Coffin of Nakhtkhnum - Episode 5 - Egyptian Object Stories

Welcome back to Ancient Egyptian Object Stories. In this episode, we will look at the coffin of Nakt Khnum and other examples of Middle Kingdom coffins. In the last episode, we jumped ahead to the New Kingdom, but now we will take a step back to the Middle Kingdom that comprised the 11th through 13th dynasties. The coffins we are examining in this episode date to the 12th dynasty, during one of the Coffins of elite individuals in the Middle Kingdom were fairly basic, rectilinear boxes with a lid. Generally, they were made of wood and were covered inside and outside with richly painted decoration, most prominent among which is the pair of haunting eyes transfixed at one end of the coffin. The art of the Middle Kingdom is characterized by incredible detail, which is also well represented on this coffin of Nakt Khnum in the rendering of, for example, individual feathers on the bird hieroglyphs and the realistic red stippling on the eye corners to resemble veins. As the mummy of another individual named Khnum Hotep demonstrates, the deceased person was placed on their side inside the coffin with their face positioned toward the eyes that are painted on the outer coffin wall. This side of the coffin was meant to face east so that the deceased could witness the rising sun when they were revivified each morning. Directly beneath the eyes is a so-called false door panel. The false door was a popular feature of Egyptian funerary art throughout ancient Egyptian history. As the coffin of Nakt Khnum shows, the false door is comprised of a niched facade, an architectural feature that was used for palaces, and the image of the door itself, which is made up of two leaves that rotate on posts. Also visible are the two tiny door bolts. It was through this false door that the ba-soul of the deceased could leave and enter during the nightly journey through the afterlife, as well as partake of daily offerings. False doors were also represented inside the coffin. The coffin served as a vehicle for attaining perpetual rebirth and was a place for the deceased to merge with Osiris and thereby transform into him. In so doing, the deceased would be imbued with the power to self-reengender. Because Osiris was mourned and attended by Isis and Nephthys, the two goddesses' names appear in the coffin's texts on either end of the coffin. In the Osiris myth, it was Isis and Nephthys who gathered together the body parts of Osiris that Set had strewn about Egypt. They mourned at Osiris' bier after reassembling him, a scene which is often displayed in tunes and scenes and in the vignettes of the Book of the Dead. Usually, Isis would appear at the foot of the coffin, whereas Nephthys would be positioned at the head, but the opposite is true on the coffin of Nachtgnum. Also, a goddess, probably Isis, is pictorially depicted on the head end of the coffin, bearing offerings on her head and with her arms raised, possibly in a pose of protection. The exterior of the coffin contained phrases reaffirming the deceased of the god's favor. It also included the standard offering formula found on coffins, funerary stelae, and tomb art. Royal Offering to Osiris, Lord of Busiris, Lord of Abydos. Offering of Bread, Beer, Cattle, Fowl, Linen, Alabaster, Incense, and Sacred Oil. In an earlier episode, we learned about the Pyramid Texts, which were a collection of spells relating to the afterlife that were carved on the interior walls of 5th and 6th Dynasty pharaohs' pyramids. In the New Kingdom, a new series of funerary spells emerged, titled by Egyptologists today as the Coffin Texts. These texts, as their modern name implies, were inscribed in coffins. However, these texts were not reserved for the king, rather they decorated the coffins of the non-royal elite. The texts were inscribed as both standard hieroglyphs, as well as the hieratic or cursive Egyptian script, illustrated here by the coffin of Dua. The purpose of the texts was to provide a guide through the afterworld, which was full of dangers to the deceased on their journey toward becoming an Ak, or a transfigured spirit, and toward being reborn at the close of the journey. One of the texts was the Book of Two Ways, which usually featured on the interior floor of the coffin. This text also functioned as a map of the afterworld, illustrating all the dangers the deceased would encounter during their journey. These were the same dangers that the sun god Ra, who also traveled by boat through the afterworld at night, had to endure along the passage to morning. Again, the coffin of Dua provides a fine example of the Book of Two Ways. The journey is blocked by dangerous obstacles and guardians of heroine lakes, such as the Lake of Fire, Lake of Knives, and the Lake of Criminals, where the deceased is in constant danger of being burned or chopped into pieces, thereby rendering them as non-existent. These obstacles are particularly abundant around where the body of Osiris is to be found, and around the entrance to the Field of Offerings, which was a form of paradise in ancient Egyptian religious belief. The evil snake Apep also makes his first appearance in the coffin texts. But together with the spells and instructions of the coffin texts, and the protective vessel that is the coffin itself, the deceased, like Osiris and the sun god Ra, would safely defeat all the obstacles and find life renewed when their eyes view to the sun rising in the east at dawn. Thank you for watching and I hope you will join me again for my next ancient Egyptian object story. For further reading, please see the description box below.