The coffin of Heqata (Cairo Jde 36418)

The coffin published in this book represents a type that had some popularity insouthern Upper Egypt in the early Middle Kingdom but which despite itsextraordina... » 

The coffin published in this book represents a type that had some popularity insouthern Upper Egypt in the early Middle Kingdom but which despite itsextraordinary decoration had not attracted attention so far. The most strikingfeature of the decoration is that the object friezes the pictorial renderingof ritual implements usually found on coffin interiors of the period alsoinclude complete ritual scenes some of which are attested only here. Apartfrom this the decoration includes an extensive selection of the religioustexts know as the Coffin Texts. studies the archaeological context and datingof the coffin and attempts a reconstruction of the construction procedures fromhis technical description of the monument. The detailed account of thedecoration in the rest of the book interprets the ritual iconography and offersfresh translations and interpretations of the Coffin Texts. A methodologicalinnovation is that he regards the scenes and texts not as individual decorationelements but as components of an integral composition. The background of thiscomposition is argued to be a view of life in the hereafter in which thedeceased is involved in an unending cycle of ritual action which reflects thefunerary rituals that were actually performed on earth. On the one hand thesenetherworldly rituals aim at bringing the deceased to new life bymummification on the other the newly regenerated deceased partakes inembalming rituals for gods representing his dead father Osiris of Arum. Thesegods in their turn effectuate the deceaseds regeneration. The entire processresults in a cycle of resuscitation in which the afterlife of the deceased andof the father gods areinterdependent. The sociological bias of thisinterpretation with its emphasis on kinship relations differs significantlyfrom earlier attempts to explain Egyptian funerary religion. Peeters 1995 «