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

ClassificationsAncient Egyptian Art

Coffin Board

Place CreatedEgypt, Africa

CultureEgyptian

PeriodThird Intermediate Period, Dynasty 21

Date1076-944 BCE

MediumWood, gesso, pigment

Credit LineCharlotte Lichirie Collection of Egyptian Art

Dimensions64 x 14 9/16 x 3 9/16 in. (162.6 x 37 x 9 cm)

Object number1999.001.012

Label TextCoffin boards were a feature largely confined to the Twenty-first Dynasty and evolved out of the mummy masks and elaborate body covers of the New Kingdom. The coffin board looked like, and served as, a secondary lid and was covered with depictions of gods and amuletic devices to protect the mummy, which rested underneath it.

This beautifully preserved example depicts a female in a full wig wearing a jeweled broad collar with falcon terminals and pectorals of winged scarabs. Her arms are rendered as crossed and wearing beaded bracelets and the fingers of her folded hands are bedecked with rings.

The sky goddess stretches across the middle of the board, and two columns of text, a standard offering formula, run below. The inscription enumerates several epithets of Osiris and requests offerings on behalf of the deceased. The name of the deceased is not included, which was frequently the case on coffins manufactured or purchased at the last minute.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, January 2000 - Spring 2001
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, October 6, 2001 - Present
Published ReferencesPeter Lacovara and Betsy Teasley Trope, The Realm of Osiris (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2001), 47.

Terms

ProvenanceEx coll. Niagara Falls Museum, Niagara Falls, Canada. Purchased by MCCM from William Jamieson (1954-2011) [Golden Chariot Productions], Toronto, Canada.

Status

On view

Collections