Painted wooden coffin of
Bakrenes
From Thebes, Egypt
25th
Dynasty, around 680 BC
The face of this
mummiform
coffin represents Bakrenes in the ideal state of youth and physical
perfection which she hoped to attain after death. Her striped wig
indicates that she has ascended to the status of a divine
being.
The lid of the
coffin is divided into compartments containing scenes and
inscriptions relating to the Afterlife. One scene shows
Bakrenes' heart being weighed in the balance of judgement.
A successful balance would indicate that her life had been free
from wrongdoing, and she would be given access to the next life.
Having passed this test, the dead woman is introduced by the
ibis-headed
Thoth
to the sun-god
Re-Horakhty
and the four Sons of
Horus, who guard the internal organs of the
mummy.
Near the bottom of
the coffin is a scene showing the mummy of Bakrenes lying on a bier
beneath the life-giving rays of the sun. On the projecting foot is
a mummified falcon representing the funerary god Ptah-Sokar. This
figure is inverted, so as to make it clearly visible to the
deceased as she looked out through the eyes of the
face-mask.
The large
coloured inscriptions around the case of the coffin invoke the gods
Re-Horakhty,
Atum,
Ptah-Sokar-Osiris
and
Anubis,
who promise to provide offerings for the dead
woman.
W.R. Dawson and P.H.K. Gray, Catalogue of Egyptian antiquit (London, 1968)