© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Peter Harholdt.

ClassificationsAncient Egyptian Art

Late Dynastic Coffin Base

AAT Object Form/Functionmummy case

AAT Object Form/Functioncoffin

AAT Object Form/FunctionFunerary Container

Place CreatedEgypt, Africa

CultureEgyptian

PeriodLate Period, Dynasty 27 - Dynasty 30

Date525-343 BCE

MediumWood, plaster, pigment

Credit LineCollected by William A. Shelton, funded by John A. Manget

Dimensions71 5/8 x 17 11/16 x 13 7/8 in. (182 x 45 x 35.2 cm)

Object number1921.003 A

Label TextThe angular, unpolished appearance of this coffin attests to the decline in quality of burial equipment during the later stages of Egyptian rule. The crude, unsophisticated decoration of this piece suggests that it was produced by a provincial artisan, rather than a high-status atelier.

The Goddess of the West appears on the bottom of the base, identified by the falcon standard upon her head, which represents the hieroglyph meaning "west." The Egyptian associated the West, where the sun sets each evening, with the entrance to the underworld. The goddess guarded the necropolis and the dead during the dangerous transition to the afterlife.
Exhibition HistoryA Preview of the Collections, Schatten Gallery, February 15 - April 4, 1982
Monuments and Mummies: The Shelton Expedition, Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology, February 8 - June 25, 1989
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 11, 1993 - Spring 2001
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2001 - 2006
Shadow of the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt and Its Influence, Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York, June 17 - November 25, 2012
GE Presents: The Mystery of the Albany Mummies, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York, September 21, 2013 - June 8, 2014
Hall of Ancient Egypt, The Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston, Texas, August 2014 - Present
Published ReferencesEmory University Museum of Art and Archaeology, A Preview of the Collections (Atlanta: the Museum, 1982), 8.
Bonna Wescoat and Monique Seefried, "Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology Reopens," Archaeology 38, no. 3 (1985): 60-63.
Debra Hale, "Ancient Egyptian Painting on Bottom of Coffin Discovered," Statesboro Herald, March 15, 1990.
MCCM Newsletter, Spring 1990.
Michael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum 1996), 28.
Peter Lacovara, "The New Galleries of Egyptian and Near Eastern Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum," Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art and Archaeology (September/October 2001): 9-16.
Peter Lacovara and Betsy Teasley Trope, The Realm of Osiris (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum 2001): 56.

ProvenanceAcquired for Emory University Museum by William Shelton (1875-1959), ca. 1920.

Status

Not on view

Collections