The Coffin of Heqata: (Cairo JdE 36418) : a Case Study of Egyptian Funerary Culture of the Early Middle KingdomThe coffin published in this book represents a type that had some popularity in southern Upper Egypt in the early Middle Kingdom, but which, despite its extraordinary decoration had not attracted attention so far. The most striking feature of the decoration is that the object friezes - the pictorial rendering of ritual implements usually found on coffin interiors of the period - also include complete ritual scenes, some of which are attested only here. Apart from this, the decoration includes an extensive selection of the religious texts know as the Coffin Texts. The author first studies the archaeological context and dating of the coffin and attempts a reconstruction of the construction procedures from his technical description of the monument. The detailed account of the decoration in the rest of the book interprets the ritual iconography and offers fresh translations and interpretations of the Coffin Texts. A methodological innovation is that he regards the scenes and texts not as individual decoration elements, but as components of an integral composition. The background of this composition is argued to be a view of life in the hereafter in which the deceased is involved in an unending cycle of ritual action which reflects the funerary rituals that were actually performed on earth. On the one hand, these netherworldly rituals aim at bringing the deceased to new life by mummification, on the other the newly regenerated deceased partakes in embalming rituals for gods representing his dead father (Osiris or Atum). These gods, in their turn, effectuate the deceased's regeneration. The entire process results in a cycle of resuscitation in which the afterlife of the deceased and of the 'father gods' are interdependent. The sociological bias of this interpretation, with its emphasis on kinship relations, differs significantly from earlier attempts to explain Egyptian funerary religion. |
Contents
Table of Contents | xv |
The Archaeological Context and Date of the Coffin of Heqata | 2 |
Items H 5 13 in A1C from right to left | 3 |
Copyright | |
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A1C and GIT AECT Altenmüller Anubis appear Assmann Atum Barguet Cairo Chests coffin A1C coffin sides Coffin Texts Coffin Texts Spell context CT III CT spell CT VII deceased deceased's decoration depicted discussion divine evidence Eye of Horus Faulkner ferryman spells festival frieze items funerary goddess gods Hathor Heh-gods Heliopolis Heqata Heqata's coffin hieratic hymns idem interpretation invocation offering Isis and Nephthys Jéquier label Lapp latter Ma'at mentioned Mentuhotep II Mouth mummification myth mythological Nephthys netherworld object frieze occurs offering ritual offering table Opferformel ornamental texts Osiris Papyrus parallel passage Place of Embalming planks present refers remarks rendering rites scene Seth Settgast shrine Shu spells Shu's similar Sokar sources southern Egyptian coffins speaker spell 75 star clocks stela Stundenwachen suggests Tefnut tomb uraeus verb Wepwawet Willems word XIth Dynasty Zandee ZÄS