN, 2012a: 580, Corpus n° 360. L’ensemble de Djedkhonsouiouefankh, prêtre de Nekhbet et d’Amon (Louvre Inv. N 2578, N 2582, N 2585, N 2617, N 2618) a été associé par erreur au numéro A 8 (PM I/2: 639), erreur signalée dans ASTON, 2009: 165, n. 908. 42 Renseignement de Geneviève Galliano, conservateur en chef, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. 43 La couverture de momie a été inventoriée au Louvre avant 1912 par Georges Bénédite sous le numéro AF 102. Les 8 et 9 mars 1912, Charles Boreux de la Direction des Musées Nationaux propose à Charles Galbrun le dépôt de ‘20 sarcophages’ pour le nouveau Musée Guimet de Lyon (AMG). Le décret de dépôt et son ampliation sont signés le 17 mai 1912 (AMN Z66 Lyon (M. Guimet)). A la mi-juin, Joseph Hackin du Musée Guimet accuse réception des objets (AMG, n°103). A partir de 1913, la couverture est exposée au Musée (GUIMET, 1913: 35). 44 Information de Jean-Luc Bovot, conservateur au musée du Louvre. 45 En effet, le JE 29688 provient de l’ensemble A 8 et B 8 (DARESSY, 1907: 5 and 18). 46 En absence de décret de dépôt, il est possible qu’il fasse parti des cercueils internes anonymes de provenance inconnue, comme par exemple le cercueil AF 98 ‘sarcophage au nom d’une chanteuse d’Amon. Sur le cou une étiquette portant le nº 8 écrit deux fois, dont une fois à l’encre rouge Long: 2 m – Bois et carton peint’) ou AF 9590 (Niw. 346) (‹cercueil cuve et couvercle à vignettes 21e dyn. Décor en stuc relief Et. 33 34

● A 36, JE 29633 (8: Niw 429):56 Le cercueil interne de la chanteuse d’Amon, grande musicienne du chœur de Mout maîtresse d’Isherou, joueuse de sistre de Mout, 887’). 47 LIEBLEIN, 1892: 993. 48 PN I: 175,19; PERDU, RICKAL, 1994: 26-30, fig. 12-14. 49 ‘Par les bons soins de M. De Morgan’. Jacques de Morgan a passé son enfance à Amiens et a été nommé en 1892 Directeur Général du Service des Antiquités Égyptiennes, succédant à ce poste à E. Grébaut. 50 DARESSY, 1907: 6, 18. 51 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 105. Il existe dans les réserves du Musée du Caire des cercueils, anonymes ou non, sans cercueil interne. 52 AN F/17/17240. Dossier Egypte – Antiquités égyptiennes offertes à la France – 1893. 53 DARESSY, 1907: 18. Chaque cercueil offert à un des dix-sept pays étrangers, y est désigné par son numéro A suivi du nom du propriétaire. 54 DARESSY, 1900: 141-148. Le véritable ensemble A 23 (Niw 87, cercueils externe, interne et couverture de momie) se trouve actuellement au Musée Égyptien du Caire (JE 29624, CG 6111-6112-6096-6097). 55 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 202. 56 Renseignements de Gaëlle Etesse et Florence Fourcroy, Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer. Patricia Rigault (Louvre) a rectifié une erreur d’identification (PM I/2: 639) relayée par David Aston (ASTON, 2009: 169, TG 709), qui a attribué de manière erronée le numéro E 10637 au cercueil de Nedjemmout.

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Fig. 5 - Ensemble Bab el-Gousous JE 29629 du prêtre pur d’Amon et scribe du domaine d’Amon Neskafaâ. Amiens, Musée de Picardie, 1893.763.1. Le défunt Neskafaâ, ḥs(y) sȝ n ḥs(y)w, sš n pr Jmn, est en adoration (A) de Ptah-Sokar et (B) de Rê-Horakhty. (C) Sur le fond de la cuve, le registre inférieur est subdivisé en trois tableaux. (D et E) Son titre w‘b n Jmn inscrit sur le bord du couvercle. 155

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Fig. 6 - Ensemble Bab el-Gousous A 36 de la chanteuse d’Amon, Nedjemmout. Boulogne-sur-Mer, Musée-Château. (A) Titres de Nedjemmout sur la cuve. (B) Inscriptions sur le pied du couvercle. (C) Vue latérale du chevet. 27 ‘du prêtre écrivain ‘….khonsou’’.61 Marseille accuse réception le 24 novembre 1893, d’antiquités égyptiennes provenant du la découverte dite ‘Série des prêtres d’Amon’.62 Il s’agit plus précisément de: ‘Un cercueil à vernis jaune entièrement couvert de scènes et de légendes (N° du Catalogue Egyptien, 1171); Un cercueil du prêtre écrivain ‘Khonsou-Merkérou’ (N° 1172); Une série de 14 statuettes funéraires (N 1173 à 1186).63 Les deux cercueils ont gravement souffert du transport’. Cependant, Lieblein et Daressy64 indiquent que le propriétaire de A 25 serait le prêtre-pur et scribe du domaine d’Amon Bakenkhonsou

Nedjemmout, a été déposé au Musée-Château de Boulogne-sur-Mer en 1893 (Figure 6).57 ● A 89, JE 29674 (15: Niw 159): Le cercueil d’une chanteuse d’Amon sur lequel l’emplacement prévu pour le nom est resté vierge et la couverture de momie ont été envoyés au Musée Bargoin de Clermont-Ferrand, en 1893, par ordre du ministre de l’Intérieur (Figure 7).58 ● A 25 (36: Niw 428): Cet ensemble de cercueils n’a pas été enregistré sur le Journal d’Entrée du Musée de Gizeh, même si la momie a été débandelettée.59 La momie était réduite à l’état de squelette et deux bâtons (22 cm de long) liés en croix avaient été disposés à l’intérieur de son corps pour maintenir l’écartement des côtes.60 Les notes du document d’envoi sont claires. Marseille a reçu ‘2 caisses’, composant l’ensemble (liste A) 25/(liste B)

ou

.

Le cercueil externe (36, Inv.5171: Niw 287) exposé vers 1900 au Musée Borély,65 est depuis 1989 présenté au Musée AN F/17/17240. Liste d’envoi des cercueils. AN F/17/17240. Lettre du 24 novembre 1893 de l’adjoint délégué aux Beaux-arts à la mairie de Marseille adressée au ministre de l’Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts. 63 Ces numéros sont ceux du registre d’entrée du Musée Borély. En 1889, soit quatre ans auparavant, Gaston Maspéro a publié un catalogue du Musée Égyptien de Marseille dans lequel les numéros d’inventaire commencent à partir de 1 pour s’achever à 1170 (MASPERO, 1889a). 64 LIEBLEIN, 1892: 994; DARESSY, 1907: 6. Par erreur, (ASTON, 2009: 167, TG 698) a attribué les numéros E 10636a et 10636b aux cercueils de Bakenkhonsou en se référant à PM I/2: 636; JAMEN, 2012a: 179, Corpus n 105. 65 Photographie stéréoscopique prise vers 1900 par PARA, Henri – ‘Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) - Une salle du Musée au Château Borély où sont présentés des sarcophages et des stèles (antiquités égyptiennes)’. 61 62

AN F/17/17240; SEILLIER, YOYOTTE, 1981: 18-21, fig. 115A. Un petit carré de papier fixé sur la toile qui l’enveloppait, portait le nº 29674. Renseignement de Chantal Lamesch, conservateur, chargé des collections archéologiques, Musée Bargoin, Clermont-Ferrand et J.M. Sablon, Villeneuve-sur-Allier. Une vignette a été dessinée par Virey (VIREY, 1892: folio 13). 59 Pour une étude sur les momies découvertes dans la seconde cachette voir: DARESSY, 1902: 150-155 et DARESSY, 1907: 21-38. Pour une analyse plus récente de la momie de Seramon, conservée au Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de Besançon, lire: MÉRIGEAUD, 2008: 72-80. 60 DARESSY, 1907: 23. 57 58

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Fig. 7 - Ensemble Bab el-Gousous A 89 d’une chanteuse d’Amon. Clermont-Ferrand, © Musée Bargoin. (A) couverture de momie, 3128; (B) couvercle, 3127; (C et D) cuve, 3126. 157

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Fig. 8 - Ensemble Bab el-Gousous A 25 de Bakenkhonsou. Marseille, Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne. (A) Inscription hiératique sur le pied du cercueil externe (Inv. 5171 - Centre de la Vieille Charité). (B) Inscription hiéroglyphique sur le pied du cercueil interne de Bakenkhonsou (Inv. 5195, Conservatoire du Patrimoine des Musées). d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne. Ce cercueil est anonyme mais une inscription en hiératique ‘Djediouefânkh […]’ a été écrite sur le pied du couvercle (Figure 8A).66 Le personnage cité dans ce graffiti est distinct de celui du propriétaire de A 25. Plusieurs cercueils conservent la marque de leur transfert dans les cachettes à l’abri des regards, organisé par un membre de l’Institution de la Tombe sous la XXIIe dynastie.67 Djediouefânkh pourrait être le nom d’un professionnel de la Tombe.

Les cercueils dans les musées publics en France

Le cercueil interne (36, Inv. 5195) autrefois conservé dans les réserves du Château Borély est aujourd’hui à la Conservation du Patrimoine des Musées de Marseille.68 La couche de plâtre au pied du couvercle sur laquelle était écrit le nom du défunt a été détruite probablement avant son arrivée à Marseille. Le titre prêtre-pur et scribe qui a survécu, est peint en noir, signe d’une usurpation (Figure 8B).

● Edouard de Montulé a rapporté de son voyage en Égypte en 1818 et 1819, le cercueil (25) et la momie de la chanteuse d’Amon Tameremout,70 et une couverture de momie (26) (Figure 4D) qu’il a donnés au muséum du Mans en 1822. La momie contenue dans une double cuve dont la décoration était bien conservée, lui a été offerte par Bernardino Drovetti. Il en a pris possession à Gourneh en décembre 1818.71

● En 1817, le Comte de Moncabrié rapporta d’Alexandrie l’ensemble de Nebhep qu’il donna au Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle comme indiqué en 1825.69 La couverture de momie (67, Niw 333) et la cuve du cercueil (cuve d’une chanteuse d’Amon: 67: Niw 332 = Niw 457) sont au Louvre. Le couvercle anonyme de type stola est à Lyon (66 = 32, H 2325). La momie non identifiée a pu être inhumée.

Finalement, les cercueils 5171 (Niw 287) et 5195 de Marseille ne font qu’un et correspondent à l’ensemble A 25 de Bakenkhonsou (Niw 428) provenant de Bab elGousous.

● En 1819, Frédéric Cailliaud a offert au Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Nantes le cercueil de la chanteuse d’Amon-Rê, Ankhoririou, maintenant conservé au Musée Dobrée à Nantes (43).72 La momie d’Ankhoririou a été vraisemblablement inhumée dans le cimetière du Pontdu-Cens à Nantes en 1956.73

Archives Municipales de Marseille, 33Fi1545. 66 Sur ce cercueil anonyme (NELSON, PIERINI, 1978), Andrzej Niwiński a découvert, lors d’une visite au Centre de la Vieille Charité en 1996, une inscription hiératique qui a été transcrite par Alessandro Roccati. 67 C’est notamment le cas du cercueil de Ramsès II dans la première cachette (Caire CG 61020). Le graffiti correspondant a été publié dans MASPERO, 1889b: 557-558, pl. XI; JANSEN-WINKELN, 2007: 116, n° 15. Un graffiti semblable est présent sur un cercueil de la seconde cachette conservé au Musée de Leyden (Renseignement de Christian Gréco). 68 Renseignement de Gisèle Piérini, conservateur, Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne de Marseille.

GUIGNIAUT, 1825; CREUZER, GUIGNIAUT, 1841: fasc. 1, 66-75 et fasc. 2, pl. XLV, nº 182, a-d; SCHMIDT, 1919: fig. 674-678. 70 LAVERSANNE, 2005: 6; SANTROT, 2008: 87-105, fig. 7. Renseignement de Françoise Froger-Jolivet, conservateur du Musée de Tessé, Le Mans. 71 DE MONTULE, 1822: 232. 72 MAINTEROT, 2011: 288-289, Ill. 83. 73 Le 19 novembre 1951, la momie d’Itneferamon a été inhumée au cimetière de la Chartreuse à Bordeaux. Cf. DAUTANT, ZIEGLE, 2011: 8. 69

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Alain Dautant: Cercueils jaunes des XXIe et XXIIe dynasties dans les collections Françaises ● En 1821, Dassy mentionne dans son inventaire de l’Académie des Sciences, Lettres et Arts de Marseille, une couverture de momie (33).74 Une note manuscrite de 1925 révèle le nom de la défunte. Il s’agit de Tayouheret,75 dont le cercueil interne se trouve à Berlin (Niw 22, Inv. 28), et le Livre des morts est à Leyde.76 Précisons que cette dame est la fille du chef des archivistes, directeur du château de l’or, des travaux et du Trésor d’Amon, Khonsoumes,77 et de la maîtresse de maison et chanteuse d’Amon-Rê, Tentamon. Tous deux ont vécu au début de la XXIe dynastie, selon le style de leur équipement funéraire et d’après le contenu de la titulature de Khonsoumes. Pour Khonsoumes, le cercueil interne est conservé au Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne (Centre de la Vieille Charité à Marseille) (34: Niw 286),78 la paroi gauche de la cuve du cercueil externe se trouve au Musée Languedocien de la Société Archéologique de Montpellier (39)79 et la couverture de momie figure au Musée Départemental Thomas-Dobrée à Nantes (42).80 Pour Tentamon, le cercueil interne est au Louvre (76, N 2562: Niw 339) et la couverture de momie au Musée d’Archéologie Méditerranéenne (35: Niw 285). Enfin le cercueil extérieur de Tentamon a été donné par le comte de Pourtalès, en 1825, au Musée de Berlin (Niw 21, Inv. 8)81 avec le cercueil intérieur de Tayouheret et une momie qui pourrait être, selon Erman, celle de Tentamon ou de Tayouheret.82

○ En 1845, Monsieur de Caldeven (ou de Cadalvène) fait don au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne85 des parois latérales de la cuve du cercueil de la maîtresse de maison et chanteuse d’Amon, Nesykhonsou (10).86 ■ En 1847, S.A. Ibrahim Pacha donna au Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Perpignan la momie, le cercueil (de type stola) et la couverture de momie (usurpée) d’Iouefenkhonsou (78), en souvenir de l’accueil reçu en France (Figure 4C).87 ■ L’ensemble de Padikhonsou, prêtre pur, prêtre lecteur et embaumeur du domaine d’Amon, actuellement au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon88 (30) est signalé dès 1855 dans les collections municipales.89 ● La ville de Montargis (Loiret) possède deux cercueils.90 Le premier cercueil qui contenait la momie d’une chanteuse d’Amon (37),91 est conservé au Musée Girodet. Cet ensemble aurait été acheté en 188592 mais pourrait être une acquisition plus ancienne car, selon de Langalerie, en 1859, ‘…une momie d’Égypte, dans son vêtement de bandelettes et dans sa boîte, s’y voit à côté de divers sujets modelés, dans une salle du rez-de-chaussée’.93 □ En 1861, la ville de Bordeaux reçoit en legs la collection du Dr. Godard. Parmi 800 objets, un fragment de cuve de cercueil anonyme est à signaler (6) (Figure 10A).94

● En 1826, Frédéric Cailliaud a offert à la Société Académique de Nantes le cercueil de la chanteuse d’Amon-Rê, Ioueshetmout. En 2011, seul le couvercle est conservé (44).83

■ En 1869, le baron de Chassiron donne à la ville de La Rochelle deux couvercles de cercueil de la XXIe dynastie (n°10) qu’il aurait rapportés d’Égypte en 1860. Actuellement, un seul couvercle du type stola, celui du cercueil de Djedmout, nourrice de Khonsou l’enfant, est conservé au Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de La Rochelle (24) (Figure 9C).95

● En 1844, la cuve d’un cercueil jaune et la momie dite de ‘Bachô’ (86) provenant de la collection du Comte de Castellane est décrit pour la première fois, de façon très détaillée, par Alexandre Du Mège dans un catalogue manuscrit du Musée des Augustins de Toulouse.84

● En 1885, le Musée Archéologique breton de Quimper enregistre la partie inférieure d’une couverture de momie (hauteur 60 cm) (79) (Figure 10E).96 ■ Vers 1900, le cercueil de la maîtresse de maison et chanteuse d’Amon-Rê Nesykhonsou, Djedmoutiouefânkh, appartenant à Renaud Icard (écrivain et sculpteur lyonnais), est donné à la ville de Bourg-lès-

DASSY, 1882, 20-21. LAGIER, 1925. L’étude de cette couverture de momie est en cours par Jocelyne Berlandini-Keller. 76 HEERMA VAN VOSS, 1971: 6-10. 77 Une partie seulement de la titulature de ce haut fonctionnaire du domaine d’Amon est citée dans cet article. Pour une collation de l’ensemble des titres connus pour ce personnage, voir JAMEN, 2012a: 493, corpus n° 306. 78 Acquisitions - Acquisition de la collection d’antiquités égyptiennes du docteur Clot-Bey, 1861. 58R5 Archives Municipales de Marseille. Clot Bey résida en Egypte de 1825 à 1849. 79 DEGUARA, 2009: 24-25; JAMEN, 2012a: 493, corpus n° 306. Jean-Baptiste Germain PIRON, payeur général de la division Desaix, a servi d’intermédiaire lors de l’achat en 1856 à Raynaud, antiquaire à Aix-en-Provence. Renseignement de Stéphanie Conédéra, assistante de conservation au Musée Languedocien de Montpellier. La face interne du cercueil est peinte uniformément en rouge violacé. 80 DE MEULENAERE, 1978: 227-228; ANDREU, 2000: 28, fig. 8; JAMEN, 2012a: 493, Corpus n° 306. Renseignements de Muriel Rouaud, assistante de conservation, et Nicole Lemoine, responsable du centre de documentation (Musée Dobrée). 81 ERMAN, 1899: 173-174; ROEDER, 1924: 411-423. 82 ERMAN, 1899: 237 nº40; ROEDER, 1924: 423-443. 83 MAINTEROT, 2011: 289-291, Ill. 85. 84 DU MEGE, 1844: 66-69 ; DU MEGE, 1849: 150-155. 74 75

N° 27 de l’inventaire déposé aux Archives départementales de l’Aude R 5/1 1845. 86 DEWACHTER, 1998: 113, nº79. 87 GUILHOU, PERRAUD, 2010. 88 JAMEN, 2012a: nº143; JAMEN, 2012b; JAMEN 2014a; JAMEN 2014b. 89 COMARMOND, 1855-1857: 630, n°31. 90 Renseignement de Pascale Gardès, conservateur du Musée de Montargis. 91 ANDREU, BAISSAIT, 1998: 90-91, n°109. 92 GIGUET, 1885: 41, n°321. 93 DE LANGALERIE, 1862: 15. 94 DAUTANT, 2012. 95 DAUTANT, AMENTA, 2014. Renseignement de Michèle Dunand, directrice du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, La Rochelle, et Annick Notter, conservateur du Musée d’Orbigny, La Rochelle. 96 SERRET, 1885: 80. Renseignement de Catherine Troprês, documentaliste au Musée Breton de Quimper. 85

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Fig. 9 - Cercueils de type stola: (A) Cercueil de Djedhoriouefankh (Mougins, © Musée d’Art Classique, MMoCA.610). (B) Cercueil ‘Arrhenius’ (Mougins, © Musée d’Art Classique, MMoCA.489). (C) Cercueil de Djedmout (La Rochelle, Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, H.3.594). (D) (Roanne, Musée Déchelette, D991.19.20 ; dépôt du Musée d’Aix-les-Bains). (E) (Roanne, Musée Déchelette, D991.20.1 ; dépôt de Bourg-lès-Valence). Valence (Drôme). Ce couvercle de type stola est en dépôt au Musée Déchelette à Roanne (84) (Figure 9E).97

● En 1906, le marquis de Rochemonteix a offert le couvercle et la cuve du cercueil d’une chanteuse du domaine d’Amon au Musée de l’Hospice Saint-Roch à Issoudun (23).100

● En 1904, le gouvernement français reçoit le cercueil du prêtre-pur d’Amon-Rê, roi des dieux et maître de la marche dans tous ses lieux, Kamenychery via le premier Doyen de la Faculté Mixte de Médecine ou de Pharmacie, Louis-Charles Lortet, en remerciement de ses services.98 La cuve de ce cercueil est conservée au Musée d’Anatomie à Lyon (38) tandis que le couvercle aurait été égaré.

■ En 1907, le couvercle d’un cercueil anonyme de femme a été transféré du Cabinet des Médailles (CM 30) au Musée du Louvre (E 13045)101 et mis en dépôt au Musée Guimet de Lyon en 1912. Il est aujourd’hui conservé au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (32, H 2325).102 □ En 1908, Marie de Girardot a donné un fragment de cuve de cercueil daté de la Troisième Période Intermédiaire, provenant des collections Frédéric Cailliaud, au Musée du Berry, à Bourges (9) (Figure 10B).103

● En 1905, le Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chartres reçoit en don de madame de Cossé, demeurant au château de Blainville (Saint Luperce, Eure-et-Loir), une couverture (13) ayant appartenu à une maîtresse de maison et chanteuse d’Amon-Rê, roi des dieux (Figure 4B). Ce musée possède également un fragment de couverture de la maîtresse de maison Djedmout chanteuse d’Amon (14) (Figure 10C).99

Chartres. 100 Cercueil provenant peut-être de Gebelein, cf. DEWACHTER, 1989: 131-132 et NOC, 2014. Renseignement de Patrice Moreau, conservateur du Musée d’Issoudun. 101 AMN, Z66 Lyon (M. Guimet). 102 Il faisait parti des ‘20 sarcophages’ évoqués dans la note n°33 cidessus. 103 DEWACHTER, 1988: 12,15. Renseignement de Patrick Auger, chargé des collections au Musée du Berry.

GOURLAY, 1980. PONTIER, 1995: 117. Selon Jean-Christophe Neidhardt (4 mai 2013), conservateur du Musée Testut-Latarjet de médecine et d’anatomie de Lyon, la provenance et la date d’arrivée en France du cercueil de Kamenychery restent à préciser. 99 Renseignement de Philippe Bihouée, Musée des Beaux-Arts de 97 98

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Fig. 10: Fragments de cercueils. (A) Bordeaux, © Musée d’Aquitaine, Mesuret 8595. (B) Bourges, © Musée du Berry, 1908.33.26. (C) Chartres, © Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1989.240.1. (D) Paris, Drouot, Lot n°150 - vente du 17/01/2009 © Pierre Bergé. (E) Quimper, © Musée Archéologique Breton, 9. (F) Paris, Drouot, Lot n°26 - vente du 01/12/2011 © Pierre Bergé. (G) Paris, Drouot, Lot n°198 - vente du 29/10/2008 © Tajan. 161

Body, Cosmos and Eternity ■ Le cercueil extérieur (76, N 2594/AF 699) de la chanteuse d’Amon-Rê Tanetchedmout a été déposé par le Louvre au Musée de l’Institut d’Art de l’Université de Lille, en 1912. Sa disparition constatée en 1998 semble remonter vraisemblablement aux alentours de la période de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale.104 Le cercueil intérieur à couvercle du type stola (76) a été récemment restauré.105

○ Un fragment de cuve (48) a été vendu à Drouot le 21 mai 1990.113 ● Le couvercle et le côté droit de la cuve d’un cercueil anonyme interne de la collection de Vincent Imberti, marchand de peintures et d’estampes au début du xxe siècle à Bordeaux, ont été vendus à l’hôtel des ventes de Lyon-Brotteaux, en 2000 (85).114 La surface externe de la cuve est couverte de représentations de l’Amdouat. Il se trouve aujourd’hui au Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia de São Paulo (Brésil).115

○ En 1927, un visage de cercueil de la collection d’Albert Maignan est légué au Musée d’Amiens (2).106 ○ En 1939, Madame Terrier a donné au Musée VivantDenon à Chalon-sur-Saône un fragment de cuve en bois recouvert de bitume (11) et la partie supérieure de la cuve d’un cercueil (12).107 Ces deux fragments de dimensions modestes (15 x 39 cm environ) sont anonymes.

● Un cercueil et une couverture de momie provenant de la prestigieuse collection de Gustave Posno, joaillier établi au Caire durant la deuxième moitié du xixe siècle, ont été vendus en 2004.116 Cet ensemble a été conservé jusqu’en 2004 par sa descendance. Il est à ce jour la propriété de la galerie Safani de New-York (46).117

● En 1955, Antoine Menier a offert à la ville d’Aix-lesBains le cercueil de la maîtresse de maison et chanteuse d’Amon Taâa (sans numéro Inv.),108 acheté chez Ascher (Paris). Ce cercueil est aujourd’hui conservé au Musée Déchelette de Roanne (83).

● Un curieux couvercle de cercueil a été mis en vente à Drouot, par Tajan, le 8 février 2008.118 Le chevet de la cuve du cercueil a été assemblé à la partie supérieure du couvercle externe de Khonsoumes et à un petit fragment du couvercle (45). Ces éléments pourraient se lier au fragment du cercueil de Khonsoumes conservé au Musée de Montpellier (39).

■ Le second cercueil de Montargis (Loiret) provient de l’ancienne collection Adanson et a été donné en 1987 par monsieur et madame Dupré. Le couvercle de type stola (38),109 sur lequel figurent trois cartouches d’Amenhotep Ier, est exposé au Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Gâtinais.

○ Trois fragments non jointifs d’une cuve de cercueil ont été vendus à Drouot, par Tajan, le 29 octobre 2008 (49) (Figure 10G).119

● En 1991, le Louvre a reçu une donation de JeanMarc Nantillet contenant le cercueil de Bakenmout, fils d’Imenhetep (72)110 et un fragment de couvercle extrêmement détérioré (73).111

○ Des fragments de cuve ont été vendus à Drouot, deux en 2009 (50)120 et deux en 2011 (52).121 ■ Le Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins, musée privé fondé par Christian Levett et inauguré en 2011, présente deux cercueils de type stola achetés sur le marché de

Les cercueils dans les collections privées en France Sans prétendre être exhaustif, voici une liste de quelques cercueils qui ont été vendus sur le marché de l’art en France. Le peu de documentation disponible et l’impossibilité d’accéder aux cercueils rendent impossible de préciser le titre des individus.

113 Lot nº80 vendu 50.000 F le 21 mai 1990 à Drouot par le ministère de Me Yves de Cagny (expert: Chakib Slitine). Cf. La Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, n° 19, 1190: 33; Paris-Auction. Drouot Richelieu par le ministère de Me Yves de Cagny commissaire-priseur vente aux enchères publiques lundi 21 mai 1990 à 14h15 salle 12. Archéologie. Egypte, Grèce, Rome, Gaule, Phénicie. (1990) Paris. 114 Vendu à Lyon par Jean-Claude Anaf, cf. La Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, n° 21, 2000: 141. 115 Renseignement de Cássio de Araújo Duarte. ARAÚJO DUARTE, 2014. 116 Lot n° 245 vendu le 28 septembre 2004 à Drouot par Piasa. Cf. ‘Piasa, Paris; Ventes aux enchères – expertises; Archéologie, Drouot-Richelieu Mardi 28 et mercredi 29 septembre 2004’; La Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, n° 32, 2004: 32-34. 117 Renseignement de Luciano de Marsillac, directeur de Safani Gallery Inc, New-York. 118 Lot n° 174 vendu 25.000 € à Drouot par Tajan ‘Paris Vendredi 8 février 2008 – Hôtel Drouot’: 25. cf. La Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, n° 17, 2008: 145. La Royal-Athena Galleries de New-York l’a revendu en 2009 à un collectionneur privé New-Yorkais. Nous remercions l’expert, Antoine Tarentino, qui a permis de trouver sa localisation actuelle. 119 Lot n° 198 vendu à Drouot par Tajan, ‘Paris – Mercredi 29 octobre 2008 – Hôtel Drouot’: 42. 120 Lot n° 150 vendu à Drouot. cf. catalogue de vente ‘GODEAU, Antoine; CHAMBRE, Frédéric, Pierre Bergé & Associés – Paris – Archéologie – samedi 17 janvier 2009’, p. 62. 121 Lot n° 26 de la collection de madame M. constituée dans les années 1960-1970 vendu 2.800 € à Drouot. Cf. catalogue ‘GODEAU, Antoine; CHAMBRE, Frédéric, Pierre Bergé & Associés - Paris – Archéologie – jeudi 1er décembre 2011›, p. 17 ; La Gazette Drouot, n° 41, 2011: 51, 67.

● La couverture de momie de la maîtresse de maison et chanteuse d’Amon Shebty (47: Niw 458) a été vendue à Drouot en 1982.112

Renseignement d’Hélène Guichard, conservatrice en chef du Musée du Louvre et confirmé par Fleur Morfoisse-Guénault, conservateur des Antiquités et des Arts décoratifs au Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille. Le dessus de sarcophage AF 700 a également disparu dans les mêmes conditions. 105 HIBERNIE, 2012: 6-7. Sur la restauration du cercueil N 2612, voir la communication d’Hélène Guichard dans AMENTA, GRECO, GUICHARD, coords. (forthcoming). 106 PERDU, RICKAL, 1994: 32, fig. 16. 107 ARMAND-CALLIAT, 1950, nº862; HARLE, 1985: 20, fig. 28 et 29 et couv. CAUDERLIER et alii, 1988: 234-235. 108 RATIE, 1984: 134, nº284. 109 ZIEGLER, 1979: 254. 110 DE CENIVAL, 1992: 90. 111 DE CENIVAL, 1992: 90. 112 Lot nº100 vendu le 21 avril 1982 au Nouveau Drouot par Me Pechon, Delavenne et Lafarge, cf. La Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, n° 15, 1982: 13. 104

162

Alain Dautant: Cercueils jaunes des XXIe et XXIIe dynasties dans les collections Françaises l’art.122 Le cercueil interne de type stola (40) (Figure 9A) a été acquis entre 1925 et 1928 par le chimiste Olof Wilhelm Arrhenius (Stockholm, Suède), puis exposé à l’Institut Égyptologique de l’Université Ruprecht Karls (Heidelberg, Allemagne) de 1981 à 1984.123 De 1984 à 2001, ce cercueil a fait partie des collections du San Antonio Museum of Art (Texas, USA). Il a par la suite été vendu par Ward & Company Works of Art LLC and Safani Gallery Inc. (New York, USA). Quant au couvercle du cercueil externe de Djedhoriouefânkh (41) (Figure 9B), il fut exposé au Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art à Kansas City (MO, USA), à partir de 1936.

Ce recensement entrepris dans les musées français s’est avéré fructueux. De nouveaux inventaires nationaux sont nécessaires afin de (re)découvrir de nouveaux cercueils des XXIe/XXIIe dynasties, dispersés dans le monde. Un travail identique à celui-ci est en cours en Grande-Bretagne, en Suisse, en Russie et au Portugal.125 Bibliographie ANDREU, Guillemette (2000) – La collection égyptienne du Musée Dobrée (Nantes). Bulletin de la Société Française d´Égyptologie 148, p. 18-30. ANDREU, Guillemette; BAISSAIT, Bernard, coords. (1998) – Egyptologie: Le rêve et la science. Exposition Paris, espace Electra, 22 janv.- 26 avr. 1998. Paris: Fondation Electricité de France. ARAÚJO DUARTE, Cássio (2014) – The Amduat on the 21st Dynasty coffins. In AMENTA, Alessia; GRECO, Christian; GUICHARD, Hélène, coords. - Proceedings of the First Vatican Coffin Conference. Forthcoming. ARMAND-CALLIAT, Louis (1950) – Catalogue des collections archéologiques, menus objets divers des collections orientales et de la Salle Niepce. Chalonsur-Saône: R. Simonin. ASTON, David A. (2009) – Burial assemblages of Dynasty 21-25: Chronology – Typology-Developments. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Contributions to the chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean nº21. Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie nº56. AUFRERE, Sydney H.; DAUTANT, Alain (2011) – Jean– François-Aimé Perrot (1790-1867) Soldat de l’Empire, montreur de momies et égyptologue franc-tireur. Égypte 62, p. 3-16. BARBOTIN, Christophe; DUNAND, Françoise; GASSE, Annie et alii. (2010) – El enigma de la momia. El rito funerario en el antiguo Egipto. [Exposición, Alicante], MARQ-Museo Arqueológico de Alicante, [26 marzo 2010 - 17 octubre 2010]. Alicante: MARQ; Museo Arqueológico de Alicante. BICKERSTAFFE, Dylan (2010) – The history of the discovery of the Cache. In GRAEFE, Erhart; BELOVA, Galina, éd. – The Royal Cache TT 320 - a ReExamination. Caire: Supreme Council of Antiquities, p. 13-36. BOUVIER, Guillaume (2009) – Les princesses de Gourna. In GÖRG, Manfred; WIMMER, Stefan, éds. – Texte – Theben – Tonfragmente. Festschrift für Günter Burkard. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, ÄAT 76. BRUGSCH, Émile; MASPERO, Gaston (1881) – La trouvaille de Deir el-Bahari. Le Caire: F. Mourès et Cie.

3. Conclusions En définitive, cet inventaire des cercueils jaunes des XXIe/XXIIe dynasties dans les collections françaises a permis d’ajouter au précédent inventaire plus de quarante cercueils ou fragments de cercueils. Il souligne la dispersion actuelle des ensembles de ces cercueils dans les musées français et révèle, de surcroît, la nécessité de poursuivre cette investigation, pour des cas demeurant obscurs. Par exemple, le cercueil interne Louvre E 10636 n’a pas pu être identifié dans la présente étude. Ainsi, si cet article participe bien à l’actualisation des corpus publiés par Niwiński et Van Walsem, des difficultés subsistent. En particulier, la question primordiale de la provenance de la majorité des cercueils jaunes n’est pas résolue. Les cinq cercueils provenant de la seconde cachette de Deir el-Bahari et appartenant au Lot n° 1 font figure d’exception. En l’absence d’indication suffisante, les lieux de découverte de la plupart des cercueils jaunes conservés dans les musées français sont difficilement restituables. Ainsi, la collection du Louvre a été constituée en partie par Cailliaud et Montcabrié avant 1825, celle de Grenoble est le fait de Bois Aymé et de Saint Ferriol avant 1842 et celle de Marseille de Clot-Bey avant 1861. La connaissance des lieux et des dates de leur passage en Égypte s’avère utile pour déterminer l’origine du matériel archéologique. En dépit de cette difficulté, une origine thébaine est probable pour la très grande majorité d’entre eux.124 122 CLAYTON, 2011: 33-54, fig. 12-13. Documentation communiquée par Leisa Paoli, directrice adjointe, Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins. 123 WALSEM, 1997: I, 384, n° 128; Sotheby’s Antiquities 9-10 July 1984, n° 189. 124 Sur les cercueils jaunes thébains: NIWIŃSKI, 1988, passim; TAYLOR, 1989: 40-46, WALSEM, 1997, passim. Si la plupart des cercueils jaunes dont la provenance est connue ont été découverts à Thèbes et que les noms des propriétaires de ces cercueils confirment généralement leur origine thébaine, quelques cercueils de ce type ont également été découverts en dehors de Thèbes: à Abydos, à Amarna, à Elkab, à Esna, à Gebelein probablement et à Kom Ombo, voir DEWACHTER, 1989: 131-132; NIWIŃSKI, 1984, 444; NOC, 2013; TAYLOR 2009: 376-377. Selon J. Taylor, ces cercueils provinciaux de Haute Égypte, certes peu nombreux, montrent clairement que le style thébain a été adopté dans les cimetières au sud de Thèbes. Au nord de cette ville, des cercueils d’un même style sont dits provenir d’Akhmim. S’ils présentent bien de petites variations régionales, ils suivent essentiellement le modèle thébain, cf. TAYLOR 2009: 376. En l’état actuel de nos connaissances, aucun atelier de fabrication de cercueils de cette époque n’ayant été retrouvé et en l’absence de suffisamment d’exemples de cercueils découverts et/ ou produits dans des villes provinciales de Haute Égypte, sous la XXIe dynastie, il ne nous paraît pas possible, en effet, de définir un ‘style provincial’ en dehors de celui dit d’Akhmim, si tant est qu’il en ait existé un ou plusieurs. Sur la remise en cause de l’origine thébaine de certains

cercueils jaunes de la XXIe dynastie, voir NIWIŃSKI, 2014. 125 Aidan Dodson réalise l’inventaire des cercueils des collections provinciales de Grande-Bretagne. Les informations sont progressivement mises en ligne: [Les cercueils des musées d’Exeter, de Plymouth et de Truro étaient accessibles le 07/04/2013]. De plus, des projets similaires sont en cours en Suisse , au Portugal sous l’initiative de Rogério de Sousa (SOUSA, 2010) et de Luís Manuel de Araújo et en Russie .

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity d’Archéologie de Marseille. BOULARD-COLLIN, Simone, dir. Marseille: Imprimerie Municipale. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1984) – Sarg NR-SpZt. ‘LÄ’ V, 434468. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1988) - Twenty-first Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies. Mainz am Rhein: Phillip von Zabern NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1996) – La seconde trouvaille de Deir el-Bahari – Sarcophages (Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 60296068). Cairo: Conseil Suprême des Antiquités de l’Égypte; Institut d’Archéologie Mediterranéenne au Caire; Centre Polonais d’Archéologie Mediterranéenne au Caire. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1999) – The Second Find of Deir el-Bahari – Coffins (Catalogue general of Egyptian Antiquities of the Cairo Museum, Nos 6069-6082). Caire: Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (2014) – The 21st Dynasty coffins of non-Theban origin. A ‘family’ for the Vatican coffin of Anet. In AMENTA, Alessia; GRECO, Christian; GUICHARD, Hélène, coords. - Proceedings of the First Vatican Coffin Conference. Forthcoming. NOC, Eloïse (2014) – Le sarcophage du Musée de l’Hospice Saint Roch à Issoudun (nº inv. 11.55). ENiM 7, p. 13-32. PAYRAUDEAU, Frédéric (2011) – Les cercueils de Séramon. In LEGROS, Agathe, PAYRAUDEAU, Frédéric, dir. (2011) – Secrets de momies, pratiques funéraires et visions de l’Au-delà en Égypte ancienne: [Catalogue de l’exposition du Musée Archéologique Départemental de Jublains, 8 juillet - 13 décembre 2011], Paris: Errance, p. 49-54. PERDU, Olivier; RICKAL, Elsa; Mahéo, Noël, coords. (1994) – La collection égyptienne du Musée de Picardie. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux. PERROT, Jean-François-Aimé (1845) – Essai sur les momies. Nimes: Imprimerie Veuve Gaude. PONTIER, Jean-Michel (1995) – De l’étude d’une momie égyptienne du Musée Testut-Latarjet de Lyon, Lyon: Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, PhD Thesis. PRADA, Luigi (2014) – Bab al-Gasus in the Griffith Institute Archive, Oxford: contribution to the iconographical and textual study of the Third Intermediate Period pendants and tabs from mummy leather braces. In AMENTA, Alessia; GRECO, Christian; GUICHARD, Hélène, coords. - Proceedings of the First Vatican Coffin Conference. Forthcoming. RANNOU, Eric (1999) – Collections égyptiennes Époque Pharaonique. Rennes: Musées des Beaux-Arts de Rennes. RATIE, Suzanne (1984) – Annecy, Musée-Château; Chambéry, Musées d’Art et d’Histoire; Aix-les-Bains, Musée Archéologique, Collections Egyptiennes. Inventaire des collections publiques françaises, nº 28. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux. RHIND, Alexander Henry (1862) – Thebes. Its Tombs and their Tenants. Ancient and Present including a Record of Excavations in the Necropolis. Londres: Longman, Green, Longman, and Robert.

ROEDER, Günther (1924) – Aegyptische Inschriften aus den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin II. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs‘sche Buchhandlung. SANTROT, Marie-Hélène (2008) – Un autre aspect de l’anticomanie: l’histoire des collections égyptiennes en Bretagne et dans les Pays de la Loire. Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest 2, t. 115, p. 87-105. SCHMIDT, Valdemar (1919) – Sarkofager, mumiekister, og mumiehylstre i det gamle Aegypten. Typologisk atlas med Indledning. Copenhague. SEILLIER, Claude; YOYOTTE, Jean (1981) – Société et croyance au temps des pharaons, catalogue de l’exposition au Musée des Beaux Arts et d’Archéologie de Boulogne sur mer du 28 juin au 25 octobre 1981. Boulogne-sur-Mer: Musée des Beaux-arts et d’Archéologie. SEMAT, Aude (2002) – Histoire de la collection égyptienne constituée par Frédéric Cailliaud (1787-1869) et léguée au Musée Dobrée de Nantes. Paris: École du Louvre, Mémoire. SERRET, Arthur (1885) – Catalogue du Musée Archéologique Départemental et du Musée des Anciens Costumes Bretons de la ville de Quimper. Quimper: Société Archéologique du Finistère. SOUSA, Rogério (2010) – The Coffin of an Anonymous Woman from Bab El Gasus (A.4) in Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 46, p. 180-204. TARASENKO, Mykola (2007) – Ruti-Scene in Ancient Egyptian Religious Art (19th - 21st Dynasties). In KORMYSHEVA, Eleonora, éd. - Cultural Heritage of Egypt and Christian Orient - vol. 4. Moscou: Institute of Oriental Studies, Golenishev Egyptological Center. TARASENKO, Mykola (2009) – Ancient Egyptian Mythology in the Book of the Dead. Kiev. TAYLOR, John H. (1989) – Egyptian coffins. Aylesbury: Shire Egyptology. TAYLOR, John H. (2009) – Coffins as Evidence for a ‘North-South Divide’ in the 22nd-25th Dynasties. In BROEKMAN, Gerard P.F.; DEMARÉE, Robert Johannes; KAPER, Olaf E., éds. – The Libyan Period in Egypt. Historical and Cultural Studies into the 21st – 2th Dynasties: Proceedings of a Conference at Leiden University, 25-27 October 2007. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten, Leuven: Peeters, p. 375-415. VIREY, Philippe (1892) – Dessins et calques reproduisant des vignettes ornant des sarcophages trouvés dans la cachette de Deir-el-Bahari en 1891 et conservés au Musée du Caire. MSS 0134 Paris: Bibliothèque Centrale des Musées Nationaux. WALSEM, René van (1997) – The coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, I. Technical and iconographic/ iconological aspects. Egyptologische Uirgaven. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten. ZIEGLER, Christiane (1979) – Deux étoffes funéraires égyptiennes. Revue du Louvre 1, p. 254.

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Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway): the modern history of the collection and a reconstruction of the ensembles Anders Bettum University of Oslo Abstract This article presents some of the results of a comprehensive study of the Swedish-Norwegian part of the Bab el-Gasus discovery (Daressy’s ‘Lot 14’), which was given to King Oscar II in 1893. The acquisition history of the coffin-ensembles has been reconstructed in detail with all relevant documents reproduced in transliteration and, when necessary, translation. After Lot 14 arrived in Stockholm 28 November 1893, the four coffin-ensembles, consisting of 15 components, were divided between two museums in Sweden and one in Norway. The redistribution was ostensibly random, resulting in much confusion among scholars as to which components originally belonged together. The reconstruction of the ensembles has been further complicated by the frequent reuse of coffins which took place in the 21st Dynasty. Seven of the 15 components in Lot 14 show clear evidence of reuse. Traditional art historical methods are of limited help when trying to reconstruct the scattered ensembles from Bab el-Gusus. Only the historical record, to the extent that it has been preserved, can tell which components once belonged together. Fortunately, in this case, the record has been preserved. This article offers a new and well-documented reconstruction of the four coffin-ensembles, thereby paving the way for the production of a useful catalogue. Of particular interest are the reconstructions of the full five-piece ensembles of Khonsumes (A 121) and Ankhsenmt (A7), and the rediscovery of the outer coffins belonging to these sets.

Dozens of museums around the world keep among their treasures Egyptian coffins from Bab el-Gasus, a collective tomb for 153 members of the Theban clergy discovered on the west bank of Luxor in 1891. In the years following the discovery, about half of the coffin ensembles from this tomb were sent off to 17 foreign nations as diplomatic gifts. Needless to say, the methods of archaeological recording of the time did not meet modern standards, and curators today are faced with a formidable task when trying to match up the objects in their collections with the sketchy archeological reports. Nevertheless, this is exactly the job Andrzej Niwiński took on in the 1980’s, on behalf of all the receiving nations. Niwiński visited all the museums known to have objects from Bab el-Gasus, and started building the catalogue that ideally should have been made 90 years earlier. His book 21st Dynasty coffins from Thebes (1988) is still the standard work on the Bab el-Gasus coffins, and on 21st Dynasty coffins in general. Niwiński’s pioneer work was an important step in the right direction, but to tidy up in the mess caused by a century of deterioration, conservation, redistribution, re-cataloguing and rerecording in a dozen different languages, international cooperation is needed. It is my sincere hope that the ‘Bab el-Gasus Project’ soon will receive the funds it deserves. In the mean time, work must continue on a small scale by making the various collections available for study, thereby preparing the ground for the great international project that surely will come. In this paper, the confusion surrounding the history of the Swedish-Norwegian portion of the find has been addressed, with the aim to reconstruct the ensembles and correct errors in the existing publications.1

1. Bab el-Gasus Bab el-Gasus, ‘the gate of the priests’, is the modern Arabic name of a tomb that was discovered on the plains in front of Hatshepsuts’s temple in Deir el-Bahari in January - February 1891.2 It was entered through an 11 m deep vertical shaft which had been filled up with ‘a cement composed of sand, fragments of stone and lumps of clay’.3 At the bottom of the shaft, a 93 m long sloping corridor continued southwards, with a side branch after 76 m running off westwards for another 53.9 m.4 The main corridor terminated in two small, undecorated chambers, whereas the side corridor was left unfinished, ending abruptly in a wall of bed rock. When, and for what purpose the tomb was cut has been heavily discussed. Niwiński has landed on a date in the reign of Psusennes II (c. 967-944 bce), suggesting that it could have been intended as a tomb for Tjanefer and his wife Gatseshen, whose coffins were among the ones found in the innermost chamber.5 Tjanefer was a third prophet of Amun and son of the powerful high priest Menkheperre. Bab el-Gasus eventually became a collective tomb or cache for 153 Theban priests. The coffins were presumably rescued from nearby tombs to offer protection from tomb robbers in a time of economic crisis and social unrest. They were found stacked in the chambers and on both sides of the corridors, often on top of one another to give room Mohammed Mahdy, Marina Prusac Lindhagen, Heather S. Campbell, Geoffrey Metz, Sofia Häggman and Lana Troy for their enthusiastic engagement, support and encouragement at various stages of the process. Other, more specific contributions will be acknowledged subsequently. 2 DARESSY, 1900. 3 MASPERO, 1903: 220. 4 AUBERT, 1998: 9. 5 NIWIŃSKI, 1984; 2006: 253-4, n. 38.

The research for this article started in 2001, when I started working on my MA thesis on C47714, and also helped curate the exhibition ‘The Mummy Lives!’ at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. Since the beginning, it has been a project with many dialogue partners. Special thanks go to Saphinaz-Amal Naguib, Andrzej Niwiński, Eivind Bratlie,

1

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity for all. 101 of the ensembles were nests of two coffins: with an inner coffin stacked inside a large outer one. Most burials also contained mummy-covers: a kind of funerary mask that covered the front of the mummy from head to toe and was crafted and decorated in a manner very similar to the coffin lids. No record of the ratio of mummy-covers in Bab el-Gasus is known to me, but it seems likely that the poorest burials lacked these. Although other types of funerary equipment was scarce in the cache, some burials also had shabtis, Osiris figures holding funerary papyri, stelae, canopic jars, boxes of food offerings, etc.6

The hieroglyphs spell out the names of the owners of each ensemble. According to the Table 1, two of the ensembles in Lot 14 were named: No. 7, belonging to the lady Ankhsenmut and No. 82 belonging to Khonsumes. The remaining two were anonymous. No 7, the coffin ensemble of Ankhsenmut, was clearly destined for Norway (‘Christiania’ being the contemporaneous name of Oslo). The remaining ensembles were divided between two museums in Sweden: the National Museum in Stockholm and the university collection in Uppsala, from 1895 known as the Victoria Museum.

Egyptian authorities decided to give away a portion of the discovery to nations which had a diplomatic presence in Egypt at the time. After a long process of bickering and negotiations among the receiving parties, it was decided that 17 nations would receive on average four coffin ensembles and a certain number of shabtis each. The ensembles were distributed to the receiving nations by lottery.7 The mummies were left behind in Cairo, where they were unwrapped and to some extent examined.8

The numbers used in the list are Daressy’s so called A-numbers, which were given to each coffin ensemble as they were found in the tomb. His numbering system is considered to be more reliable than the numbering systems that were applied after the coffins had been moved from the tomb, such as the ‘B-numbers’ which were given to each object as it left the tomb, or the JE or CG numbers of the Egyptian Museum.11 I will therefore continue to use the A-numbers when I am talking about reconstructed ensembles from Bab el-Gasus. However, while the numbers of the A-list are very useful, the names in the list are not always equally accurate. Due to the circumstances during which they were recorded, the names are mostly listed as they appeared on the outermost coffins, without discussing alternative spellings (or names!) on the other components of the ensemble. As we shall see, however, there may be exceptions to this rule.

2. Lot 14 - The gift to Oscar II, King of Sweden and Norway. At the time of the discovery, Sweden and Norway were still joined in a political union headed by the Swedish King Oscar II. In the early 1890’s, the leading political party in Norway demanded greater autonomy for the Norwegians in matters of international diplomacy. The demand caused tensions between the two states that would culminate a decade later (1905) with the collapse of the union. Throughout the strife, King Oscar II showed a certain generosity towards the rebellious Norwegians, and did his best to appear as the unifying force of the union.

The list in Table 1 above has been the point of departure for later authors on the Bab el-Gasus coffins. Porter and Moss12 repeat that Akhsenmut (A7) is in Oslo. They could add, based on Per Lugn’s publications of the coffin of Khonsumes,13 that this coffin was located in Uppsala.

Against this background, it is perhaps understandable why it was decided that Lot 14 - the Swedish-Norwegian portion of the gift - should be divided further already from the outset. In his publication of the lots from 1907, in part based on much older notes,9 Daressy writes:

Contrary to earlier authors on the Bab el-Gasus coffins, Niwiński visited the museums. His catalogue represents the first attempt to reconcile Daressy’s list (Table 1) with the objects that actually are to be found in the respective museums. Unfortunately, it was not possible for Niwiński to spend more than a few days in Scandinavia, and most of the objects he needed to see were packed away and difficult to access at the time. Language barriers must have prevented a full understanding of the archive material, if this was made accessible to him at all. The following list reflects some of these shortcomings:

Table 1. Lot 14 after Daressy 1907.10 14e lot. - Suède et Norwège. Musée National. Stockholm. Musée Victoria. Upsal. , Musée de Christiania.

Nos

7.



37. Anonyme



80. Anonyme



82.

DARESSY, 1900: 144-45. DARESSY, 1907. DARESSY, 1896: 73, FOUQUET, 1896. 9 The list of names and numbers was published as part of Lieblein’s Dictionaire de noms hiéroglyphiques already in 1892. 10 DARESSY, 1907: 21. 6 7 8

11 12 13

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NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 26; 1996: vii-viii. PORTER, MOSS: 1964: 639-40. LUGN, 1922: 32-35, Pl. 32-33; 1923: 127-32.

Anders Bettum: Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway) Table 2. Lot 14 after Niwiński 198814 A 7 Ankhsenmut: A 37 Anonymous man: A 80 Anonymous woman: A 121 Khonsumes: A ... Nesypernub:

Table 3. Lot 14 after Aston 200919

- Inner coffin EM 8123 in Oslo - Outer coffin probably in Stockholm - Mummy-cover EM 8125 in Oslo - Inner coffin EM 8124 in Oslo - (?) Outer coffin NME 891 in Stockholm - Inner coffin VM 152 in Uppsala - Outer coffin NME 892 in Stockholm - Mummy-cover NME 894 in Stockholm - Inner coffin VM 228 in Uppsala - Outer case (?) - Mummy-cover NME 895 in Stockholm

A 7 Ankhsenmut (child) -Coffin EM 8123 in Oslo A 37 Hor -Coffin EM 8124-25 in Oslo -Coffin NME 891 in Stockholm A 80 Annonymous woman -Coffin VM 152 in Uppsala -Coffin NME 892 in Stockholm A 82 Khonsumes -Coffin VM 228 in Uppsala -Mummy-cover NME 894 in Stockholm.

NME 895, the unidentified mummy-cover of Nesypernub recorded by Niwiński in Stockholm (Table 2), is not mentioned. The male coffin (and mummy-cover) in Oslo has been given the name Hor and matched with a (outer?) coffin in Stockholm. Both suggestions are erroneous. NME 892, erroneously said to be anonymous, is erroneously matched with VM 152 in Uppsala.

Nevertheless, Niwiński did make some important discoveries, and one in particular which otherwise would have been very hard to spot for anyone coming after him. In his list, the A-number of the coffin of Khonsumes has been changed from 82 to 121. In Englund’s publications on the iconography on Khonsumes’ coffin and mummycover,15 there is no mention of alternative A-numbers. The reason why Niwiński could be so certain there had been a confusion, is that he had seen the real A 82 in Alexandria with its labels still intact.16 This ensemble also belonged to a man named Khonsumes, and both men were wab-priests and temple scribes of Amun. One can therefore see how the ensembles easily could have been confused on the paper. Unfortunately, Niwiński did not explain the reasons for his rewriting of history, and later authors went back to the number found in earlier works. As will be shown shortly, however, evidence that verifies Niwiński’s observation can be found in the original documentation of Lot 14.

I would like to stress that I do not mean to criticize either Niwiński, Aston, or anyone else, only to point out that the problems of the Bab el-Gasus collections require both international cooperation and local expertise to be solved. If we disregard Tables 1-3 for now, and focus on the material reality in the respective museums, we get the following result: Table 4. Lot 14: Coffins and mummy-covers in the museums in Oslo, Stockholm and Uppsala C47713 (ex EM 8123) in Oslo: Inner coffin of a woman. The name, if any, is lost. C47714a/b (ex EM 8124) in Oslo: Inner coffin of an anonymous man. C47714c (ex EM 8125) in Oslo: Mummy-cover of an anonymous man. NME 890 in Stockholm: Outer coffin of an anonymous man. NME 892 in Stockholm: Outer coffin of a woman named Ankh.. nmut. NME 895 in Stockholm: Mummy-cover of a woman named Nesypernub, reworked for a man NME 894 in Uppsala: Mummy-cover of Khonsumes. VM 228 (ex NME 891) in Uppsala: Inner coffin of Khonsumes. VM 152 (ex NME 893) in Uppsala: Inner coffin of an anonymous woman.

Niwiński also discovered that there was a male coffin and mummy-cover in Oslo, and that the ensembles had been split up between the three museums in a manner that gave no easy solutions to how they originally had matched up. He was able to match the mummy-cover of Khonsumes in Stockholm with the inner coffin belonging to the same man in Uppsala, but otherwise his attempts to reconstruct the ensembles failed. Later studies, based on Niwiński’s catalogue, suffer from this, my own MA-thesis being a prime example.17 More seriously, however, the mistakes of Niwiński and others were repeated and accumulated in the great catalogue of Third Intermediate Period burial assemblages recently published by David A. Aston:18

One male and one female outer coffin, two male and two female inner coffins and two male and one female mummycover, distributed seemingly randomly between three museums in two countries. From the list, we see how the NME numbers line up neatly from NME 890 - 895. NME 896 is a shabti-box that also was part of the gift, and the 46 shabtis in the Swedish collections follow suit from NME 897 - 942. It should be pointed out that Niwiński made a mistake when he described NME 891 as an outer coffin (Table 2), a mistake that was reproduced by Aston (Table 3). Niwiński must have meant NME 890, since NME 891 is the old number of Khunsumes’ inner coffin, now VM 228. We see that the components in Uppsala have the old NME numbers from the National Museum in Stockholm, and must have been received and catalogued there before

NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 162, no 319-20; 169, no. 365-66; 174, no. 396. (ENGLUND, 1974, 1985). 16 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 104, no. 2; personal communication. 17 BETTUM, 2004: 66. 18 ASTON, 2009: 164-98. 14 15

19

169

ASTON, 2009: 165, no. 680; 170, no. 710-11; 177-78, no 753, 755.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity they were transferred. The coffins and 42 shabtis that went to Oslo likewise line up from EM 8080 - 8125. No NME number is known for these. Were these objects sent directly from Egypt to Oslo? When, where and at whose authority were the Oslo-objects selected? How did the components originally match up? How can we restore the correct A-numbers? Some answers offers themselves from the physical evidence, but to get to the bottom of this, we must hit the archives, and see if we can reconstruct the events of the winter 1893/94.

Doc 1A: Letter from Henry Barker, 16th of October. 4 attachments Alexandrie, Égypte le 16 October 1893 Monsieur Le Ministre, Plusieurs égyptologues étrangers ayant manifesté le désir de voir figurer dans les musées d’Europe des objets faisant partie de la découverte dite des prêtres d’Ammon, qui ne seraient pas indispensables au Musée de Guizeh, le gouvernement de Son Altesse le Khedive, ayant fait examiner cette demande, c’est empresse de l’accueillir favorablement. Aussi, différentes collections ont été preparées par Mr. de Morgan, Directeur Général du service des Antiquités.

3. Digging through the archives20 Over the years, I have gone through a great deal of archive material, both in Oslo and in Sweden. Seven documents stand out as particularly suited to answer the questions posed in the paragraph above. I believe these documents are of general interest, and have therefore reproduced them fully in transliteration. Focus is on the contents of the documents, and the form has been reproduced only approximately. Swedish and Norwegian documents are transcribed in the original language and provided with an English translation. I have numbered the documents (Doc 1-7) chronologically, but the presentation follows a thematic ordering and not necessarily the chronological numbering.

Les collections, ainsi preparées, ont été tirées au sont par monsieur Le Doyen des Corps Diplomatique, et la lot destine au Musée National, de la Majesté Le Roi, mon Auguste Maitre, porte le No. 14. Ci-joint, je une fais un devoir de remettre à votre Excellence le Catalogue Sommaire, ainsi que le connaissement, % Son Excellence le Comte C. [arl] Lewenhaupt, Ministre des Affaires Etrangers

Lot 14 from Cairo to Stockholm

da la Majesté la Roi de Suède et de Norvège

The first document that I would like to present, is the letter written by the acting Consul-General of SwedenNorway, Henry Barker, to the Swedish minister of foreign affairs. It describes the gift from the Egyptian Khedive and the circumstances of the distribution of the lots. I have reproduced the letter (Dok 1A), including four sheets of paper that were attached (Dok 1B-E), in its entirety. Similar letters were sent to all the receiving nations, and comparison with other such letters could give important clues to how the distribution was organized. The letter itself, cluttered by later notes and sketches, is currently located in the National Archives in Stockholm. The attachments, however, can be found in the archives of the National Museum in Stockholm.



re.

re.

re. Stockholm

et la Police d’Assurance, à six caisses contenant ces anemes antiquités, embarquées à bord du steamer Anglais ‘Douro’, avec transbordement à Hull. Le montant de unes débours, y inclus les frais faits au Caire pour cette expédition jusqu’à Alexandrie, s’élève à £ 6. 5. 5 selon note détaillée (Annexe A). J’ai l’honneur d’être, Monsieur Le Ministre, de Votre Excellence, le très obéissant Serviteur, H. Barker

20 The following section contains an analysis of archive material which I have been able to access thanks to generous help from Claes Tellvid and Lars Wickström at the National Archives in Stockholm, Astrid von Hofsten and Gjerterud Nord at the National Museum in Stockholm and Lars Kihlström at the Stockholm City Archive. Furthermore, I would not have been able to obtain a complete reading of the handwritten texts without the help from good colleagues at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo. These were: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib, Ane Ohrvik, Ørnulf Hodne, Anna Marie Wiersholm and last but certainly not least; Anders Gustavsson.

170

Anders Bettum: Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway) Doc 1B: Annexe A

Doc 1C: Note des frais

CONSULAT GENERAL DE SUEDE ET NORVEGE

Pour l’expédition des antiquités

Note de mes débours

destinées au Gouvernement Royal

Frais faits au Caire pour l’expédition

de Suède et de Norvège.

jusqu’à Alexandrie des Antiquités P.r

----------------

332:-



Frais faits à Alexandrie:

le 9. Oct. 93 Baudet au Musée et retour P.r 7 ½ ‘

‘

charette

‘ 4½

10

‘

2 charettes

‘ 64,-

‘

‘

6 porte faire a 3/-

‘ 18,-

2 charrettes de la Douane jusqu’au bateau 6,-

‘

‘

id à la gare

‘ 12,-

Papiers timbré

Droits de quai et factage:





19.20

3 charrettes de la station du Gabbari jusqu’à la Douane





9,-





1,________

‘

‘

Baudet du Musée à la gare

‘ 7,-

‘

‘

Bulletin du chemin de fer

‘ 1½

P.r 367.20

‘

‘

droit de chemin de fer du

Soit: Trois cent soixante sept 20/40 Piastres au tarif

Caire à Alexandrie ‘ 217 ½ ------------- P.r 332,-

Au cours du change légal à raison de P.r 97 20/40 la livre sterling

£ 3.15.5

Prime d’Assurance



. 2.10.0 ---------total : £ 6.5.5

The wealth of objects recovered from Bab el-Gasus prompted the Egyptian government to give away a large portion of the find to states with a diplomatic presence in Egypt. Groups of coffins were distributed among the 17 recipients by lottery. The director of the Antiquity Service at the time, Jacques De Morgan, was responsible for the preparation of the groups at the Cairo Museum, and the senior diplomat drew the lot (Doc 1A).

Soit : Six livres cinq shillings et cinq pence sterling.

Fait en double.

Alexandrie Egypte, le 16 Octobre 1893.

La Gérant du Consulat Général

Le Caire, le 11 Octobre 1893

On 16 October 1893, Henry Barker, the functioning Consul General of Sweden and Norway, wrote from Alexandria to Carl Lewenhaupt, the Minister of Foreign affairs in Stockholm (Doc 1A). In the letter, we learn that King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway had won Lot 14, the contents of which was specified in the attachments (Doc 1D-E). Two receipts for expenses Barker wanted reimbursement for were also attached to the letter (Doc 1B-C). From the receipts we learn that the gift was transported by donkey cart from the Cairo Museum to the train station on 9 October 1893, and then by train from Cairo to Alexandria the day after (Doc 1C). The English steamer ‘Douro’ probably disembarked from Alexandria shortly after Barker had written his letter, destined for transshipment in Hull (Doc 1A).

H. Barker

Doc 2: Shipping log from the harbor of Stockholm, Stockholm City Archive. Journal öfver de till hufvudstaden från ...... rikes orter inkomna fartyg 1893. Månad. Dag.

Nummer. Befälhafvarens namn.

Fartygets

Inkommet från

Cert. Namn. Nationalitet Nov.

28

998

Jakobsen

å

Douro

Dsk

171

Ton. 569

Innehar Förlagdt För till vid fartyget hufvudlast antagen mäklare

Köpenhamn Tom [?]

Djup. [?]

OcW

Body, Cosmos and Eternity The ship ‘Douro’ can be retrieved in the shipping log of Stockholm (Doc 2). At this point, it was sailing under Danish flag, and it had last been in port in Copenhagen. It reached Stockholm on 28 November 1893.

Doc 1D is of particular interest here, since it offers a parallel and alternative to Daressy’s list in Table 1 above. At first sight, it is important to note that both lists agree that four coffin ensembles were sent to Sweden-Norway. But are the objects the same in both lists? Whereas Daressy used his own A-numbers, Barker uses primarily the numbers from the Journal d’Entrée (JE) in the Cairo Musuem, in two instances supplemented by additional, unspecified numbers. Using Niwiński’s key to translate between JE-numbers and A-numbers,21 and Daressy22 to find the B-numbers, we get the following result:

The contents of Lot 14 Along with Barker’s letter came also two lists of objects: one listing the coffin ensembles (Doc 1D), the other the 46 names recorded on the 88 shabtis (Doc 1E).

Table 5. JE-numbers in Doc 1D matched with A and B-numbers

Doc 1D: Quatorzieme Lot

Name

No 29709. 121 146 Grand Cercueil de Khonsumès, prêtre de Maut, et scribe de la maison d’Ammon. Beau cercueil intérieur. o N 29627 Cercueil anonyme o N 29686. 80 112 Cercueil anonyme qui contenait une momie d’enfant. No 29703 Très beau cercueil de Ankhsermaut 2 boîtes funéraires

JEAdditional number numbers in Doc 1D 29709 121, 146 29627 29686 80, 112

Khonsoumès Anonymous Anonymous child Ankhsermaut 29703

A-number B-number 121 37 80

146 41 102

7

7

The first set of additional numbers in Doc 1D are obviously the A-numbers, the second set (underlined) must be the B-numbers, despite the error in Doc 1D which gives the B-number of A 80 as 112 instead of 102. A more significant error is seen in the difference between Table 1 and 5, where the A-number of Khonsumes’ ensemble is given as A 82 and A 121 respectively. As discussed above, Niwiński discovered that A 82 is in fact in Alexandria, and records the Swedish Khonsumes as A 121. Doc 1D proves him right (see also Doc 7). The other three ensembles are the same in both tables.

Doc 1E: Statuettes funéraires 6541/1893 Statuettes funéraires No 1.

Ankh f n khonsou

‘17.

Dou khonsou ari

‘ 33.

Ankh s n mat

‘ 2.

Nessi ta neb taoui

‘ 18.

Bok n maut

‘ 34.

Ankh n mat

‘ 3.

Padouarer

‘ 19.

Nessi ta auzakhoui

‘ 35.

Meritamon

‘ 4.

Isis m kheb

‘ 20.

Padoua out ren ouit

‘ 36.

Ta shed khonsou

‘ 5.

Hat pa menfi amon

‘ 21.

Khaes

‘ 37.

Hori

‘ 6.

Tadoumaut

‘ 22.

Pai fouzaro

‘ 38.

Nesiamon

‘ 7.

Ousorhatimer

‘ 23.

Shedsouamen

‘ 39.

Pakhali

‘ 8.

Meritamon

‘ 24.

Khonsoumès

‘ 40.

Tá nefer

‘ 9.

Tetmautausankh

‘ 25.

Nespahashouti

‘ 41.

Hatseshoi

‘ 10.

Amenhotep

‘ 26.

Isit m kheb

‘ 42.

Khonsou m heb

‘ 11.

Tashedkhonsou

‘ 27.

Ankh f khonsou

‘ 43.

Nespa nefer her

‘ 12.

Isit

‘ 28.

Tabaken khonsou

‘ 44.

Nesi khonsou

‘ 13.

Ankh n maut

‘ 29.

Hent taoui

‘ 45.

Padou amen

‘ 14.

Meritamon

‘ 30.

Tetou matast ankh

‘ 46.

Nesipa hirar

‘ 15.

Heroub

‘ 31.

Nesi amen ap

‘ 16.

Tent taoui

‘ 32.

Nesi maut 21 22

172

NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 199-202. DARESSY, 1907: 4-14.

Anders Bettum: Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway) redan talat med honom och lemnat honom de papper jag har.

One or two shabti-boxes? It is otherwise worth noting that Doc 1D lists two ‘boîtes funéraires’, i.e. shabti boxes. There is only one shabtibox known today, and only one that was registered in Stockholm in 1894 (see Doc 6 below). Other than Doc 1D, I there is no other record of the second shabti box that I am aware of.

Med uppriktig högaktning Hans Hildebrand In English, the letter reads: Mr. Count

The shabti-box that we do have (NME 896), is currently on display in the Mediterranean Museum in Stockholm. This object, which has escaped the attention of the international community of researchers, is inscribed for the songstress of Amun, Djedmutiwesankh (Peterson 1972: 17, no. 26). Her coffin ensemble, A 110, is in Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa.

By disease prevented from leaving my quarters, I would like to inform that I eventually was able to release the Egyptian shipment from customs, and that they correspond to the written records - coffins belonging to four corpses (the mummies are not included) and a series of small funerary figurines. This series is of a rather simple quality. The coffins would have been very nice, if they were not so poorly preserved. A paper note which came with one of the coffins characterizes it as ‘peut-être trop brisé pour être offert’. However, a redistribution between Stockholm and Kristiania [=Oslo] can very easily be done, but it occurs to me, that if one disregards the wording ‘le musée national’, the most important being to split the shipment three ways, through which the collection in Uppsala, which is better than the one in Kristiania, can have its share. By an eventual distribution, consideration must be given to the coffin’s higher or lower degree of preservation: hardly any other than the two smaller coffins could stand the January dispatch to Kristiania. However, after discussions with the minister Gilljam, I would recommend that the whole case should be left to the curator Uppmark for him to coordinate the suggestions, since he is responsible for the Egyptian collection in the National Museum. I have already talked to him and given him the papers that I have.

Redistribution of objects in Stockholm Once the ship Douro reached the port in Stockholm, its precious cargo was handed over to the customs control, where it spent two days. On the 30th of November 1893, it was handed over to the Director of the National Heritage Board, Hans Hidebrand, who can report the following: Doc 3: Letter from Hildebrand, 30 November 1893. The National Archives, Stockholm.23 RIKSANTIQVARIEN. Stockholm 30.XI.93 Herr Grefve, Af sjukdom hindrad at lemna mina rum ber jag att få nämna, att jag till sist fick ut den egyptiska sändningen i tullen samt att de motsvarande uppgifterna i skrifvelsen -kistor till fyra lik /mumierna är icke med/ och en serie små graffiguriner. Denne serien är af en temligen enkel beskaffenhet. Kistorna voro mycket bra, derest de icke voro så illa åtgångna. En papperslapp, liggande vid en kista, karakteriserar den såsom ‘peut-être trop brisé pour être offert’. En delning mellan museet i Stockholm och Kristiania kan emellertid mycket lätt göras, men det synes mig, att om man således afviker från ordalydelsen ‘le musée national’, det vore viktigast at dela sändningen i tre delar, hvarigenom samlingen i Uppsala, hvilken lär vara bättre än den i Kristiania, kan få sin andel. Vid en eventuell fördelning måste hänsyn tagas till kistornas högre och mindre grad af fasthet: Svårligen andra än de två smärre kistorna kunde uthärda januariresan till Kristiania. Emellertid får jag, efter samtal med StatsRådet Gilljam hemställa, att hela saken öfverlemnas åt Intendenten Upmark för inkommande av förslag, då han är målsman för den egyptiska samlingen i Nationalmuseum. Jag har

Sincerely, Hans Hildebrand The letter from Hidebrand is addressed to ‘Mr. Count’, presumably the minister of foreign affairs, Count Carl Lewenhaupt, to whom also parts of Barker’s letter was addressed (Dok 1A). In the letter, Hildebrand confirms that the contents of the shipment corresponds with ‘the written records’, presumably Doc 1D-E. Due to the fragile condition of the outer coffins, Hildebrand strongly recommends sending two of the smaller ones to Oslo. Doc. 4 shows that Hildebrand’s suggestion was followed, but only after a thorough bureaucratic process: Doc. 4: Note by unknown author citing Böttiger (1893/94). The National Archives24 Förslag til Fördelningen gjordes af Hildebrand, Upmark och Böttiger och godkändes af H. M. K. _ och skedde på så sätt att Nat. museum tog omkring 2/3 [;] till Chr.ania Mundtl. meddelande af Hof Int. Böttiger: Note made in Cond. une collection d’antiquités Egypt destinée au Musée National à Sthlm. Kabinettets/UDs arkiv, C 2 BB: Inkommande diarium 1893. I Utrikesdepartementets arkiv, 1902 års dossiersystem, vol 3503b. Stockholm: The National Archives.

23 Letter to from Hans Hildebrand to ‘Herr Grefve’, dated the 30th of November. In: Cond. une collection d’antiquités Egypt destinée au Musée National à Sthlm. Kabinettets/UDs arkiv, C 2 BB: Inkommande diarium 1893. I Utrikesdepartementets arkiv, 1902 års dossiersystem, vol 3503b. Stockholm: The National Archives.

24

173

Body, Cosmos and Eternity sendes 1/3; af Nat. museums 2/3 torde någon del deponeras i Uppsala universitets samling.

2. En træligkiste, ligeledes i Mumieform og for en Kvinde. Fodenden er noget beskadiget, men forresten vel konserveret og smukt udstyret. Uden Mumie og uden Navn.

Norge 2 kistor 1 lock

3. Et Laag af en Træligkiste i Mumieform for en Kvinde, i Stil og Udførelse næsten fuldstændig ligt Laaget paa Ligkiste No. 1. Underkisten mangler ligesom naturligvis ogsaa Mumien. Heller ikke her findes noget Personnavn.

Sverige 4 kistor 2 lock Professor Phihl var rådfrågad vid fördelningen. Mundtl. meddelande af Hof Int. Böttiger

4. Omkring 50 Gravfiguriner af Ler, glaserede og inskriberede med Navne paa de Personer, for hvem de var bestemte.

In English, the note reads: The suggestion for the redistribution was made by Hildebrand, Uppmark and Böttiger and was sanctioned by H. M. K. [His Majesty the King] and was done in such a way that the National Museum took about 2/3; to Chr. ania [=Oslo] will be sent 1/3; of the Naional Museum’s 2/3, a part should be transferred to the university collection in Uppsala.

Disse Gjenstands var ved Ankomsten hertil omhyggelig indpakket i to store Kasser, forsynede med ægyptiske Segl og adresserede til Udenrigsministeriet. De er saaledes hidkomne i den ægyptiske Originalindpakning, og da desuden den ene af Ligkisterne endaa bærer Kairomuseets Inventarienummer og Etiketteseddel, kan der følgelig ikke existere nogen Tvivel om Oldsagernes Ægthed.

Norway 2 coffins 1 lid Sweden 4 coffins 2 lids

In English, the excerpt reads:

Professor Phihl was also consulted concerning the redistribution

H. M. the King’s latest gift to the University His Majesty the King has donated the following Egyptian antiquities, sent from the Egyptian Khedive via Stockholm, to our Ethnographic Museum:

Message orally transmitted by the Curator of the Royal Art Collection, Böttiger.

1. A wooden coffin for a woman, beautifully executed and perfectly preserved, although stained by some dirt which stuck to it but proved possible to remove by careful cleansing without harming the underlying colours. No mummy and no personal name.

The thoroughness of the process, and the number of skilled and powerful men involved in the decision-making, is quite remarkable. ‘Professor Phihl’ is no other than Karl Fredrik Piehl, the first professor of Egyptology in Sweden, here in the process of gathering objects for a collection of antiquities in Uppsala. From 1895, this collection would be known as the Victoria Museum.25

2. A wooden coffin, likewise mummiform and for a woman. The foot end is somewhat damaged, but [the coffin] is otherwise well preserved and beautifully decorated. No mummy and no name.

It is reassuring to note that the list of objects corresponds with what is to be found in the respective museums today (Table 4). The first document that mentions the royal gift on the Norwegian side of the border is an article in a local newspaper, written by the Norwegian professor of Egyptology, Jens Lieblein. Only the introduction is of general interest, and has been reproduced below.

3. The lid of a mumiform coffin for a woman, in style and execution almost identical to the lid of coffin No. 1. The coffin case is missing, as is the mummy. Again, there is no personal name. 4. About 50 funerary figurines of clay, glazed and inscribed with the names of the individuals for whom they were made.

Doc. 5: Excerpt from Norwegian newspaper article published by Lieblein 27 February 199426

These objects were upon arrival thoroughly packed in two large boxes, equipped with Egyptian seals and addressed to the Foreign Ministry. They have thereby arrived in the original packing, and since one of the coffins still carries the label and inventory number of Cairo Museum, there can be no doubt about the authenticity of the antiquities.

H. M. Kongens seneste Gave til Universitetet Hs. Maj. Kongen har til vort ethnografiske Museum skjænket følgende af den ægyptiske Khediv over Stockholm sendte ægyptiske Oldsager: 1. En Træligkiste i Mumieform for en Kvinde, smukt forarbeidet og fuldstændig bevaret, blot tilsmudset med noget Lerjord, som hadde klæbet sig fast, men ved forsiktig Afvaskning let lod sig fjerne uden at skade de underliggende Farver. Uden Mumie og uden Personnavn.

Thereafter follows a lengthy description of the decorations and texts on coffin 1, which is of little value to modern researchers. Although he was unaware of the function of mummy-covers and the gender distinctions of coffins from the 21st Dynasty, Lieblein is obviously describing the Oslo-coffins listed in Table 4. His No. 1 corresponds to the anonymous, male inner coffin C47714a/b, No. 2 to the female inner coffin C47713, whose foot piece and

DAWSON, UPHILL, 1972: 232. Norwegian newspaper article: ‘H. M. Kongens seneste gave til universitetet’. Aftenposten 35 (111) 27.02.1894, p. 1. Accessible in the micro film archive of the National Library in Oslo. 25 26

174

Anders Bettum: Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway) hence potential name is missing, and No. 3 corresponds to the anonymous male mummy-cover C47714c, which is so similar to the lid of No. 1 (C47714a.).

In English, the letter reads:

We also learn that the coffins arrived in their original cargo boxes, presumably two of the six mentioned by Barker in Doc 1A. He mentions that one of the coffins held a label with the inventory number from the Cairo Museum (JEnumber), but unfortunately, he does not give the number, nor does he say on which coffin he found it. Today, the label is lost, and there is no record of the number in the museum catalogues. As we shall see below, however, it is possible to reconstruct both the number and its location based on other documentation. Lieblein seems utterly ignorant of the fact that the coffins belonged to the priests from Bab el-Gasus, whose names he himself had published two years earlier).27 This is an indication that very little information followed the gift to Oslo. The museum catalogues in Oslo confirms this impression.

Since through the united kingdom’s General Consul in Alexandria from H. H. the Khedive of Egypt to H. M. the King of Sweden and Norway for their national museums were transferred a number of Egyptian antiquities, and H. M. the King desired to divide the above mentioned gift between the Egyptian department in the National Museum in Stockholm and corresponding collection in Kristiania [Oslo], will I here, by royal decree, offer the following objects: 4 mummy coffins

To the board of the National Museum!

2 lids 46 figurines 1 bôite funeraire Stockholm 26 February1894 By royal decree

The Ethnographic Museum in Oslo was actually the first of the three museums to receive its part of the gift. As shown from Böttiger’s letter below (Doc 6), the objects remaining in Stockholm were officially transferred from the Royal Art Collection to the National Museum first on 26 February 1894. This is where the objects gained their NME numbers. The objects destined for Norway had left Stockholm already in January, which is why they lack such numbers.

John Böttiger Curator of H.M. the King’s art collections. As we shall see next, the objects were catalogued at the National Museum about two weeks later, on 9 March 1894. In Uppsala, they had to wait much longer: From an entry in the board protocol (Nämnd protokoll) of the National Museum December 14, 1894, there is a mention of a temporary receipt from Professor Piehl, confirming that the objects had been received. From the accession catalogue (Nämnd katalog), we learn that two inner coffins, NME 891 and 893 were sent to Uppsala along with 23 shabtis, NME 920-942.

Doc. 6: Letter from the curator of the Royal Art Collection Böttiger to the National Museum, Stockholm 26th of February28 Till Nationalmusei nämd! Sedan genom de förenade rikenas generalkonsul i Alexandria från H. H. Khediven af Egypten till H. M. konungen af Sverige och Norge för dess nationalmuseum öfverlämnats ett antal egyptiska fornsaker, och H. M. Konungen behagat fördela ofvannämda gåfva mellan den egyptiska afdeling i Nationalmuseum i Stockholm och likestad samling i Kristiania, får jag härmed på nåd. befalling öfverlämna följande föremål:

Since 1895, the Uppsala collection has been known as the Victoria Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, and since 1920 it has been located in the Gustavianum.29 The objects that remained behind in the National Museum (two outer coffins: NME 890 and 892; two mummy-covers: NME 894, 895; a shabti box NME 896: and 23 shabtis, NME 897-919) were given on long term loan to the newly opened Egyptian Museum in Stockholm in 1928. In 1954, the Egyptian Museum merged with the Cyprus collection and became the Mediterranean Museum, where the objects from Lot 14 have been on display since 1982. In recent years, the mummy-cover of Khonsumes, NME 894, was transferred from Stockholm to Uppsala to join the inner coffin.

4 mumiekistor 2 lok 46 figurinor 1 bôite funeraire Stockholm den 26 Februari 1894

På nådig befalling

4. Reconstructing the coffin ensembles



John Böttiger

Doc. 7: Upmark’s inventory list, attachment to Nämndskatalogen, Mars 9 1894

Intendent för H. M. Konungens konstsamlingar

Till N.M Nämnds protokoll d. 9 Mars 1894 LIEBLEIN, 1892 From Nämndskatalogen (with attachments). The National Museum in Stockholm. 27 28

29

175

STARCK, 1974:12

Body, Cosmos and Eternity Gåfvor till konstsamlingarna:

In English:

Af H. M. Konungen.

For the protocol of the board of the National Museum, Mars 9, 1894

Följande forn-egyptiska graffynd, öfverlemnade till H. M. konungen af Egyptens regering:

Gifts for the art collections: From H. M. the King.

A Inre kista, stor, som tillhört Khonsoumès, Mauts prest och skrivare hos ammons hus. De korslagda händerna äro slutna.

Längd met. 2,20



Märkt på en papperslapp: 29,709



Mycket skadad.

The following ancient Egyptian funerary finds, donated to H. M. the King by the Egyptian government: A Inner coffin, large, which belonged to Khonsoumès, Mut’s priest and scribe in the house of Amun. The crossed hands are closed.

121. 146.

B Inre kista, mindre, för en man. Afbildad med pipskägg i form af en smal krok af svartmåladt trä, lös, händerna slutna

Längd 1,95



Rett vel bibehållen

Längd 2,05



Märkt på en papperslapp: 29,703.



Mycket skadad.

Rather well preserved. C. Inner coffin, for a woman, Ankhsermaut. The ears are not visible, but star- shaped ear studs. The fingers are extended. Length 2,05 Labeled on a piece of paper: 29,703. Havily damaged. D. Inner coffin, smaller, which according to the documentation contained the mummy of a child. The hands shoot upwards, the fingers extended.

Märkt på en papperslapp: 29,686 80. 112 Sakadad, mest vid fotändan. E. Mumielock, platt. Öronen synliga, kubiskt pipskägg, händerna slutna. Hufvudbeklädnad som på A.

Length 1,85. Labeled on a piece of paper: 29,686 80. 112

L. 1,84

Damaged, mostly by the foot end..

F. Mumielock, som föregående. Fingrarna afslagna. Hufvudbeklädnad som på C och D.

E. Mummy lid, flat. The ears are visible, cubical goatee, hands closed. Headgear as on A.

L. 1,76

L. 1,84

Nedre delen afbroten

F. Mummy lid, as the one above. The fingers have been hacked off. Headgear as on C and D.

G. Graflåda, af trä, hvitmålad med svart hieroglyfinskrift, kubisk med 2 fack täckta af lock. Inuti ligger en svepduk. H. 0,33



Längd 0,35

L. 1,76 Lower part broken off. G. Funerary box, of wood, painted white with black hieroglyphic inscriptions, cubical with two trays covered by lid. Inside is a shroud.

H. (Graf-) Figuriner af lera 46 st, af hvilka



Labeled on a piece of paper: 29,709 121. 146.

Length 1,95

Längd 1,85.





B Inner coffin, smaller, for a man. Depicted with a goatee in the shape of a small hook of painted wood, loose, hands closed.

D. Inre kista, mindre, som enligt uppgift innehållit mumien af ett barn. Händerna uppskjutande, fingreanen sträkta.



Length (metrical): 2,20 Havily damaged.

C. Inre kista, för en qvinna, Ankhsemaut. Öronen synas ei, men stjernformiga örhäangen. Fingrarna sträckta.



24 blåa, glaserade 6 med spår af blå målning, oglaserade med hieroglyf-skrift 4 ljusgröna målat i svart 8 hvita 2 brungråa 2 rödbruna, med inristad hieroglyfskrift

H. 0,33 Length 0,35

176

Anders Bettum: Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway) H. 46 funerary figurines of clay, of which

and the positioning of the hands, and even seems to be aware that the mummy-covers were not just small lids. His only mistake was that all the coffins are described as ‘inner’, but with size specifications and accurate measurements, this is of little significance. A and C, both more than two meters long, are of course the outer coffins NME 890 and 892. The identity of these coffins, however, comes as a surprise. As mentioned above, all authors mentioning Lot 14 seem to agree that Ankhsenmut is in Oslo and not in Stockholm, and in the many publications on Khonsumes,30 not a word is written about an outer coffin.

24 blue, glazed

6 with traces of blue paint, unglazed

4 light green



8 white



2 brown/gray

With hieroglyphic inscriptions painted in black.

2 red/brown, with incised hieroglyphic inscriptions

In fact, the information gathered from the documents above offers a near complete solution to the missing identities of some coffins, and how the ensembles were split up. It is noteworthy that three of the coffins in Upmark’s list (Doc 7) are said to be labeled with numbers corresponding to the list in Doc 1D. From Lieblein’s newspaper article (Doc 5), we know that also one of the coffins that went to Oslo was labeled this way. We thus have reports of four labeled coffins, and since both the outer coffins (Upmark’s A and C) are among these, it seems reasonable to assume that only the outermost coffins in each ensemble were labeled. By a method of exclusion then, the JE-number observed by Lieblein must have been the one number in Doc 1D that is not present in Doc 7, i.e. No 29627 (=A 37).

In a later catalogue entry, these notes were copied in a different hand (which has been a great help for the reading of the text), and provided with NME numbers in a corresponding order. Upmarks A-F represent the coffins and mummy-covers NME 890-895 respectively, the shabti-box G became NME 896, and the 46 shabtis listed under H became NME 897-942. The curator of the National Museum in Stockholm, Gustaf Upmark, whose authorship is recognized by the characteristic handwriting, deserves praise for this detailed list. Contrary to the other sources discussed here, it contains accurate and skilled descriptions of the coffins. Upmark recognizes gender markers such as the head gear

To summarize, we have now identified the four outermost coffins in the ensembles listed in Doc 1D, which originally held labels corresponding to those in the list:

Table 6. The outermost coffins of the ensembles listed in Doc 1D Doc 1D No 29709. 121. No 29627 No 29686. 80. No 29703

146. 112.

Coffins that originally were tagged (Doc 7; 5) A (NME 890): EM 8124 D (NME 893) C (NME 892):

Label (now lost)

Modern cat. no. Location

29,709 121. 146 29,627 29,686 80 112 29,703.

MNE 890 C47714a/b VM 152 NME 892

Stockholm Oslo Uppsala Stockholm

Table 7. Conclusions from the study of the archive material a-number

je-number

type of object

CURRENT LOCATION

Current inv numbers

29703

Outer coffin Inner coffin Mummy-cover Single coffin Mummy-cover

Stockholm Oslo Stockholm Oslo Oslo

NME 892 C47713 (ex EM8123) NME 895 C47714ab (ex EM8124) C47714c (ex EM8125)

7

name

Ankhsenmut

37

29627

80

29686

Single coffin

Uppsala

VM 152 (ex NME 893)

Anonymous

29709

Outer coffin Inner coffin Mummy-cover

Stockholm Uppsala Stockholm

NME 890 VM 228 (ex NME 891) NME 894

Khonsumes

121

Anonymous

LUGN, 1922: 32-35, PL. 32-33; 1923: 127-32; WESTERDORF, 1968: 201; ENGLUND, 1974; 1985. 30

177

Body, Cosmos and Eternity With a glance at Table 4, it is also possible to assign inner coffins and mummy-covers to these ensembles. Contrary to the outer coffin, the inner coffin and mummy-cover of Khonsumes are both inscribed with his names and titles. The three components thus make up a full five-piece ensemble. We can expect that also the outer coffin of Ankhsenmut once was part of such a complete, five-piece ensemble. Of the two female inner coffins, VM 152 (ex NME 893) was as we have seen tagged with the original numbers, and must have formed a single-coffin ensemble. That leaves the anonymous C47713 (ex 8123) in Oslo, which must have been the inner coffin in the ensemble of Ankhsenmut. The only female mummy-cover in the collection, NME 895, was presumably also part of this ensemble. If the female Oslocoffin was the inner coffin of Ankhsenmut, Lieblein must have spotted the JE-number on the male one, C47714a/b (ex 8124), which must have formed a single-coffin ensemble. The remaining male mummy-cover in Oslo (C47714c, ex 8125) must have belonged to this coffin, which also fits well with the physical evidence. 5. The physical evidence: further complications31 The following is not meant to be a catalogue of the objects, which I hope to publish as a part two of this work. Here, I will limit the discussion of the material evidence to aspects that are relevant to the reconstruction of the ensembles. More specifically, I will address features of the physical evidence that support or contradict the conclusions from the discussion of the documentation in the previous section.

Fig. 1 - The head end of this coffin case wall was restored in 1924. The modern boards (above the joint) are slightly thicker than the originals (below the joint), and the inclination of the curve of the head has been restored at a steeper angle, effectively making the coffin at least 5 cm shorter than it once was. NME 892, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm).

A 7: The five-piece ensemble of a young girl, possibly named Ankhsenmut, now in Stockholm and Oslo.

Modern conservation and historical reconstruction Starting with the problem of size, the records of modern conservation seem to provide a solution. NME 892 is about 200 cm long, the inner length being only 193 cm. C47713 is 194.5 cm long, and does obviously not fit inside NME 892. However, the head end of the coffin is entirely made up of modern materials, conveniently stamped ‘1924’ (Figure 1).33 The modern boards that make up the wall at the head end are slightly thicker than the boards of the original side walls, and the inclination of the curve of a sharper angle than one would expect on an original coffin case of this kind. One can therefore assume that the coffin originally was a few cm longer than it is today. In fact, Gustaf Upmark measured the coffin as 205 cm long in 1894 (Doc 7), i.e. 5 cm longer than it is today. The conclusion must be that before the 1924 restoration, the inner length of the coffin could not have been less than 193 + 5 = 198 cm, which is more than enough to hold C47713.

The archive material tells us that the outer coffin NME 892 in Stockholm originally had an inner coffin, namely C47713 in Oslo. It has been suggested that the mummycover NME 895 in Stockholm also belonged to this ensemble, and that these components make up the complete, five piece ensemble A7. According to Daressy, these coffins once sheltered the mummy of a young girl (136 cm long) named Ankhsenmut.32 No one has ever suggested this way of matching the components before, and when we turn to the physical evidence, this is perhaps not so surprising. First of all, the three components are of very different styles, obviously produced in different workshops at different times. Another obvious objection to the matching of the inner coffin C47713 with the outer coffin NME 892 is the fact that C47713 is too long to fit inside NME 892.

Evidence of reuse The conclusions presented under this heading were reached through discussion with Andrzej Niwiński. I am grateful to him for accepting my invitation to Scandinavia in March 2010, and for spending a week of his time with me in the respective museums. Without his expertise, this reconstruction of the ensembles would not have been possible. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Museum of Cultural Heritage in Oslo and the Egyptology section at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History in Uppsala for financing the trip. 32 DARESSY, 1907: 22, no. 7. 31

NME 892 and C47713 are very different in style and type, and certainly not produced for the same woman. The The year was engraved on the steel reinforcements on the bottom of the case and stamped on the modern boards at the head end. I have not been able to find any report on the 1924 reconstruction, but it is mentioned in a later report (Petkov 1984). 33

178

Anders Bettum: Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway)

Fig. 3 - The name ‘Ankhsenmut’, spelled with the vertical ‘s’. NME 892, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm). The name As we have seen, NME 892 is often mentioned in published catalogues, where it usually is described as ‘anonymous’. NME 892 is not anonymous. There are five columns of text on the foot piece of the coffin lid, and in the central one, the name of the deceased has been written with monochrome dark blue in an otherwise polychrome text.

Fig. 2 - Evidence of reuse: This mummy-board, inscribed for the lady Nesypernub, has evidently been reused by a man. Three of the most distinct gender markers have been altered superficially: The fingers have been cut off to give the impression of closed fists and the ear studs in relief have been removed/painted over. Immediately above the circular dents of the ear studs, a pair of protruding ears have been painted on the wig. NME 895, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm).

The marked area on Figure 3 reads: , Ankh...nmut, followed by the characteristic flower determinative ( ) which was used after the names of deceased women in this period.34 The reading of the second sign is somewhat insecure, but it probably was a vertical ‘s’ ( ), giving ‘Ankhsenmut’. Interestingly, however, Daressy35 spells the name with the horizontal ‘s’ ( ): . The two ‘s’es’ could be used interchangeably in this period, but nevertheless, it is odd that Daressy should spell the name differently from how it occurs on the coffin. In Doc 1D, the name is transliterated ‘Ankhsermaut’. ‘Maut’ is just another way of transcribing the name of the goddess ‘Mut’, but the ‘r’ replacing the ‘n’ is harder to explain. The poor preservation of the coffin, which we have seen reported in many of the early documents, may perhaps explain the confusion. Today, the paint surface has been restored, and a yellow paste fills the gaps where the original paint is missing. The text may actually appear more clearly now than it did in 1893.

mummy-cover NME 895 differs from both, and represents, with its over-dimensional collar, a third characteristic style. Furthermore, during our visit to the Mediterranean Museum, Niwiński pointed out that there seems to be a mismatch between the lid and the case of NME 892. The mismatch concerns the physical fit of the lid and the case, but is also typological: the iconography of the case is heavily influenced by the books of the netherworld, indicating a later date of production than for the lid. The lid seems to be some decades older than the other components of the set. The various components of this set appear to have been scrambled together from various sources when the young girl passed away, perhaps suddenly and unexpectedly. Against this background, it is perhaps not so far-fetched to suggest that the mummy-cover NME 895, inscribed for the lady Nesypernub and later modified for a man (Figure 2), could have been reused a third time for the burial of the young girl whose name may or may not have been Ankhsenmut.

It is interesting to note that the name was written in monochrome dark blue in an otherwise polychrome inscription. Many coffins of this period were produced for The hieroglyphs have been reversed to facilitate comparison with other printed variants of the name. 35 DARESSY, 1907: 21. 34

179

Body, Cosmos and Eternity sale on an open market, with slots left open in the texts for the buyer to fill in the name. Quite often, for example on the male coffin lid and mummy-cover in Oslo (C47714a,c) and the female coffin VM 152 in Uppsala, these slots are still open, and varnished over like the rest of the decoration (Figures 7-8). Kathlyn M. Cooney has suggested that this feature was a conscious way of preparing a coffin for reuse.36 The underlying varnish would give a kind of ‘wipe-board effect’, where the name of the former owner could be washed off quite easily and replaced with a new one. It would have been very simple to make such a change for the new owner, and practical one would think, for these ‘parish coffins’ which probably were shuffled around, reburied and reused repeatedly.

to it. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of the shroud is not known, and Daressy reproduces only the beginning of the text in his publication: ‘ , etc.’.42 The text reads: ‘Recitation (by) Mut, the great lady of Isheru’. It would probably have continued with a plea to the goddess for offerings or other afterlife favors, followed by the name of the deceased. If this was the case, it seems likely that the name recorded here was Ankhsenmut(es), spelled with two horizontal ‘s’es’. A 121: The five-piece coffin ensemble of Khonsumes in Stockholm and Uppsala Again, the archive material gives a surprising result, one that contradicts all previous attempts to reconstruct the ensemble of Khonsumes. What is surprising is the addition of the outer coffin NME 890 in Stockholm to the ensemble. Whereas the inner coffin VM 152 and mummycover NME 894 in Uppsala are named, of high quality and stylistically very similar, NME 890 is anonymous and lacks the characteristics of the other two components.

However, recorded on the reused outer coffin lid only, one may question if the name Ankhsenmut actually belonged to the mummy inside. The title introducing the name is badly damaged, but I am reasonably certain that it says ‘mistress of the house’ (nebet-per), a title which usually was given to married women who were running their own households. This gives reason to suspect that the name Ankhsenmut refers not to the young girl who used the coffin last, but rather to a former owner. However, it is not unlikely that the title ‘mistress of the house’ belongs to the original inscription. C47714c and VM 152 both have their priestly titles written before the open slot where the name was supposed to be filled in (Figures 7-8). Cooney37 reports the same for a number of coffins in Italian collections. For reasons that still elude us, it seems that only the names were changeable on the ‘parish-coffins’, and that the titles remained unchanged when these coffins were reused.

It was earlier assumed that NME 890 was the outer coffin of C47714 in Oslo,43 and that the ensemble of Khonsumes consisted of a single coffin and mummy-cover only.44 For my own part, I can say that this assumption was based on the fact that both NME 890 and C47714 were male and anonymous coffins with stylistically similar and typologically compatible decoration. The components belonging to Khonsumes’ ensemble share some very characteristic features, especially in the execution of the face and the wig (‘Asiatic’ looking eyes, exceptionally large ears and a prominent chin). These features are absent on NME 890. It also seemed unlikely that an unnamed outer coffin should be part of the same ensemble as a named inner coffin and mummy-cover.

There is also some evidence to suggest that there was a second occurrence of the name Ankhsenmut somewhere on the ensemble A 7. We have already seen how Daressy spelled the name differently from how it occurs on the coffin. In fact, in his 1907 article, Daressy provides two different spellings of the name. As we saw in Table 1, he in his list of lots, a spelling uses the spelling that also was used by Lieblein.38 In the list of objects,39 however, he adds another horizontal ‘s’ at the end: , a spelling that later was used by Porter and Moss.40 Both spellings differ quite markedly from the one ). In fact, it would seem that Daressy, on the coffin ( like later authors, missed the poorly preserved name on the coffin entirely, and based his spelling on another inscription. However, the name does not occur on any of the other components of the coffin ensemble. So where could this inscription have come from?

However, the archive material leaves little doubt that this actually was the case. Having established that Khonsumes in Stockholm is A121 and not A82 as stated by Daressy, it is interesting to note that A121 is said to be anonymous in the original name list.45 With NME 890 as the outermost coffin of the ensemble, this makes perfect sense. Only later, when the inner coffin was examined, did the ensemble obtain a name. Again, reuse seems to be a natural way to explain the unexpected composition of this ensemble. In his conservation report on the outer coffin NME 890 from 1980, Håkan Lindberg reports evidence of reuse. Double layers of paint can be seen in cracks by the hands on the lid, and the decoration on the interior of the case has been altered.46 While examining this coffin along with Niwiński in March 2010, we found more evidence of reuse. On the exterior of the footboard of the case, the silhouette of a

The mummy from A 7 was among the ones that were unwrapped by Fouquet soon after the cache had been emptied.41 Daressy mentions an inscribed shroud belonging 36 37 38 39 40 41

COONEY, 2012b: 30. COONEY, 2012b: 26-27. LIEBLEIN, 1892: 993, no. 7. DARESSY, 1907:5. PORTER, MOSS, 1964:39. DARESSY, 1907: 21-22.

42 43 44 45 46

180

DARESSY, 1907: 22, No. 7. NIWIŃSKI, 1988a: 162; BETTUM, 2004: 70-2. ENGLUND, 1985: 33. LIEBLEIN, 1892: 998; DARESSY, 1907: 10, 21. LINDBERG, 1980: 2.

Anders Bettum: Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway)

Fig. 4 - The outer coffin of Khonsumes (A121). NME 890, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm).

Fig. 5 - Evidence of reuse: The outline of a djed-pillar can be seen at the center of this foot-board. The motif was part of the standard repertoire of coffin decoration from the 18th to the early 21st Dynasty. By the mid 21st Dynasty, to which this coffin has been dated, foot-boards were no longer painted. NME 890, Medelhavsmuseet (Stockholm). 181

Body, Cosmos and Eternity

Fig. 6 - Evidence of reuse: Whereas the edge on top of the side walls has a lip to receive the lid, the edge of the wall surrounding the head, which is noticeably higher than the side walls, does not. It is also worth noting that the floor of the coffin is painted, but the interior walls are not. The coffin appears to have been pieced together from sections of at least two old coffins.

Fig. 7 - This mummy-cover is a splendid example of the ‘parish-coffins’ used in the mid 21st Dynasty, where open slots were left in the texts for the name of a future owner or owners to be filled in. C47714c, the Museum of Cultural Heritage (Oslo).

182

Anders Bettum: Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway)

Fig. 8 - The foot piece of this coffin lid has broken off, and the two vertical text columns interrupted before the name of the deceased was introduced. The text is the same in both columns, but in the left hand column, a tighter writing and a few cm more of preserved plaster tells us that this also was an anonymous ‘parish-coffin’: there is no name at all, only an open slot to be filled in for the next owner. The titles, ‘mistress of the house, songstress of Amun-Re’, are part of the original, permanent inscription. VM 152, the Victoria Museum, Uppsala. singular djed-pillar can be seen on the unpainted wood (Figure 5). This motif was common in this location on both black and early yellow coffins of the New Kingdom. There is also a mismatch between the side walls and the walls of the foot and head ends of the coffin case. The top edge of the side walls has a lip to receive the lid, most commonly found as part of the locking mechanism of inner coffin cases. The edges on the foot and head ends, however, are flat (Figure 6). Also, it is noteworthy that the floor of the coffin is decorated, whereas the inside walls have not been painted at all. The coffin seems to have been assembled from the components of more than one older coffin.

in Southern Asasif.48 The inner coffin and mummy-cover inscribed for this man, now in the Virginia Museum of Art in Richmond, were found in the considerably older outer coffin of a soldier by the name Iotefamun (Itefi-amun). Nesiamun’s undertakers had placed his coffin in an old tomb, and simply reused an outer coffin they found on the spot, without any kind of adaptation. As in the case of Khonsumes, the inner component(s) of these ensembles are pieces of high quality inscribed for the owner and commissioned while he or she was still alive, whereas the outermost component seems to have been acquired hastily and uncritically by those responsible for the burial in order to complete the ensemble.

It seems as if Khonsumes had the inner coffin and mummycover commissioned while he was still alive, whereas the outer coffin was a last minute solution, perhaps provided by his family while preparing for the funeral. I can think of at least two parallel examples. The 19th Dynasty ensemble of Katebet in the British museum consist of a high quality mask undoubtedly commissioned while the lady was still alive. Her coffin, however, as well as certain amulets found on her mummy, seems to have been intended for her husband.47 A much closer parallel is the 21st Dynasty ensemble of Nesiamun found by Winlock 47

A 37: A single coffin and mummy-cover of an anonymous man in Oslo All commentators seem to agree that the coffin case, lid and mummy-cover C47714 in Oslo belong together, and here the archive material and the physical evidence are also in agreement. The problem with this ensemble is not to prove the connection between these components, but rather to demonstrate that this is all there is to it, and that there are no other associated objects. There are particularly

BETTUM, 2012: 118-20, 238-41, pl. 6-16.

48

183

WINLOCK, 1921: 34-36.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity two claims that need to be dismissed: 1) that there is an outer coffin associated with this ensemble, and 2) that a shabti with the name of the otherwise anonymous owner of A37 was found by Daressy in Bab el-Gasus.

man, namely another son of the high priest Menkheperre, whose coffins (A 143) are still in Cairo.59 Other shabtis named Hor originating from the cache are not known (personal correspondence with Miguel Angel Escobar). It is most likely then, that Daressy found a stray shabti on the floor nearby A 37, a shabti which originated from the ensemble A 143 and fell off during transportation of this assemblage further into the tomb. In her standard work on the shabtis from Bab el-Gasus, Liliane Aubert seems to have reached the same conclusion.60

No outer coffin It was Niwiński49 who first suggested that A37 possibly had an outer coffin in Stockholm. Despite Niwiński’s reservations, this idea clearly gained a foothold at the Museum of Cultural heritage in Oslo. I am responsible for having reproduced the error in my MA thesis50 and on the labels of the exhibition. It would be years before I found the proof that the outer coffin NME 890 did not, in fact, belong to A 37 but to A 121 as discussed above.51

A 80: The singular coffin of an anonymous woman, possibly reused for a child. After his first visit to Sweden, Niwiński suggested that A 80 consisted of the inner coffin VM 152 in Uppsala and the outer coffin NME 892 in Stockholm.61 As demonstrated above, however, NME 892 is the outer coffin of Ankhsenmut in an ensemble where C47713 in Oslo must have been the inner coffin. Moreover, Doc 7 states that VM 152 (=’D’) was labeled when it arrived. This indicates, as discussed above, that it was the outermost coffin in the ensemble. Doc 1D states that the coffin contained the mummy of a child. Such information was not given for A 7, which we know was used for a child, and it is possible that the author of the note confused the two. It is not impossible, however, that both sets were used for child mummies.

While the evidence discussed so far indicates that NME 890 was part of the ensemble A 121, there is also independent evidence indicating that A 37 was deposited in Bab el-Gasus as a singular coffin ensemble. Looking closely at Daressy’s plan of the tomb,52 A 37 was evidently positioned on top of another ensemble: A 38, now in Cairo.53 For reasons of weight and balance, it is highly unlikely that ensembles with outer coffins were positioned on top of others. No associated shabti Some of the priests buried in Bab el-Gasus were provided with shabtis, little figurines of workers believed to come alive in the Netherworld and help the deceased if he was called upon to do heavy labor. These figurines were usually inscribed with the names and titles of the deceased. In his archaeological report, Daressy listed a number of shabtis which he associated with certain coffins.54 One such shabti, inscribed with the name Hor, is listed with reference to our A 37. For this reason, David A. Aston55 applies the name Hor to the male coffin in Oslo. The assumption, however, is incorrect.

If it was used by a child, A 80 was undoubtedly reused, since the coffin originally was made for an adult (according to Doc 7, it is 185 cm long). There are also other indications that the coffin was part of the same culture of re-comodification as the other specimens of Lot 14. Two columns of text running down the front of the lid brakes off by the missing foot piece, and may have contained a name. In the text on the viewer’s left side, however, there appears to be an open field just before the text brakes off, indicating that this also was an anonymous ‘parish coffin’ (Figure 8). Furthermore, the curator of the Victoria Museum, Geoffrey Metz, has suggested that there may be a mismatch between the lid and the case of VM 152 (personal communication). During our visit in 2010, Niwiński found the two pieces to be typologically compatible, but since the lid was in storage and the case on display, we were not able to test the compatibility physically. However, given the evidence for reuse found elsewhere in the collection and the parallel situation with NME 890, I find no reason to doubt Metz’ observation.

The relationship between the shabti and A 37 is not given in Daressy’s publication, but in general, he states that the shabtis were found in boxes or baskets near or on top of the respective coffin, or they would simply lie on the ground near the coffin.56 In the latter case, the shabti could have dropped to the ground during transportation, and could in principle belong to any ensembles located further inside the cache. The name Hor was very common, and occurs on at least four other ensembles.57 Thanks to the generous assistance of colleagues all over Europe,58 I was able to track down about a dozen shabtis named Hor, located in Paris, Windsor, Cairo, Uppsala and Stockholm. Unfortunately, they all turned out to belong to the same

Under the discussion of A 7 above, it was suggested that the mummy-cover of Nesypernub, NME 985 in Stockholm, was reused as part of the ensemble of Ankhsenmut. This suggestion is simply based on probability: I find it more likely that the mummy-cover would be lacking from a single-coffin ensemble than from a dual-coffin ensemble. However, the possibility that NME 895 was part of A 80 cannot be entirely excluded.

NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 163, no. 320. BETTUM, 2004: 70-72. 51 As noted above, Niwiński confused NME 890 with NME 891, a mistake that was reproduced by Aston. 52 DARESSY, 1900: 147. 53 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 203. 54 DARESSY 1907: 14-17. 55 ASTON, 2009: 170. 56 DARESSY, 1907: 14. 57 NIWIŃSKI, 1988A: 188. 58 In particular: Saphinaz-Amal Naguib, Geoffrey Metz, Sofia Häggman, Miguel Angel Escobar and Nicholas Reeves. 49 50

59 60 61

184

NIWIŃSKI, 1988A: 119, no. 83. AUBERT, 1998: 81. NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 174, no. 396.

Anders Bettum: Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus (Sweden and Norway) 6. Conclusions Table 8. Lot 14 reconstructed a-nr

type of object Outer coffin Inner coffin Mummy-cover

CURRENT LOCATION

Current inv numbers

7 7 7

Stockholm Oslo Stockholm

NME 892 C47713 (=EM8123) NME 895

37 37 80 121 121 121

Single coffin Mummy-cover Single coffin Outer coffin Inner coffin Mummy-cover

Oslo Oslo Uppsala Stockholm Uppsala Stockholm

name

Ankhsenmut Name lost (Usurped from) Nesypernub C47714ab (=EM8124) Anonymous C47714c (=EM8125) Anonymous VM 152 (=NME 893) Anonymous NME 890 Anonymous VM 228 (=NME 891) Khonsumes NME 894 Khonsumes

When trying to reconstruct the coffin ensembles from Bab el-Gasus, or coffins from the 21st Dynasty in general, the careful study of the documentation is no less important than the study the coffins themselves. Due to the widespread practice of reusing funerary equipment in this period, traditional criteria such as type and style, name and title identification, painting technique and epigraphic detail are useful only up until a certain point. Of the 15 components of Lot 14 from Bab el-Gasus, only eight could be combined by looking at the material evidence alone. These are: the case, lid and mummy-cover of A 37, the inner coffin case and lid of A 7 and the mummy-cover and inner coffin lid and case from A 121. These components could be combined in this way because they were evidently made as part of the same ensemble, in the same workshop, at the same time. The remaining seven components fail this test of physical compatibility. They were evidently not made by the same people at the same time, and yet the archive material tells us that they matched up in ensembles still the same. In one case, two components seemed impossible to combine due to incompatible measurements, but even in this case the positive match gained from the archive material seems to prevail. It has been demonstrated how the outer coffin of A 7 has been shortened considerably by modern conservation, to the point where the inner coffin C47713 no longer would fit inside.

titles nbt-pr Smayt n imn-ra nsw-nTrw Hsyt-aAt nbt-pr Smayt

nbt-pr Smayt n imn-ra nsw-nTrw Hsyt-mwt nbt-pt

Hsy-aA m rx-imn nbt-pr Smayt n imn... wab n mwt sS pr-imn wab n mwt sS pr-imn

employing the physical test to components across the collections. Such a task cannot be satisfactory conducted before a comprehensive database is in place, but so far, there is nothing to suggest that there are any components of the coffin ensembles from Lot 14 located outside the museums in Stockholm, Uppsala and Oslo. Reuse of funerary equipment in the 21st Dynasty, on the other hand, is a very plausible explanation. While the practice has been known at least since the discovery of Bab el-Gasus,62 it is only the past 4-5 years that it has been studied systematically. Through the research of Kathlyn M. Cooney and her team,63 the full scope and impact of this practice is starting to dawn on us. Bibliography ASTON, D. A. (2009) – Burial Assemblages of Dynasty 21-25. Chronology - typology - developments. Wien: Verlag der Österreichschen Akademie der Wissenschaften. AUBERT, L. (1998) – Les statuettes funéraires de la deuxième cachette à Deir el-Bahari. Paris: Cybele. BETTUM, A. (2004) – Death as an eternal process. A case study of a 21st Dynasty coffin at the University Museum of Cultural Heritage in Oslo. Unpublished MA-thesis, University of Oslo. Accessible at: http:// www.duo.uio.no BETTUM, A. (2012) – Faces within faces. The symbolic function of nested yellow coffins. Oslo: Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo, PhD dissertation. COONEY, K. M. (2011) – Changing burial practices at the end of the New Kingdom: Defensive adaptations in tomb commissions, coffin commissions, coffin decoration, and mummification. In Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 47, p. 3-44. COONEY, K. M. (2012a) – Objectifying the body: The increased value of the Ancient Egyptian mummy

When the physical test of adherence failed, and the archive material still tells us that the components were found as one ensemble, I have chosen to explain this with reference to the practice of reuse of funerary equipment in the 21st Dynasty. There are of course other possible explanations. The components could have been confused in antiquity when the coffins were moved from their original burial places to the Bab el-Gasus cache. They could also have been confused during the clearance of the tomb by Bouriant and Grébaut, by the people receiving and storing them in the Cairo Museum, or during the transportation to Alexandria. If this was the case, however, it should be possible to find the true match of the ensembles by

62 63

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MASPERO, 1903: 228-29. COONEY, 2011; COONEY, 2012a; COONEY, 2012b.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity during the socioeconomic crisis of Dynasty 21. In PAPADOPOULOS, J. K.; URTON, G., eds. – The construction of value in the ancient world (pp. 139159). Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA. COONEY, K. M. (2012b) – Coffin reuse in the TwentyFirst Dynasty. The demands of ritual transformation. In ‘Backdirt - Annual Review of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA’, p. 22-33. DARESSY, M. G. (1896) – Contribution a l’étude de la XXIe dynastie Égyptienne. In Revue Archeologique 28, p. 72-90. DARESSY, M. G. (1900) – Les sepultures des prètres d’Ammon à Deir el-Bahari. Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 1, p. 141-48. DARESSY, M. G. (1907) - Les cercueils des prètres d’Ammon (Deuxième trouvaille de Deir el-Bahari). Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 8, p. 3-38. DAWSON, W. R.; UPHILL, E. P. (1972) – Who was who in Egyptology. London: The Egypt Exploration Society. ENGLUND, G. (1974) - Propos sur l´iconographie d´un sarcophage de la 21e dynastie. In BRUNNSÅKER, S.; NORDSTRÖM, H.-Å. (Eds.), From the Gustavianum collections in Uppsala (pp. 37-69). Uppsala. ENGLUND, G. (1985) - Interior iconography of the coffin of Khonsu-mes. Medelhavsmuseets Bulletin 20, p. 3341. FOUQUET, D. (1896) – Note por servir a l’histoire de l’embaumement en Égypte. Bulletin de l’Institut Égyptien 7, p. 89-97. GARDINER, Alan (1957) – Egyptian grammar, being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs. Oxford: Griffith Institute. LIEBLEIN, J. D. C. (1892) – Dictionaire de noms hiéroglyphiques publié d’après les monuments égyptiens. Supplément. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs. LIEBLEIN, J. D. C. (1894) – H. M. Kongens seneste gave til universitetet. In ‘Aftenposten’ 35 (111) 27.02.1894, p. 1. LINDBERG, H. (1980) – Mumiekista NME 890. Unpublished conservation report. Riksantikvarieämbetet och Statens historiska museer. Tekniska institusjonen, sektionen för måleri på trä. LUGN, P. (1922) – Ausgewählte Denkmähler aus ägyptischen Sammlungen in Schweden. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung. LUGN, P. (1923) - Egypten i fynd och forskning 1. Stockholm: Hugo Gebers Förlag. MASPERO, G. (1903) - Guide to the Cairo Museum. Cairo: The French Institute of Archaeology. NIWIŃSKI, A. (1984) - The Bab el-Gusus tomb and the royal cache in Deir el-Bahri. In Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 70, p. 73-81. NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1988) - Twenty-first Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies. Mainz am Rhein: Phillip von Zabern NIWIŃSKI, A. (1996) – La seconde trouvaille de Deir el-Bahari – Sarcophages (Catalogue général des

antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Nos 60296068). Cairo: Conseil Suprême des Antiquités de l’Égypte; Institut d’Archéologie Mediterranéenne au Caire; Centre Polonais d’Archéologie Mediterranéenne au Caire. NIWIŃSKI, A. (2006) - The Book of the Dead on the coffins of the 21st Dynasty. In B. BACKES, I. MUNRO; S. STÖHR (Eds.) – Totenbuch-Forschungen: Gesammelte Beiträge des 2. Internationalen Totenbuch-Symposiums Bonn, 25. bis 29. September 2005 (pp. 245-271). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. PETERSON (1972) - Ausgewählte ägyptische Personennamen nebst prosopographischen Notizen aus Stockholmer Sammlungen. In ‘Orientalia Suecana’ 19-20 (1970-71), p. 3-22. PETKOV, S. (1984) – Mumiekista. Konservering, restaurering. Unpublished conservation report. Riksantikvarieämbetet och Statens historiska museer. Tekniska institusjonen, sektionen för måleri på trä. PORTER, B.; R. L. B. MOSS (1964) – Topographical bibliography of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, reliefs, and paintings (Vol. I; The Theban necropolis. Part 2: Royal Thebes and smaller cemeteries). Oxford: The Clarendon Press. STARCK, S. (1974) – The Victoria Museum - An introduction. In BRUNNSÅKER, S.; NORDSTRÖM, H.-Å. (Eds.), From the Gustavianum collections in Uppsala Uppsala, p. 11-14. WESTENDORF, W. (1968) – Das alte Ägypten. BadenBaden. WINLOCK, H. E. (1921) – The Egyptian Expedition 19201921: III. Excavations at Thebes. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 16 (11), p. 29-53.

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The coffins of the priests of Amun: a socio-economic investigation on Bab el-Gasus cachette Elena Paganini University of Pisa Abstract Bab el-Gasus cache contained the burials of the priests of the temple of Amun at Karnak and their wives/daughters, died from the end of Menkheperre’s pontificate to that of Psusennes III. It is an excellent subject for a research work that tries to combine the stylistic analysis of the objects part of the funerary equipment of the deceased with the study of their religious and administrative titles. In this paper the focus is on the coffins of these priests. Being works of art bearing ideological, social and economic meanings, their analysis proceeds on different levels that must be held together in order understand better the economic and social status, the political and religious role of Bab el-Gasus’ ‘population’ and the changes in the ages of crisis of the 21st Dynasty.

Bab el-Gasus cachette contained the burials of the priests of the temple of Amun at Karnak and their wives/ daughters, died from the end of Menkheperre’s pontificate to that of Psusennes III.1 Dealing with Bab el-Gasus, there are typological studies on the objects part of the funerary equipment of 21st Dynasty burials (coffins, papyrus, funerary statuettes...)2 and studies about the temple of Amun at Karnak, its clergy and, especially, the family of the High Priests, rulers of Thebes in the 21st Dynasty;3 but the results of them have never been compared between each other. Offering a unique opportunity to face with a synchronic sample of burials of a determined social circle, restricted to few generations and to a limited period of Theban history, Bab el-Gasus is an excellent subject for a research work that tries to combine the objects’ stylistic analysis with the study of religious and administrative titles.4 If the inscriptions on objects tell us, with more or less details, who was the deceased, what was his/her job, who were his parents, his wife, his children and what they did, and the quality of the manufacture and depictions of the objects reveals their price and thus the economic possibilities of the owner and his family, we can then try to establish a connection between the position in the hierarchy of the temple and the economic power that results from it. We can try to understand better the economic and social status, the political and religious role of Bab el-Gasus’ ‘population’, as composed not by general categories of persons, but by real men and women who relate with each other into their own family and in the extended one of the temple.

certain to posses the entire funerary equipment that every mummy had in its primary burial; during the movements, illegal appropriations and mistakes may have disturbed the original distribution of the objects. The modern dispersion of the artifacts in museums and private collections all over the world makes harder finding information about them and reconstructing the original sets. All these facts have consequences on the possibility to exploit completely this important finding for the historical, economic, social and artistic study of the second half of the 21st Dynasty. Starting from this research work, the focus is here on the coffins of Bab el-Gasus’s deceased. Coffins are works of art bearing ideological, social and economic meanings thanks to their manufacture, depictions and inscriptions. Their analysis, then, must proceed on different levels that must be held together in order to gain any information about the people who made and used them. 1. Coffins: typological classification and stylistic analysis5 From Bab el-Gasus 153 sets of coffins were extracted. This is a total of 606 individual objects (cases, lids and mummy-covers), that is 2/3 of the coffins of the 21st Dynasty known so far. A complete set consisted of five parts: outer case and cover, inner case and cover and mummy-cover, as a third lid ling directly on the mummy. Shape and composition of the upper part of the lid are considered the most important formal element for the typological classification of coffins. Niwiński distinguishes five types, numbered according to the chronological order of appearance.

It is inevitable that an attempt of reconstruction starting from artifacts implies lacunas and doubts. We are not

The basic form of the lid of the anthropoid coffin was made of sycamore wood, tree sacred to Hathor; different elements modeled separately were then glued to it: mask, hands, feet, wig, false beard, ears and amulets. Beard, ears and hands clenched into fists with amulets denote a male

DARESSY, 1900; NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 25-27. Inter alia: AUBERT, 1988; NIWIŃSKI, 1988; NIWIŃSKI, 1989; SADEK, 1985. 3 Inter alia: KITCHEN, 1973; KRUCHTEN, 1989; LEFEBVRE, 1929; NAGUIB, 1900; ONSTINE, 2005; SAUNERON, 1960. 4 ‘Vita e morte dei ‘cittadini’ di Amon: indagine socio-economica sulla cache di Bab el-Gasus’ MA graduation thesis discussed on the 21st of November 2012 at the University of Pisa, supervisor Prof. Marilina Betrò. 1 2

5

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NIWIŃSKI, 1988.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity owner; open hands, breasts and earrings decorated with a motif of rosette, a female owner. On coffins belonging to the High Priests’ family face, ears, hands and wig are gilded. The wsx collar is a constant element, decorated with bands that are parallel to the curved edge in imitation of the rows of beads of royal collars.

decoration of the lower side of the table of the feet, become useless, completely disappears.7 Therefore, starting from the middle of the pontificate of Menkheperre, with the introduction of type II-c, the decorations of the case and of the lid form no longer a unit, as was in the New Kingdom and at the beginning of the 21st Dynasty.

The process that will gradually lead from the representation of the deceased on the lids of the coffin as a living person, typical of Ramesside age (type I), to that as mummy at the time of Osorkon I, starts in the 21st Dynasty.

It seems to be recognizable a progressive tendency to increase the density of the decorative elements, leaving the figures on large scale, clear and defined, and arriving to the horror vacui with a general decrease in the quality of figures.

For a long time, until the beginning of the pontificate of Pinedjem II, type II was in use: the deceased was represented as a mummy wrapped in bandages in the lower half of the body, while in the upper part he/she remained unwrapped with arms modeled in relief, crossed on the chest. After the transitional subtype II-d in which arms are only painted over the collar, they disappear, wrapped in bandages, while elbows and hands continue to be modeled in relief and fixed afterwards above the collar according to tradition (type III-a and b, in use during the reigns of Pinedjem and Psusennes II). With the subtype III-c also elbows disappear under the collar, and finally, with the type V at the end of the dynasty, the collar extends far beyond the belly and the representation of braces completes the representation of a real mummy (always except for the hands, which will disappear only in the 22nd Dynasty). Contemporary to type III is the use of Ramesside decoration for lids, along with other types of decoration in the same set; these objects, classified as type IV and interpreted by Niwiński as a deliberate tendency to archaism, which can be found during the second half of the 21st Dynasty (from the last years of Menkheperre’s pontificate to that of Psusennes included) but culminates with the pontificate of Pinedjem II, have been recently interpreted by Cooney as original Ramesside coffins reused.6

Despite mummy-cover and lids belonging to the same set of coffins have, in most cases, a similar decoration, it is possible that different types of decorations appear side by side. Some of them were used simultaneously, especially during the pontificate of Pinedjem II: they are probably the expression of different workshops and Theban artists, free to express themselves in products of different style and quality. Some trends in this regard are recognizable. Most of the lids of type II-a, shows high quality decorations and has been commisioned. The few type II-b coffins are of different quality and they likely come from different workshops: the inner coffin in Cairo Museum CG 62296230, for example, is one of the best examples known from the 21st Dynasty, while CG 6247-6248 is of very inferior quality. The majority of type II-c coffins are of good quality. As regards type III-a lids, beside objects of high quality there are many products from secondary workshops. It seems that the introduction of this new type, the construction of which was simpler in comparison with types II with sculpted forearms, encouraged mass production of anonymous and economic coffins. Types III-b and c, in fact, were introduced in the last years of the pontificate of Pinedjem II, present poor quality, even those belonging to the family of High Priests (CG 6288-6289 belonging to Maatkare, Pinedjem II’s daughter), many of them are anonymous and serial products. ‘Archaizing’ types are almost always used together with lids with other types of decoration (especially type II) and, practically all, are of high quality and realized to order, probably by the same good workshop.

The bottom of the lid, under the collar, is completely painted in brick red, light and dark green on a yellow background. Strips of inscriptions or ornamental motifs define the panels containing figurative scenes. The composition of this grid, which can be vertical (with the exception of the first three registers under the collar that are always horizontal - types II, III-a, IV-a and b), ‘semi-horizontal’ (when more than three registers are horizontal - III-b, V) or horizontal (III-c) seems to be the favorite field for the expression of the formal inclinations of individual artists; but a general tendency to progressive transition from vertical to horizontal compositions can be also recognized. Hieroglyphic signs of the inscriptions that are perpendicular to the central strip can be horizontal or vertical as those of the parallel inscriptions. If the first ones are vertical and second ones are horizontal, coffins were intended to be observed horizontally (II-a, IV-a); on the contrary, they should be placed vertically (II-c, II-d, III-a, III-b), so that after the middle of the 21st Dynasty the 6

As regards the outside of the case, Niwiński distinguishes five types of decoration according to the type of composition of the depictions and to the density of the decorative elements: they follow the changes already described for the lid. We go from type A (in use until the middle of the pontificate of Menkheperre) that comes directly from the type of decoration of New Kingdom coffins, with vertical composition and low density, through the increase of density in type B (the most frequently used for all the 21st Dynasty) and the semi-horizontal composition of type C (second half of the 21st Dynasty), to get to the rare type E (in use during the pontificates of Pinedjem II and Could these changes in decoration be connected with changes in funerary rites that must have happened when they were no longer performed in front of the entrance of the tomb (see ‘Coffins: changes of values in ages of crisis’)?

7

COONEY, 2012: 139–159.

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Elena Paganini: The coffins of the priests of Amun: a socio-economic investigation on Bab el-Gasus cachette Psusennes) characterized by horizontal composition and horror vacui, as the contemporary type III-c of lids. Type D is the typical ‘archaism’ of the pontificate of Pinedjem II and turns to Ramesside age with vertical composition, low density of the decorative elements and especially white background; it is found almost exclusively on outer coffins and it is always associated with type IV-a lids and inner coffins’ caves of type A.

of purchase with names and titles of the deceased, written in cursive hieroglyphs in black ink, or not completed at all, the coffin being left anonymous. Coffins could also not fit the length of the mummy, and could require some adaptation interventions.

As regards the quality of the objects we find the same tendency to shift from the production of only first quality items with well done decoration for the oldest type A, to the typical variety of the newer types, when, beside coffins of high quality, anonymous, serial and lower quality products also appear (types B-C). As for lids, also cases with different types of decoration can be found in the same set of coffins.

Most Third Intermediate Period tombs are carved into the rock and undecorated: a well leads to a corridor that ends in one or more rooms, the walls of that, often, are not smoothed. These changes were especially due to the worsening of the economic situation and to the consequent increase in thefts in Theban tombs. Decorations, names and titles of rich and famous persons, increase the risk of plunder for a tomb; so, High Prophets started digging for themselves undecorated graves, creating a model to imitate. However, the magical function of texts and representations of the walls of the burial chamber was still considered critical to the fate of the deceased. Funerary papyri and coffins began to replace the walls.

2. The coffin and the lack of a traditional decorated tomb8

The inside of the case can be decorated with multicolored figures (brick red, light green, dark green, white, blue and black) on a light background (yellow, white or black and yellow) (type 2-c, type 4-a), with multicolored or monochrome figures (only the white or yellow outline) on a dark background (cherry red, brown or black) (type 2-a, 2-b, type 3), or simply painted in a dark color without figures (type 1). The all decoration forms a single unit. The figurative scenes on the lateral panels are symmetrical and divided into registers; they can be turned outwards (centrifugal composition) (type 2-c, 3-a, 3-b, 3-c, 4-a) or towards the bottom (centripetal composition) (type 2-b). The latter type can be decorated with a single predominant figure (vertical composition) (types 2, 3-a, 3-b) or with figurative scenes in horizontal registers one of which, considerably larger, is occupied by a central vertical figure (semi-horizontal composition) (type 3-b, 3-c, 4-a). Even in this case, the types of decoration were numbered from Niwiński in chronological order of appearance (with the exception of type 1 that includes both Ramesside coffins and ‘archaizing’ objects); however, some types are used simultaneously and are also found in the same coffin set (types 1 and 2, types 3 and 4).

Niwiński states that, since the beginning of the 18th Dynasty, the manuscripts of the Book of the Dead always come from undecorated tombs, even if their owners, belonging to the high Theban society, would certainly have been able to afford a decorated tomb according to tradition. It could be just a coincidence, and it is likely that officials with important titles, such as those attested on some famous papyri of the Book of the Dead of the 18th and 19th Dynasty, possessed also decorated tombs: simply they are still unknown or they have been destroyed. Generally, however, funerary papyri are not found in decorated tombs: even in the funerary equipment of kings and highest dignitaries, texts and paintings on the walls of the burial chamber are never duplicated on papyri. We can say that the two modes of expression are alternatives: from the religious point of view, the important thing for the deceased is only having the spells, hymns and magical texts necessary for his journey in the afterlife; the choice of the medium and the form in which they have to be expressed is secondary. The complicated cosmogonic, cosmological and eschatological conceptions, the new identification of the deceased with the Great God in the eternal cycle of its transformations during the passage through the diurnal and nocturnal sky as a multiplicity of forms of Ra and Osiris, whose development in representations reaches its peak precisely in the 21st Dynasty, required however a greater space than that provided by a roll of papyrus, or even from only a part of it.9 Thus the outside of the panels of inner coffins’ cases, the shape of that resembled that of a roll, began to be used for this purpose. Initially, the outside of the panels of outer coffins’ cases continue, as in the New Kingdom, to be decorated with traditional motifs of deities and simple formulas, then they also leave room to the new iconographic repertoire, to return only in some ‘archaistic’

With the introduction of type 3 in the last years of the pontificate of Menkheperre, we find the same tendency to a progressive increase in the density of representations and the emergence of objects resulting from a serial production, beside coffins of high quality. It is therefore possible to conclude that in the last years of the 21st Dynasty, the number of Theban workshops increased, probably due to the phenomenon of ‘democratization of funeral rites’, with the increased demand. High quality items and made to order for priests of high rank who could pay a hefty price are now produced along with more economic coffins, crafted for priests of lower rank. They often could afford only an inner coffin, produced in a secondary workshop, as witnessed by the poor quality decoration and by traces of a rush and inaccurate production. The space for the name left blank is a characteristic of these objects: it could be filled at the time

NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 11-19; NIWIŃSKI, 1989: 29-41. Using portions of papyrus rolls in order to realize more cheep funerary papyri became common practice in the 21st Dynasty.

8 9

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity specimens of the time of Pinedjem II (CG 6241-6242). Coffins decoration, which reaches the peak of the wealth of iconographic repertoire in the 21st Dynasty, can thus be seen as a continuation of the walls of Ramesside tombs: the same technique, colors, patterns of composition that were prepared by the theologians of the House of Life and drawn first on papyrus by artists, are therefore also the same as those found in contemporary funerary papyri.

Only papyri and coffins of ‘archaistic’ tendency recover the rigid tradition. Of these two new means of expression of funerary compositions, however, it seems that the coffin was considered the most important: all the mummies from Bab el-Gasus were placed in a coffin (many in two), but not all had at their disposal a papyrus. In fact, most of the papyri belonged to deceased provided with a double coffin. So only the richest people could afford a funerary equipment in its most complete form (set of coffins consisting of 5 pieces and at least one manuscript of the Book of the Dead and one of the Book of the Amduat). With the decrease of the available resources, generally, people renounced first to the outer coffin and to long papyrus rolls, then to one or both papyri.

3. Coffins and funerary papyri10 So coffins and papyri are alternatives to the walls of the tomb and replace them in their role as ‘carriers’ of the funeral compositions necessary for the journey of the deceased. The iconographic repertoire used on them is the same and has only one purpose: on the basis of magic, it promises and glorifies the resurrection of the dead, and his posthumous union with the Great God (nTr aA). But are they duplicates of each other? The material from Bab el-Gasus offers a wide range of comparisons. We choose some examples. The themes of the decoration of the outside of the panels of coffin CG 6185-6186, part of the new iconographic repertoire drawn from the beginning of the dynasty, are not repeated (with the exception of the scene of the Last Judgment and of the celestial Cow emerging from the western mountain) on the two papyri, that are very different from each other. Tawdjatre’s funerary equipment (CG 6278-6281), dating from the reign of Pinedjem II began, however, to present some repetition: the themes of the Book of the Dead appear also on the outer coffin and the series of forms of the Great God of the papyrus of the Amduat are found also on the inner coffins (only few figures, however, are repeated identical). At the end of the 21st Dynasty, while the coffins of Menkheperre’s niece, Herytuben (CG 6273-6277), decorated with themes from the royal Amduat, does not repeat the unusual repertoire of her papyrus, the repertoire of the royal Amduat reappeared on both the coffin and the papyrus belonging to Nesamon (CG 6290-6293).

4. The coffin and its mummy: dating the burial Historical information obtained from braces, pendants and bandages of the mummies of Bab el-Gasus, providing a terminus post quem for the construction of the coffin in which they were contained,11 were essential to Niwiński to make a formal framework of the evolution of coffins in the 21st Dynasty. Conversely, the mummies of Bab elGasus for which this information was not available, could received an approximate date (mid, mid / late, late 21st Dynasty) on the basis of the style of the coffin in which they were contained. It is necessary to precise, however, that the date of production of the coffin is necessarily separate from that of its use by a generally short time gap, perhaps a few weeks or months. There are, however, signals of different situations, which must be taken into account at the time of dating the interment: in these cases the dating of the coffin is not a definite proof that the body that has been found in it has been deposited in the same period that the object’s stylistic analysis assumes. One of these signals is name and title inscribed on the coffins that do not coincide with those on the objects found on the mummy. In this case the coffin may have been usurped; this situation was very common due to the high price of wood. Not everyone who took possession of a coffin reused it immediately for himself or for a family member; deleted and not replaced names assume a gap. It could perhaps have been occupied by workshops that bought coffins by those who, in need of money, had ‘stolen’ them, and resold them, either immediately or after some time, to a new customer looking for a object that was cheaper because of ‘second hand’.

From the comparison between the development of the themes represented on coffins and papyri, it seems possible to conclude that the iconographic repertoire, originally distinct, underwent a gradual process of unification. Until the end of the pontificate of Pinedjem II, the repetition of the same themes is always avoided in workshops of good quality. In the late 21st Dynasty similar themes drawn mainly from the Book of the Amduat are often used on different objects of the funerary equipment; however the iconographic repertoire is hardly identical on coffins and papyri prepared for the same person. Initially, therefore, the different items of the funerary equipment contained different parts of the entire repertoire: the manuscript of the Book of the Dead with formulas and vignettes, the papyrus of the Book of the Amduat with the representation of the divine forms, the outer coffin with the Sons of Horus and the inner coffin with the new theological compositions. Then the iconographic themes grew and began to mingle. 10

The name of the previous owner is deleted scraping away the paint or it is covered with a layer of paint and then replaced with the new name. In many cases, however, the old name was left in some secondary legend, probably for Bandages and shroud, braces and pendants, often report the name of the High Prophet in office in Thebes or that of the reigning king at the time of production; therefore, they can be used for the dating of the burial. The inscriptions on these materials belonging to the mummies of Bab el-Gasus were collected in DARESSY, 1896.

11

NIWIŃSKI, 1989: 219-235.

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Elena Paganini: The coffins of the priests of Amun: a socio-economic investigation on Bab el-Gasus cachette religious reasons. They tried, anyway, to keep as much as possible the original inscriptions and common names and titles favored this practice. It would be possible, for example, finding a coffin originally prepared for a wab of Amun named Padiamon, reused for a person with the same name and title; in this case the coffin may not show any signs of misuse, however, the mummy inside it would be more recent, and this could be revealed only by chronological indications that may be present on braces, pendants, bandages and probably by the stylistic analysis of the papyrus (if present). In the case of coffins CG 61526153 and CG 6136-6138, 6156-6157, for example, only the name has been replaced, but the titles have remained the same: the new owner had perhaps covered during his life the same functions?

a st-Hrs (burial place) along with many others. Most of the tombs of this period are reused earlier tombs; single or family graves of the 21st Dynasty discovered to date are really few: they are located in Deir el Medineh, Cheikh abdel-Gurnah, Assasif.13 The tombs of Deir el Bahari are group tombs and go back to the second half of the 21st Dynasty, particularly to the reign of Psusennes II. According to Niwiński14 this situation is the result of the work of the overseers of the necropolis who gathered in large cache near the temple of Hatshepsut the deceased originally deposited in individual or family tombs whose location was known. The known examples of these secondary burials are the Royal Cache, Bab el-Gusus cachette and the Tomb of the three princesses (N° 60). Naguib15 argues, however, that the hypothesis of secondary burials is not the only possible one. Returning to the royal prerogative of burials within the grounds of temples, attested from the 21st Dynasty,16 and given the state of insecurity in the Theban region, High Priests decided to gather the dead with their small funerary equipment firstly inside the enclosure of the temple of Medinet Habu, which had become a ‘warehouse’ of mummies waiting for a final burial, and later moved them, in real tombs in Deir el Bahari. The burial had to take place in two phases: the preparation of mummies and rituals that were made on them took place safely within the precincts of the temple. Funerary rites, such as the Opening of the mouth, not taking place at the entrance of the tomb helped to maintain the secrecy of the burial site.

In other cases the coffin suffered more substantial interventions, for example, when it was necessary to shorten or enlarge the case (Cairo CG 6046 and 6021 and CG 6002-6004), or when it was reused for a deceased of the opposite sex. In the latter case hands were changed, breasts, ears, beard were added or removed, the wig was repainted. When the titles on the coffin do not match those found on the mummy or inscribed on other objects belonging to the same person, it is also possible that the coffin has been prepared in advance. This is the case of Nesamun, which became Third Prophet of Amun when his coffin was already prepared, with the lower title of Fourth Prophet. Coffins prepared in advance, whose date on stylistic basis, therefore, is older than that of their use, are also those arising from mass production (CG 6065-6069, CG 62866289).

In this context also the funerary equipment undergoes some changes: it is reduced to the minimum which could take place within the coffin, every object that is not strictly funerary is abandoned. Every object of everyday life is left out also because its value of commodity would attract the attention of thieves. The coffins set now assumes the most important role previously belonged to the decorated tomb, as a place where the dead will reside forever, as an individual within the wider community of the group burial. Condensing the protective function of the walls of the tomb in an innovative iconography, coffins are transformed, in this way, in personal and portable tombs. Locked in his coffin and equipped with spells, amulets and a papyrus stuck between the bandage, the deceased had to his disposal everything he needed for the eternity, and could be carried easily anywhere it should be moved.

5. Coffins: changes of values in ages of crisis We have already seen that also significant stylistic changes can be determined by socio-economic factors: when certain social categories start not to be able to afford a decorated tomb or chapel and even the elite families are buried in large undecorated cache, representations move on the coffin on which the density of decoration increases, up to the horror vacui. It is a change of priorities in the funerary culture, dictated also by the political, social and economic situation. With the transition from the 19th to the 20th Dynasty the construction of new tombs decreased significantly in favor of the reuse of earlier structures; gradually, with the worsening of the economic and social crisis that makes the necropolis of Thebes prey of robbers, aboveground funerary chapels are built no more, burial sites are kept secret, invisible and inaccessible12, often in underground structures already dug in previous centuries, enlarged to accommodate group graves, where the deceased has now

Tombs TT 18, 68, 70, 291, 307, 337, 348. In all these cases underground structures already dug in Ramesside times have been reused; in most cases the decoration dates from the same period and only inscriptions were modified with the names of the new owners. Only in tombs TT 18 and 307 probably also the decoration is, at least in part, later, but faithful to Ramesside models. These single or familiar tombs, however, seem to go back or to the earliest years of the 21st Dynasty or at the end of the same or at the beginning of the 22st Dynasty (KIKUCHI, 2002: 370-374). 14 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 28-29. 15 NAGUIB, 1900: 121-2, 246. 16 The kings of the Third Intermediate Period are buried within the precincts of the temples of Tanis and the graves of other members of the royal family are located near the places of worship of Tell el-Balamun, Memphis, Heracleopolis, el-Ashmunein or the temple of Ramesses III. 13

12 For the change of the architectural structure of the tomb in order to make it inaccessible and the consequent changes in the ritual of worship see KIKUCHI, 2002: 348-350 and MANNICHE, 2011.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity But in a period of economic and political difficulties, a mummy is not safe even within its coffin. The practice of stealing, recommodification and reuse of coffins becomes common at the end of the New Kingdom and especially in the 21st Dynasty.17 More than half of the coffins dating from the 21st Dynasty were reused, some up to three times. We do not know how usurpation really worked. Surely many artisans who worked in the Theban necropolis knew perfectly these places and their hidden treasures,18 and the High Priests of Karnak were aware of it. In fact, they were the first to benefit from these practices, plundering the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and reusing funerary objects once belonged to powerful pharaohs.19 But probably the descendants themselves reopened their family graves to sample objects that, in a period of socioeconomic crisis, have lost their religious value to return to being commodities, with a purely economic value. Old coffins could therefore be exhumed by the family of the deceased and resold, or simply stolen.

in the symbolic value attributed to them is more difficult. It follows from this the growing importance of the rituals that took place before the burial compare to the role that the funerary equipment continues to have after the closing of the tomb.

However, the high percentage of reuse of coffins in this period could be related also with the reorganization of the Theban necropolis, seen as a systematic and controlled operation with the aim of limiting social tensions:20 High Priests ‘organize the plundering’ of the tombs to avoid ‘unchecked theft’ of the most valuable items. This is very likely for the Valley of the Kings and maybe even the cache of Bab el-Gasus is part of this reorganization, led by a corporation, Amun’s clergy, who appropriates the most ancient coffins, submits them to adaptation actions and reuses them for its own members. We have already said that it could be possible that also all the coffins classified by Niwiński as ‘archaistic’ are instead old Ramesside coffins whose form and decoration have been adapted, completely or only in part, to the new style in order to be reused.

Each item of the funerary equipment had its importance for the protection, guidance and survival of the soul after death. Everything was done, up to the limit of someone possibility, to have a complete equipment and of good quality for the journey into the afterlife. Cooney suggests using the term ‘functional materialism’ to express the cultural mechanism that in a strongly hierarchical society encourages the use of economic surplus for the making and the purchase of objects filled at the same time with social and religious values in which the economic value of the object created for the ritual also aims to demonstrate and enhance the prestige of the owner and of his family.

6. Coffins: social and economic values21 Objects prepared for the funeral have at the same time ideological, social and economic meanings. They reflect the age, gender, personal value of the deceased and, in particular, his possibility to pay for them: the wealth and status he enjoyed during his life, are transferred in the afterlife. The prestige of the family is reflected and enhanced during funerary rituals, intended as public occasions of social comparison. In particular funerals are one of the main ways to separate the elite from the rest of society, as well as a way to perpetuate their position even after death.

Choices about the items that are part of the funeral equipment, therefore, are also dictated by economic factors. The preparation of the mummy itself required a financial investment and already the existence of a properly mummified body indicates that we are in the presence of an individual with good economic prospects.

In any case there must have been a ‘social agreement’ according to which these types of ‘theft’ were considered lawful. The practice of reuse reveals a change in the value attributed to funerary objects: the major focus is on their use in the context of funerary rituals, rather than on their eternal presence with the deceased in the tomb. If it is understandable, in fact, that in a context of crisis old tombs that housed deceased whose souls had completed their transformation and were now without any descendant who would perpetuate the rituals in their memory, could be easily stripped of their more precious objects, explaining the reuse of coffins in few years without implying a change

Cooney has collected 168 prices for different types of coffins from Ramesside non-literary texts from Western Thebes: the witnessed wide range is index of strong social inequalities even among the only ones who could afford at least a coffin. Prices of manufactured goods were affected by the cost of raw materials, the length and quality of workmanship, the cost of the work of craftsmen, their reputation and skill level of the shop in which they operated. It is therefore also from the diversity of the economic positions of the deceased and their families that the diversity of the nature and quality of the objects results: artisans had to meet the different needs and possibilities of buyers with products of different price. When the use of decorated tombs is given up, the coffin becomes the most important and valuable good to the deceased; the evidences gathered by Cooney about coffins’ prices in the New Kingdom and in the 21st Dynasty show that those who could afford it in this time of crisis were

COONEY, 2011. The care with which gilding was removed from some coffins belonging to members of the family of High Priests founded in the Royal Cache, without ever affecting the name of the deceased or any religious image, shows how the same people who took care of the deceased also stolen from them. 19 The coffin of Pinedjem I, for example, was remake from the ancient coffin of Tuthmosis I, and also the intervention of remaking of the pictorial decoration of the interior of the coffin of Pinedjem II involves usurpation. 20 Cooney K.M and Sousa R., contributions in ‘Body, cosmos and eternity: the symbolism of coffins in ancient Egypt’ – CITCEM – University of Oporto – February 22nd, 2013. 17 18

21

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COONEY, 2007; COONEY, 2011.

Elena Paganini: The coffins of the priests of Amun: a socio-economic investigation on Bab el-Gasus cachette willing to spend much more than before; the savings that in the past should be divided between the construction and decoration of the tomb and the funerary equipment may now be intended only for the reduced funerary equipment and in particular for the coffin, to be displayed in public funerary rituals. The social competition is expressed in the use of gilding and, when it will be abandoned, in the use of colors such as yellow, green and blue, the most expensive of the Egyptian palette, used in imitation of gold and precious stones. When there are differences, for example in the quality of the different pieces of the same coffin set, it is usually the choice to give greater importance to the areas on which the rituals were practiced before the burial, and that therefore were more exposed to the public; they are usually the objects that are closest to the body of the deceased (mummy-cover and inner coffin),22 in their upper part (face and hands above all; the full gilding of large pieces, for example, was certainly prohibitive even for the richest).

The analysis of the ‘texts of introduction’ and of the daily liturgy seems to show that they had different functions within the temple. The ritual of introduction (bst) allowed prophets to have access to the Akhmenu (the adynaton of the temple of Karnak). A prophet can enter the world of gods and can be called wn aAwy pt r mAA imy.s ‘one who opens the doors of the sky to see what is there’: opening the doors of the naos in which the statue of the god is closed, he enter the divine world itself, becoming god among gods. SstA, the ‘mysteries’, are revealed to him, in order to make him able to substitute the King in his duty of preserving Maat, the cosmic order, in the daily ritual: he is now ‘master of the mysteries of the sky, of the earth and of the Duat’ because he have experienced them during the bst ritual and he is also ‘master of the mysteries of Amun’, the secret things of the god, clothes and adornment for the ritual dressing of the statue of the god, that were kept secret in a box in the sanctuary. It seems that it was always a wab priest who became god’s father and, possibly later, prophet, thanks to the bst ritual. Probably the itw nTr were the lower rank priests in the hierarchy of initiated priests at the upper level of which there were fourth and third prophets, then the Second Prophet and the High Priest. Initiated priests were the religious elite, they came from noble families traditionally linked to the temple and among them there were the higher dignitaries.

7. Coffins and titles: who was buried at Bab el-Gasus? The titles on the funerary equipment of mummies buried at Bab el-Gasus tell us that everybody was in some way connected to a god or to a temple. Everybody was part of the same clerical circle, the high and lower elites of Thebes, from which came the rulers of the ‘Theban state’ at the time of the ‘king-priests’ contemporaneous of the kings of Tanis. Thebes is, now, an independent state and the organization of the ‘theocratic state of Amun’ is the same of that of its temple: its citizens are the priests and their wives are the singers of Amun.23

Wab priests, the purified, were, instead, the lower clergy, probably divided in teams that played in turns their service. Their main duty was to take care every day of the processional statues of Amun and preceding the sacred ship during festivals. This last one was the particular duty of wab priests called wab n HAt Imn. Only the higher class of wab called aA ao n pr Imn m Ipt-swt could enter the sancta sanctorum during processions with the sacred ship. This class of priests acquired more and more power thanks to its role in festival and processions, when oracles were asked to the gods: being the bearer of the sacred images, they were also responsible of their movements believed to be the means of expression of the divine will.

A title corresponds not only to a function (actual or not): inherited or acquired, it brings the possibility of enjoying profits, a permanent income and, above all, a defined position within society, a rank into the community. Religion has a presence so pervasive in the life of ancient Egypt that every service to the gods had also a social dimension, both for men and women. Religious hierarchy acts as a political and economic entity that controlled power and wealth. Political and economic powers were strictly related to the temple system. As Serge Sauneron said, ‘Egyptian priesthood was a function too civil, as well as too open, for us not to find all aspects of a society reflected in them’24 Men buried at Bab el-Gasus were all priests, belonging to both the two main categories in which they were divided: prophets and wab priests.25

Priests often hold also administrative offices,26 from simple scribes to directors of the domain. In some cases, important positions such as that of ‘director of the herds’ (which was in charge of collecting taxes) were accompanied by equally important priestly titles, such as those of second and third prophet of Amun, revealing the high social and economic status, as well as the high position in the temple hierarchy of the persons who held them; they were Tjanefer, Menkheperre’s son in law, and his son Menkheperre and their position can be seen as an example of the High Prophet’s policy aiming at pleasing Theban noble families. In other cases equally prestigious offices such as that of ‘director of the barn and of the treasury’ were occupied perhaps by real administrators who devoted practically all of their time to their secular duties; their priestly titles, that are not reflected in the importance of the high administrative ones, may simply be honorable,

22 Cooney points out that the workers of Deir el Medina in Ramesside times, unable to afford the use of expensive and high-quality raw materials with that enrich their coffins, instead focused their attention on the outer coffin: they applied their artistic skills to the largest pieces, moving on them the focus of public ceremonies. The highest elite, however, due to its scribal education and the close contact with the templar environment, would be more inclined to keep the traditional and ‘correct’ ritual practices. All the more, this observation can be considered valid for the priests of Amon of Bab el-Gasus. ‘In fact, it is possible that profession may have played a large part in forming the aesthetic values of a particular socioeconomic group’ (COONEY 2007: 287). 23 For feminine priesthood in Amun’s temple at Karnak in the 21st Dynasty see NAGUIB, 1900 and ONSTINE, 2005. 24 SAUNERON, 1960: 16. 25 KRUCHTEN, 1989.

26

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LEFEBVRE, 1929: 41-54.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity little more than incomes not really involving specific cult duties. It is likely, in fact, that a complex institution such as Amun’s domain (pr Imn) needed a great administrative staff. Such important administrators were assisted by a wide group of simple scribes who were priests too. Also craftsmen were part of the staff of the temple of Amun and they were priests to: working in the Ht-nb, the House of Gold, with precious materials for the realization of the sacred objects used during the cult and of the statues of the god, they needed to be purified or also initiated to touch sacred things and have access to the holy of the holies.

origin or marriage). Unfortunately we have almost no data available for verification. We know for example that the wife of a great wab and scribe of the treasury had, like her husband, an almost complete set, but we also know that the wife of a wealthy scribe of the treasury of the First chief of the xnr of Amun was found in a good quality inner coffin with mummy-cover, but without any other object. Then, within each ‘priestly class’, the priests who bear the most important administrative positions have the richest funerary equipment. Notable is the case of wab priests: the few with the most complete equipment bear remarkable administrative titles, such as that of scribe of the treasury and scribe of the organization of the domain, so their wealth derives more probably from these. That priestly offices were little more than incomes is known at least for the Late Period and probably it could be the case also at the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period. Prophets have more priestly titles and religious epithets than administrative positions; on the contrary god’s fathers hold almost always high level non-priestly offices: it may perhaps mean that their main tasks were not as priests but as administrators and craftsmen, and that they needed to be initiated to have access to any part of the temple in carrying out their main tasks that were not cult duties. An engraver needed to be initiated to gain access to the ‘holy of holies’ and fulfill his masterpieces, but his ‘main work’ remained the craft one, without any special priestly duty. The result is a vision and interpretation of the ritual of ‘introduction’ that is less rigid and, perhaps, more likely.

8. Crossing data: the richness of Bab el-Gasus families The tomb, initially chosen as burial place for the family of Gautseshen and Tjanefer, was later used as cache for other contemporary priests of the temple of Amun, taken from their original graves in attempt to protect them from grave robbers. The simple wab priests are generally more numerous than the initiated priest; in Bab el-Gasus cachette, however, more god’s fathers and prophets are buried. So it is not a tomb of priests of lower rank (as in many texts it is referred to this cache) but, on the contrary, especially of medium and high one, considered also their non-priestly offices. Those who during their life were closest to the family of the High Priests, were near them also after death: deeper, close to the main chamber, the richest mummies and with the highest level titles have been found. In Bab el-Gasus, coffins containing mummies with their equipment of amulets, jewelry and papyri, alternated, without any order, with statuettes of Osiris, stelae, canopic jars, ushabti boxes and baskets; flowers; fruits and ushabti were scattered on the floor. A list of the entire content of the Bab el-Gasus was made by Daressy when it was discovered.27 It was a quite poor funerary equipment, compared to the large number of people buried in the cache. All priests gathered here, and their wives/daughters could, however, benefit from the protection of a coffin; almost all the dead, indeed, are provided at least with inner coffin and mummy-cover. With the increase of available resources, the priests could buy for their journey in the underworld the complete set of coffins, the two manuscripts of the Book of the Amduat and the Book of the Dead, preserved in an Osiris statuette, then a team of ushabti placed in their boxes. Stelae and canopic jars are rarities. In general, the completeness of the funerary equipment seems to be proportional to the level occupied in the priestly hierarchy: after the family of the High Priests, prophets have the highest number of objects, followed by god’s fathers, and wab priests. Finally, we find men who were not part of the three main categories of priests (among them embalmer and reader priests): they were nearly all buried only with the coffin. Even for objects found on mummies the same trend is detectable. As regards women it is more difficult to make a distinction on the basis of qualifications only, since they were almost exclusively Smaywt (it does not seems, however, that the title Smayt or Hsyt is discriminating in this regard); differences could be due to their families (of 27

Looking at the individual objects part of the funerary equipment, from the point of view of the religious content of decorations it seems that there are no essential differences between those belonging to the priests of the highest rank and those of deceased who don’t bring any major title. In fact what distinguishes an object of the equipment of a high rank priest from one of a dead without any particular title is the quality of materials and workmanship, so its price. Two different trends seem to emerge: while the value and the cost of materials increases, in general, with the position in the temple hierarchy and the wealth of the deceased owners, cases of objects whose quality/manufacture is defined as ‘bad’ are almost all related to burials dating to the second half of the 21st Dynasty.28 This worsening in quality has been recognized for coffins, papyri and ushabti29 and has been attributed to the ‘democratization’ of the use of these goods in funerary rites, to the need of artisans to answer a broader demand and with fewer economic opportunities. The case of the funerary papyri of the 21st Dynasty is exemplary. Mainly small rolls were used; scribes drew on them abbreviated versions of the texts, representative elements chosen, or vignettes, which took precedence over the text because, Following K. Cooney considerations about reuse, we can say that coffins of good quality of ‘archaizing’ type cannot be included among 21st Dynasty coffins of the last part of the period because they are only Ramesside coffins been reused. 29 NIWIŃSKI, 1988: 97; NIWIŃSKI, 1989: 18, 43, 45, 73-75, 216-8, 236; SADEK, 1985: 327; AUBERT, 1998: 34. 28

DARESSY, 1900: 143-5.

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Elena Paganini: The coffins of the priests of Amun: a socio-economic investigation on Bab el-Gasus cachette blending the illustration of different chapters, occupied less space; from a religious point of view, the meaning and magic function remained the same; but abbreviations and mixtures determined the increase of mistakes in texts. The decrease in productions of good quality may have been determined by the general impoverishment of Theban society in consequence of the extension in time of the economic and social crisis, and of the departure of the center of power at Tanis. Nevertheless, one must keep in mind that the democratization of the use of certain categories of objects of the funerary equipment determines the appearance in the archaeological record of social levels not previously witnessed. Artists must meet the needs of their customers by lowering prices and thus the quality of the scrolls; the use of modest means and simplified procedures determines the progressive disappearance of good models which again affect the decrease in the quality of more recent products.

social occasions; expensive materials and items continued probably to be shown off during public funerary rites by the richest, but treasures were no longer closed in tombs. It was probably a defensive strategy also the enormous attention to the perfect preservation of the dead body31 that in the 21st Dynasty leads to the most sophisticated mummification technique in ancient Egyptian history. More money was always been spent for all the objects around the body, but now, more money is invested on the mummy so that it can be perfect. As happened to the graves frequently reused from the beginning of the dynasty, the increasingly common practice of ‘theft’ and reuse of coffins makes now necessary that the body can perform their function: the body, properly mummified, should function as a perennial object representing the idealized deceased as on the coffin, young and perfect, as still living, with open eyes, full limbs and features and thick hair. This new ‘object’ had the advantage that it cannot be reused: the expensive materials affixed to the mummy became part of it and could not be removed and recommodified, thus giving a new security from theft. The mummified body belonged forever to the soul of the deceased and could not be occupied by anyone else; in a period of crisis in which the deceased was not sure he could enjoy for the eternity of any object that had been prepared, the only eternal possession becomes his body, which must now be prepared in order to be able to last forever.

The case of the coffins belonging to wab priests is particular. These are all (only two excluded) dating to the first half of the dynasty and are of good quality. As noted above, few priests, the richest, bought also papyrus and ushabti; the others focused their attention on the coffin. Perhaps, when ‘cheap’ products were not yet available, even the less expensive papyrus was too much for a simple wab and was therefore prohibitive thinking about buying more items for the funeral equipment, they spent all their savings for the most important object (in most cases only inner coffin and mummy-cover), which is essential for the survival after death and focus of funerary rituals in front of the entire community.

To understand the changes in burial customs in the 21st Dynasty, therefore, the political situation and the economic crisis are important, but the widespread religiosity at the end of the New Kingdom and the foreign origin of the High Priests should not be underestimated. What was looked for with these innovations is certainly greater security for the dead, protection against theft in the graves, but they may also reflect the relationship that is increasingly squeezed between man and god. The first and more frequent images that moved from the walls of the tomb to the coffins are, in fact, that of the goddess who, with her big wings, embraces and protects the dead.32 The use of group rather than individual burials is an extension upwards in the society of a practice already attested in the New Kingdom, which blurs even further the differences between royalty and other classes. Significant is the fact that death is not anticipated and is no more used a large portion of someone’s financial resources and time for the preparation of funerary equipment (reuse of coffins and older tombs): it is a new attitude towards death, indifference towards long preparations and monumental superstructures. This perspective is in fact compatible with the habits of (semi-) nomadic people, such as the Libyans, who used to bury its dead where they fell, without ostentation or previous concerns.33

We assist, thus in the second half of the 21st Dynasty, to an enlargement of the social class represented by funerary equipments: not only the higher elite, but also the medium-high priestly class with products of less valuable manufacture. But why even those who certainly could still afford to devote a lot of money to their equipment for the journey into the afterlife, even within the family of the High Priests, just buy products of not high quality or already belonged to another deceased? As suggested by Cooney,30 Theban elite had to develop ‘defensive strategies’ to prevent others from stealing what they had stolen, as happened for tombs. Although they could afford it, the owners decided not to affix gold or precious stones as not to attract the attention of thieves on their ‘home for eternity’; expensive colors are used instead, that could be seen by everyone but not recommodified. Glitz and social prestige could also have been the engine of growth and innovation of iconography. It not only takes over the text being able to condense into a small space and simultaneously express different levels of meaning, but it is also more easily recognizable and able to capture the attention of the public during public ceremonies. Rich and innovative iconographies could have been used instead of too expensive materials in order to stand out in 30

COONEY, 2012. Sousa R. and van Walsem R., contributions in ‘Body, cosmos and eternity: the symbolism of coffins in ancient Egypt’ – CITCEM – University of Oporto – February 22nd, 2013. 33 LEAHY, 1985. 31 32

COONEY, 2011.

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Body, Cosmos and Eternity NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1988) – Twenty-first Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies. Mainz am Rhein: Phillip von Zabern NIWIŃSKI, Andrzej (1989) – Studies on the illustrated Theban funerary papyri of the 11th and 10th centuries B.C. (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, 86). Freiburg: Universitätsverlag. ONSTINE, Suzanne Lynn (2005) – The Role of the Chantress (Cmayt) in Ancient Egypt. (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1401). Oxford: Archaeopress. SADEK, Abdel-Aziz Fahmy (1985) – Contribution à l’étude de l’Amdouat. Les variantes tardives du Livre de l’Amdouat dans les papyrus du Musée du Caire (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, 65). Freiburg: Universitätsverlag. SAUNERON, Serge (1960) – The Priests of Ancient Egypt. Translated by Ann Morrissett. New York: Grove Press Inc.

Bibliography AUBERT, Liliane (1998) – Les statuettes funéraires de la Deuxième Cachette à Deir el-Bahari. Paris: Cybele. COONEY, Kathlyn M. (2007) – The functional materialism of death in ancient Egypt: A case study of funerary materials from the Ramesside Period. In FITZENREITER, Martin, ed. – Das Heilige und die Ware Eigentum, Austausch und Kapitalisierung im Spannungsfeldvon Ökonomie und Religion Workshop vom 26.05 bis 28.05.2006 – Internet-Beiträge zur Ägyptologie und Sudanarchäologie 7. London: Golden House Publications, p. 273-299. COONEY, Kathlyn M. (2011) – Changing burial practices at the end of the New Kingdom: defensive adaptation in tomb commissions, coffin commissions, coffin decoration and mummification. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 47, p. 3–44. COONEY, Kathlyn M. (2012) – Objectifying the body: the increased value of the ancient Egyptian mummy during the socioeconomic crisis of dynasty 21. In PAPADOPOULOS, John K.; URTON, Gary, eds. – The construction of value in the ancient world. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, p. 139-159. DARESSY, Georges (1896) – Contribution a l’étude de la XXIe dinastie Égyptienne. Revue Archéologique 28, p. 72-90. DARESSY, Georges (1900) – Les sépultures des prètres d’Ammon à Deir el-Bahari. Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 1, p. 141-148. KIKUCHI, Takao (2002) – Die Thebanische Nekropole der 21. Dynastie: zum Wandel der Nekropole und zum Totenglauben der Ägypter. ‘Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo’ 58, p.343-371. KITCHEN, Kenneth Anderson (1973) – The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100-650 BC). Warminster: Aris & Phillips. KRUCHTEN, Jean-Marie (1989) – Les Annales des prêtres de Karnak (XXI-XXIIImes dynasties) et autres textes contemporains relatifs a l’initiation des prêtres d’Amon. ‘OLA’, vol.32. Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek. LEAHY, Anthony (1985) – The Libyan Period in Egypt. An essay in interpretation. Libyan Studies 16, p. 51-65. LEFEBVRE, Gustave. (1929) – Histoire des Grands Prêtres d’Amon de Karnak jusqu’a la XXIe dynastie. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner. MANNICHE, Lise (2011) – Lost Ramessid and postRamessid private tombs in the Theban necropolis. ‘CNI Publications’, vol. 33. Kopenhagen: Museum Tusculanum. NAGUIB, Saphinaz-Amal (1900) – Le clergé féminin d’Amon Thébain à la 21e dynastie. ‘OLA’, vol. 38. Leuven: Uigeverij Peeters en Department Oriëntalistiek.

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Coffins without mummies: the Tomb KV 63 in the Valley of the Kings1 Rogério Sousa Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos (University of Coimbra) Abstract In July of 2013, the University of Porto held the exhibition Explorations: Egypt in the Art of Susan Osgood. The epigraphic work of the Senior Artist of the Epigraphic Survey of the University of Chicago in Luxor included the documentation of the find of KV 63, one of the most important sections of the exhibition. This remarkable project documented in situ the fragmentary coffins found within the tomb and revealed new and unexpected uses of the anthropoid coffins in the Theban necropolis, which are introduced and discussed in this text.

Directed1by Otto Schaden, the Amenmesse Project was created in 1992 with the purpose to clear the tomb of the King Amenmesse (KV 10). As a result of this mission, during the season of 2005, the team discovered the top of the tomb shaft and in the following season underwent the clearance of a new tomb (KV 63), the first new tomb found in the Valley of the Kings since the finding of the tomb of Tutankhamun (KV 62) in 1922 by Howard Carter. Under the remains of workmen’s huts,2 down a 20-foot (six meter) shaft, was found a rock cut chamber, KV 63, a single chambered shaft tomb, possibly hewn during the reign of Amenophis III.3 The closing of the tomb seems to have occurred during the reign of Tutankhamun or soon afterwards.4 During this lapse of time no attempt to decorate the room was apparently made and the tomb was left unfinished.

coffins) and a wooden bed decorated with carved lion’s heads. Ritual beds were also found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, but the bed from KV 63 was broken and stuffed into a storage jar not placed with a burial, but stored away with embalming materials, suggesting it was never intended for an interment but only to be used in the embalming process in the necropolis.6 This small single chambered structure was clearly used as an embalmer’s cache. In spite of that, great care was given to hide the chamber. ‘After the introduction of the embalming goods, the shaft was filled with rubble, but then tunneled into soon thereafter. This tunnel was then filled in with large rocks and ultimately the top of the shaft was covered by a dark surface layer. The necropolis workmen of the 19th Dynasty added rubble, raising the level of the surface fill above the tomb shaft’.7

The content of KV 63 was even more intriguing: it was found to contain six wooden anthropoid coffins, placed close together and covered in glossy black resin. Some had yellow faces, hands, necklaces and bracelets and most were badly damaged by termites. There were also two small gilded coffinettes, Coffin D, (found on the floor in between coffins C and E), and Coffin G6, (found in good condition among feather pillows inside youth´s Coffin G). There were 28 large ceramic storage jars, most of which were sealed.5 Instead of mummies, some of the coffins were filled with ceramics, textiles, almost 460 kilos of natron, and a variety of embalming materials. The embalmers equipment found in the tomb included a collection of ten pillows (most of them found inside the

The question as to whose embalming goods were housed in KV 63 remains to be answered. Based on art styles and comparisons of a variety of artifacts, there is no doubt that the date for the final closing of KV 63 in antiquity should fall during or within a few years of the time of King Tutankhamun.8 The finds of KV 63 reveal that the contents of an embalming cache were not seen merely as materials to be discarded and that great care was involved in its protection. While the jars, the bed and the pillows can be easily recognized as equipment involved in the mummification process, the collection of eight anthropoid coffins found in the tomb is less understandable.

We would like to acknowledge Dr Otto Schaden and Professor Earl Ertman for their support and encouragement for the publication of this article, as well as for their priceless comments and suggestions. I also would like to express my gratitude to Susan Osgood, Senior Artist of the Epigraphic Mission of the University of Chicago in Luxor, for the permission to publish her remarkable drawings of Coffin A from KV 63. 2 When the team was clearing the workmen´s huts dating to the late 19th Dynasty near KV-10, it became obvious that the underlying rubble had not been disturbed since that era. Sealed ‘floors’ thus made the team check under all of the crude foundations. And in the last corner to be tested, the team found the top of the shaft of KV 63. 3 SCHADEN, 2009: 63. 4 SCHADEN, 2009: 63. 5 OSGOOD, 2009: 87. 1

SCHADEN, 2009: 64. SCHADEN, 2009: 63. ‘The only dated text we found was ‘Year 5,’ which identified wine from the northern town of Tjaru. Unfortunately, no royal name was cited on our wine label, but it may be more than mere coincidence that in Tutankhamun’s tomb (KV-62) there was also some wine from Tjaru dated to ´Year 5`.’ In SCHADEN, 2009: 64. According to the excavators, ‘one incomplete seal impression can be restored as the prenomen of King Tutankhamun or King Ay, so the final closure of KV 63 was probably at that time’. In SCHADEN, ERTMAN, 2013: 39.

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Fig. 1 - Coffin A (drawn in situ). Courtesy of Susan Osgood. 198

Rogério Sousa: Coffins without mummies: the Tomb KV 63 in the Valley of the Kings

Fig. 2 - Coffin A (reconstruction made from available measurments). Courtesy of Susan Osgood. 199

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Fig. 4 – Coffin A (leff facial profile, drawn after excavation and conservation). Courtesy of Susan Osgood. in their supposed original position (Figure 5). This data together with additional photographic records of the objects, allowed the full documentation of the fragmentary coffins without disturbing any of their elements. The rendering of the general aspect of each coffin was then essayed and brilliantly achieved by Osgood, allowing the contemporary viewer to have the full understanding of the formal features of each object (Figure 2, Figure 5).

Fig. 3 – Coffin A (front view). Courtesy of Susan Osgood. The state of preservation of the wooden coffins was – for the most part – very poor. In this respect, the artwork of Susan Osgood took a very important role in the documentation of each fragment. Extensive termite damage to the wooden coffins made them extremely fragile and the Susan’s documentation work had to be done in situ, before their removal from the tomb. Her initial work involved the measurement of each fragment and the definition of its exact location. With this text, we include the documentation of Coffin A, from the drawings made in situ (Figure 1) to the digital reconstruction of the fragments

Most of the coffins found in the tomb are unfinished objects, revealing various stages of completion, some virtually undecorated, and only two have revealed inscriptions thus far.9 Oddly enough, the texts on the KV 63 coffins were intentionally covered with resin, obscuring the identities of their original owners. Careful removal of the layer of resin has revealed the name of an untitled woman, HenutWadjbu, and also that of a Royal Nurse, named Iny (Coffin A).10 This alone means that, if not reused from previous burials, at least these coffins were adapted for a new and certainly unexpected purpose. The dating of each coffin is open to study but they clearly present a good sample on the diversity of the features typical 9

See SCHADEN, ERTMAN, 2013: 39. SCHADEN, 2009: 65.

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Rogério Sousa: Coffins without mummies: the Tomb KV 63 in the Valley of the Kings

Fig. 5 – Coffin A (digital hypothetical composition made from post conservation drawings of fragments). Courtesy of Susan Osgood. craftsmanship is remarkable: Black bitumen resin covered all but the coffin’s beautiful face mask, painted yellow to imitate gold. The cosmetic lines of the eyes but not the eyebrows were inlayed with blue glass while the eyes themselves were encrusted with white and black stones.11 The chest of the deceased was originally decorated with an imposing floral collar with multicolored inlays. Traces of gilding and inlaid hieroglyphs found in this object clearly

to the coffins of the second half of the 18th Dynasty: all of them consist of the full anthropomorphic depiction of the deceased with the arms and clenched hands clearly carved on wood. The anthropomorphic shape of the coffins is also extended to the cases, displaying the contour for the legs, bottom and the back – later on, during the Ramesside Period, the flattened floorboard of the case would be the rule. Now badly damaged, Coffin A was probably the most imposing object of the group. The quality of the

11

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SCHADEN, ERTMAN, 2013: 39-41.

Body, Cosmos and Eternity show its exceptional quality. According to Otto Schaden, ‘though very fragmentary and fragile because of termite damage, some key texts could be recovered from under the resin coating, the title ‘Royal Nurse’ and the name ‘Iny’. The longest translatable connected text was on the top cross band, left side: ‘Revered one, (may) I see Re in the sky and drink water from the pool’.12’ Most of the inlaid elements of the inscriptions of coffin A have disappeared and the ‘cut depressions that once housed coloured inlaid hieroglyphs and decorations are mostly empty; they would almost certainly have been filled with glass, paste or paint, or even Egyptian faience’.13 Some hieroglyphs however were still found in their original location,14 while some surviving gold leaf further attests to the once opulent condition of this coffin.15 Among other objects, ceramic jars and fine alabaster vessels were found inside the case of this coffin.

the case typical of the anthropomorphic coffins produced before the Ramesside Period. Another particularity of Coffin E is the depiction of a winged deity in the area below the arms of the deceased, attesting the identification between the lid and the sky, again a typical feature of the ‘black’ and ‘white coffins’ of the 18th Dynasty. In its case was found the most interesting collection of funerary floral collars. Some of them adorned with bands decorated with golden leafs. Coffin F was exquisitely modeled, with its beautiful face clearly adhering to the style of Tutankhamun´s reign. The face, hands and decoration of the collar and bracelets were yellow to imitate gold. No trace of text or iconography was found. Coffin G is smaller than the remaining coffins thus probably crafted to be used for the mummy of a youngster. It was preserved in good condition. As coffins A, B and F, its face was painted yellow. Inside the case was found a collection of feather pillows and a gilded coffinette (Coffin G6).

Coffin B was found badly damaged as well. The lid was split roughly down the middle including the face mask (painted yellow). It shows the craftsmanship to be clearly inferior to that of other coffins. Inside its case were found large quantities of natron and fragments of ceramic jars.

Seen globally, the coffins found in KV 63 correspond to variations of the so-called black coffins, which have been favored in the elite burials of the mid-18th Dynasty, particularly between the reigns of Amenhotep II and Amenhotep III, where the best of these artifacts present gilded faces and inscriptions.18 Given the nature of the texts found in coffin A and the absence of the usual funerary deities – such as the figure of Nut - Otto Schaden suggests that this coffin was certainly fashioned during the reign of Akhenaten, when the traditional aspects of the hereafter seem to have been disregarded.19

Coffin C was found in a very poor state. Its face was black. Nevertheless it revealed a puzzling find: it was used to keep limestone chunks, including a fragment of a cavetto-cornice, probably a structural fragment (a joining piece was found in storage jar P22).16 Coffin D − a gilded coffinette (G.6), of nearly 40 cm length − was found in a damaged state, nested in between two of the larger coffins. Objects such as these could have been crafted to be used for the mummy of a baby, but they could also have been used to keep heirlooms or even an ushebty. The mask of Coffin D is seemingly made of pink gold, covered by resin or varnish.

In spite of the high quality of these coffins, some remained unfinished. We also know that at least some of them were commissioned for the burials of well identified individuals, such as Coffin A (produced to be used by the Royal Nurse Iny). However, the destiny of these objects was drastically changed perhaps while they were still being crafted at the workshop. The original inscriptions were obliterated in some coffins, while others were left unfinished. Coffin A, in particular, reveals that it was subjected to some rough treatment before it was placed in KV 63. The goal of this operation was not ‘done to obliterate the name of its owner, Iny, but rather to obtain the gold leaf applied to the coffin’s surface - tiny scraps of gold foil remained on the surface after removal of the resin’.20

Coffin E, the best preserved of the two inscribed coffins in KV 63, presents the typical features of the so-called ‘black coffins’. Its dimensions and proportions suggest that it was intended to be used as an inner coffin. As Coffin C, its face was painted black, completely covered by black resin.17 The inscriptions were displayed in longitudinal and transversal bands intended to depict the linen bands wrapping the mummy. Transversal inscriptions of the lid run uninterrupted to the correspondent inscriptions of the case, attesting the formal dependence between the lid and www.kv-63.com In SCHADEN, ERTMAN, 2013: 40. Glass inlays in situ include some very thin light blue glass rods and pieces of them on the right side of the box, marking borders to the texts. They had been inlaid into the incised borders, probably affixed with Egyptian blue or similar paste adhesives. Neighbouring rods dropped out of their original positions when the wood dried out and warped or the surrounding wood was eaten by termites. More glass rods were found among the debris in and near the coffin, along with flakes of gold. In SCHADEN, ERTMAN, 2013: 40. 15 www.kv-63.com 16 Personal communication reported by Dr Otto Schaden and Dr Earl Ertman. 17 See SCHADEN, ERTMAN, 2013: 39. 12

In one way or another, the use of the coffins found in KV 63 changed dramatically: instead of body containers, these coffins were converted to storage boxes of mummification materials.

13 14

See coffin of Maherpa (Cairo Egyptian Museum) in SOUSA, 2011a: 94. See also coffin of Henutwejbu (Washington University Gallery), in BRYAN, 2002: 66. 19 SCHADEN, ERTMAN, 2013: 40. 20 In SCHADEN, ERTMAN, 2013: 40. 18

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Rogério Sousa: Coffins without mummies: the Tomb KV 63 in the Valley of the Kings The superior quality of the craftsmanship involved in the execution of the coffins grouped in KV 63, both technically and artistically, is surprisingly good considering that we are dealing with artifacts used in an embalming cache. Some of them (such as Coffin A) were crafted for individuals of high status. The use of such exquisite coffins to contain deposits of refuse from the process of mummification21 is illustrative of the meaning that such a process may have had – especially in royal contexts as it is clearly the case here. This find also signals to that in so far neglected, but certainly relevant, symbolic and practical purpose of the coffins as containers. It is clear that these coffins, although not made specifically to accompany the embalming goods, at some point were converted as containers/receptacles of such materials. This fact alerts us to the surprising use of these objects as (ritual?) storage boxes in antiquity, thereby broadening the semantics of the use of anthropoid coffins. The study of the coffins of KV 63 thus presents very important problems for research. Bibliography BRYAN, Betsy (2002) – Art for the Afterlife. In HORNUNG, BRYAN (eds) – The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt. Prestel Publishers. EATON-KRAUSS (2009), Embalming caches in the Valley of the Kings, In DZIOBEK, HÖVELLERMÜLLER, LOEBEN (eds), – Das Geheimnisvolle Grab 63: Die Neueste Entdeckung im Tal der Könige. Bonn: Verlag Marie Leidorf, p. 70-72. SOUSA, R. (2011) – The Heart of Wisdom: The iconography of the heart amulet in ancient Egypt (British Archaeological Reports International Series 2211). Oxford: Archaeopress. OSGOOD, Susan; DZIOBEK, Eberhard; SOUSA, Rogério; LOURENÇO, Alexandre, eds. (2013) – Explorations: Egypt in the Art of Susan Osgood. Porto: Porto University. OSGOOD, Susan (2009) – The KV 63/ Amenmesse Project. In DZIOBEK, HÖVELLER-MÜLLER, LOEBEN (eds), - Das Geheimnisvolle Grab 63: Die Neueste Entdeckung im Tal der Könige. Bonn: Verlag Marie Leidorf, p. 87. ERTMAN, Earl; WILSON, Roxanne; SCHADEN, Otto (2006) – Unraveling the Mysteries of KV63. ‘KMT - A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt’, 18, p. 18-27. SCHADEN, O. (2009) - KV 63: Origins of the Discovery. In DZIOBEK, HÖVELLER-MÜLLER, LOEBEN (eds), - Das Geheimnisvolle Grab 63: Die Neueste Entdeckung im Tal der Könige. Bonn: Verlag Marie Leidorf, p. 63. SCHADEN, Otto; ERTMAN, Earl (2013) – KV 63: The glass inlay decoration on Iny´s coffin. Egyptian Archaeology 43, p. 39-41.

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EATON-KRAUSS, 2009: 70-72.

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