Coffin of the priest
Amenemipet
From the burial of Amenemipet, possibly Deir
el-Bahari, Thebes, Egypt
Late 21st or early
22nd Dynasty, 950-900 BC
Plastered and painted
coffin
The anthropoid (human-shaped) coffin of
Amenemipet is typical of Egyptian coffins of the period immediately
after the New Kingdom (that is, after about 1070 BC). At this time,
Egyptian tombs were not decorated, and many of the scenes which
would have appeared on the tomb walls were instead transferred to
the coffins.
The various
scenes on the exterior and interior of the coffin are painted in
white, blue, green, red and black on a yellow background. Short
hieroglyphic
labels, written on a white background, explain the scenes. These
include the worship of the sun god and other deities by the
deceased and his ba.
According to Egyptian beliefs, the
ba was an element of the
individual (similar to 'personality'), which was
divided at death but reunited in the Afterlife. It is represented
as a bird with a human head. Another scene shows
Amenemipet's mummy being purified by
Anubis.
The funerary deities
Isis
and
Nephthys
are also represented.
The
cartouche
of King Amenhotep I (about 1525-1504 BC) appears on the interior of
the coffin, by the head of the deceased. Amenhotep was a king of
the early Eighteenth Dynasty, and revered as the founder of the
Theban necropolis (cemetery).
C.A.R. Andrews, Egyptian mummies (London, The British Museum Press, 1984)