Sarge der dritten Zwischenzeit I.

• Author: Walsem, Rene van

The polychrome, anthropoid coffins of the Third Intermediate Period, especially those of Dynasty XXI - the subject of the present publication - undeniably belong to the most intricate funerary artifacts ever made by the ancient Egyptians. They are a treasury of technical, iconographical, prosopographical, and philological features, partly reflecting the cultural setting of the clerical elite of the Amon temple at Thebes during the period known as "The God Amon's State." Yet the hundreds of coffins, of which several form complete sets (i.e., an outer coffin, an inner coffin, and a plank-lid), were not published properly, i.e., in an integrated fashion.

This is regrettable and not justified, though understandable; the reason, I think, is a psychological one. As soon as one takes a longer and scrutinizing look at these objects, he is overwhelmed by all sorts of details deserving attention. And other such details are noticed during a prolonged confrontation only. Since not everyone can take the time necessary for such observations, the investigator who intends to publish these coffins has to put into words this mass of information. After focusing on the obviously important data, the ensuing problem is determining which data are really too unimportant to record and which may not be interesting to the present investigator, but may be crucial for others' research, now or later. The decision must be made in front of the object, and it is a crucial decision. For after the publication, it would be extremely difficult for any other investigator to retrieve any omitted data of the latter category. The result of an unbiased integral presentation of the data is a very voluminous (216 pages in the present publication) and tedious description of a small number of coffins (12 units of which 10 belong to two complete sets: nos. 6261-63 and 626466). Here we meet, in my opinion, the psychological barrier that tends to hinder adequate publication of these coffins: giving only a detailed and factual description of even a single coffin is very time-consuming and in itself not very exciting. The real challenge lies in an integral interpretation of the different aspects and levels and comparing these. Combining the two activities, however, takes several years as I myself have experienced (R. van Walsem, The Coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, I: Technical and...