Abstract
After long neglect by Egyptologists, recent decades have seen coffins finally become a serious object of study. This not only embraces the work of individual scholars, but also international study-projects and dedicated exhibitions and conferences. The volume under review is a fruit of the latter, held in conjunction with an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in April 2016.
A wide range of coffin-related topics are presented, beginning with Caroline Cartwright on the identification of coffin-woods in the Fitzwilliam collection, followed by a multi-disciplinary documentation of the Twelfth Dynasty anthropoid coffin of one Amenemhat in Cairo. The latter type of coffin is the stated topic of the following contribution by Uta Siffert. Next is Lisa Sartini’s study of the iconography of New Kingdom ‘Black’ coffins, placing examples into three evolutionary phases, and listing ten particular dating criteria. Unfortunately, this paper has no illustrations, in contrast to the vast majority of articles in the volume, which are accompanied by a range of images, most in colour – something particularly useful in the context of the objects involved.
Focus then moves to the Twenty-First Dynasty with Anna Serotta, Lisa Bruno and Yekaterina Barbash’s paper on the Brooklyn Museum’s coffin of Pasebakhaienopet, a piece incorporating wood from 500 years prior to its manufacture. The multispectral imaging of a number of coffins in Turin is covered by Cavaleri, Buscaglia, Lo Giudice, Nervo, Pisani, Re and Zucco, before Hans-Hubertus Münch considers fragments of ‘Black’ coffins from KV40 in the Valley of the Kings. Andrzej Niwiński then considers the Theban sacred landscape in the context of the ‘Yellow’ coffins of the early Third Intermediate Period. Raphaële Meffre’s following paper is different from the one that she actually gave in Cambridge, which was on the cartonnage of Henttawy, daughter of Shoshenq I, in the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Instead, she here writes on Ptolemaic coffins from Abusir el-Meleq, with particular focus on that of Somtus.
An important group of late Third Intermediate Period coffins come from the Ramesside princely tombs QV43 and QV44 in the Valley of the Queens, and the cleaning of that of Nesamendjem – with spectacular results – is the subject of Buscaglia, Cardinali, Cavaleri, Croveri, Ferraris di Celle, Piccirillo and Zenucchini’s contribution. Kara Cooney then considers the extensive reuse seen in coffins during the Nineteenth to Twenty-Second Dynasties, peaking during the Twenty-First, and Fruzsina Bartos discusses the characteristic cartonnage mummy-cases of the Twenty-Second Dynasty. The latter work is in the context of dating fragments of such pieces found during the clearance of tomb-chapel TT65. Another Twenty-Second Dynasty cartonnage, that of Shauamemimes, is the subject of Cynthia May Sheikhoeslami’s paper.
Patricia Rigualt’s paper covers the detective story behind the rediscovery of a ‘lost’ coffin at the Louvre Museum – the outer envelope from the coffin/cartonnage ensemble of Tanetmit. A coffin and fragments of a cartonnage in the Museo Stibbert in Florence are then examined in an article by Marco Nicola, Simone Musso and Simone Petacci. The wood and construction of a Third Intermediate Period ‘Northern’ coffin from Abusir el-Meleq are studied by Antje Zygalski, and a group of Late/Ptolemaic Period examples by Susanna Moser, who compares a coffin in Padua with a range of parallels, including that of Petosiris from Tuna el-Gebel, which provides one of the few dated ‘hooks’ for dating coffins of the era.
The final three full papers comprise one on Late Period material from tomb 33 at Aswan-Qubbet el-Hawa by Yolanda de la Torre Robles, on the typology of Late Period coffins from the area around the mouth of the Fayyum by Jonathan Elias and Carter Lupton, and on a coffin lid from Abusir el-Meleq by Nour Mohamed Badr, Mona Fouad Ali, Nesrin el-Hadidi and Mohamed Abd el-Rahman. These are followed by twenty-four one-page abstracts of posters that were presented at the conference (and are currently available on-line). They cover: coffins in the McManus, Dundee; Saite-Persian texts from Abusir; private stone coffins of the New Kingdom; Third Intermediate/Late Period coffins from the site of the memorial temple of Amenhotep II; the production of Egyptian blue; coffins and cartonnages from Dra Abu’l-Naga tomb K93.12; an early Twenty-Second Dynasty coffin and mummy in San Francisco; solar barks depicted on ḳrsw-coffins of the priests Montju; a fragmentary ḳrsw-coffin from TT95; the conservation of the late Third Intermediate Period coffin of Pami (Cairo); a Ptolemaic coffin and mummy from Giza (Cairo); the Bab el-Gasus-derived coffin lid of Butharkhonsu (Vienna); depictions of coffins on stelae in Moscow; the use of adhesives and consolidants in conservation; links between beds and coffins; the coffin of Pakapu (Cambridge); a Roman Period footcase (Cambridge); coffins from Amarna; links between coffins and papyri during the Twenty-First Dynasty; Late Period coffins from the Fayyum; a mummy-board fragment in Lviv, Ukraine; Third Intermediate Period coffins in Liverpool; the coffin-lid of a baboon (Ashmunein); and a Third Intermediate Period coffin and cartonnage from Lahun (Cairo).
The interest now being taken in coffins and related material is most encouraging, not only from the point of view of the objects themselves, but also the light that their study can shed on broader issues ranging from ancient technology to the history of modern collecting, all aspects that are covered in some way in this volume. Accordingly, it can be warmly welcomed as significant contribution to the literature.