ancient egyptian coffins - monash university...by barry kemp and anna stevens, based partly on...

B R I T I S H M U S E U M P U B L I C A T I O N S O N E G Y P T A N D S U D A N 4

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN COFFINS

Craft traditions and functionality

edited by

John H. TAYLOR and Marie VANDENBEUSCH

PEETERSLEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Contributors ........................................................................................................................................... VII

2014 Colloquium Programme ........................................................................................................................... IX

John H. TAYLOR and Marie VANDENBEUSCHPreface ................................................................................................................................................................ XI

I.CONCEPTUAL ASPECTS: RELIGIOUS ICONOGRAPHY AND TEXTS

Harco WILLEMSThe coffins of the lector priest Sesenebenef: a Middle Kingdom Book of the Dead? ................................... 3

Rogério SOUSAThe genealogy of images: innovation and complexity in coffin decoration during Dynasty 21 .................... 17

Andrzej NIWIŃSKIThe decoration of the coffin as a theological expression of the idea of the Universe .................................... 33

René VAN WALSEMSome gleanings from ‘stola’ coffins and related material of Dynasty 21–22 ................................................ 47

Hisham EL-LEITHYIconography and function of stelae and coffins in Dynasties 25–26 ............................................................... 61

Andrea KUCHAREKMourning and lamentation on coffins ............................................................................................................... 77

II.RESULTS OF RECENT FIELDWORK AND ARCHIVAL RESEARCH

Marilina BETRÒThe black-varnished coffin of Qenamon and Ippolito Rosellini’s excavations in the Theban necropolis ...... 119

Anna STEVENSBeyond iconography: The Amarna coffins in social context ........................................................................... 139

Marilina BETRÒ and Gianluca MINIACIUsed, reused, plundered and forgotten: A rare group of early Ramesside coffins from tomb MIDAN.05in the Theban necropolis ................................................................................................................................... 161

Gábor SCHREIBERMummy-boards from a Theban group burial dating to Dynasty 20 ................................................................ 185

Fruzsina BARTOSAn example of a rare Dynasty 22 cartonnage type from the excavation of TT 65 and its surroundings ....... 201

VI TABLE OF CONTENTS

III.COFFINS IN CONTEXT: BURIAL ASSEMBLAGES AND SACRED SPACE

Marleen DE MEYERReading a burial chamber: Anatomy of a First Intermediate Period coffin in context ................................... 217

Wolfram GRAJETZKIThe burial of the ‘king’s daughter’ Nubhetepti-khered .................................................................................... 231

Gianluca MINIACIBurial equipment of rishi coffins and the osmosis of the ‘rebirth machine’ at the end of the MiddleKingdom ............................................................................................................................................................ 247

Anders BETTUMNesting (part two): Merging of layers in New Kingdom coffin decoration .................................................... 275

IV.COFFINS IN CONTEXT: SOCIETY AND CRAFT ENVIRONMENT

Kathlyn M. COONEYCoffin reuse in Dynasty 21: A case study of the coffins in the British Museum .......................................... 295

Alessia AMENTANew results from the CT scanning of a coffin ................................................................................................. 323

Edoardo GUZZONExamining the coffins from the collective tomb found by Ernesto Schiaparelli in the Valley of the Queens:An essay on epigraphic and stylistic ‘clustered features’ as evidence for workshops .................................... 337

John H. TAYLOREvidence for social patterning in Theban coffins of Dynasty 25 ..................................................................... 349

V.COFFINS IN CONTEXT: REGIONAL VARIATIONS

Katharina STÖVESANDRegional variability in Late Period Egypt: Coffin traditions in Middle Egypt ............................................... 389

Éva LIPTAYBurial equipment from Akhmim in ancient and modern contexts ................................................................... 403

Alexandra KÜFFERTracing the history of a coffin and its mummy. The burial equipment from Gamhud at the Museumof Ethnology in Burgdorf (Switzerland) ........................................................................................................... 415

Béatrice HUBER with a contribution from Claudia NAUERTHCoptic coffins from Qarara. The Pfauensarg (peacock coffin) in context ...................................................... 435

1 With post-excavation analysis continuing, this figure is some-what preliminary, but unlikely to change very much.

2 The coffins from the South Tombs Cemetery are probably not, however, the first Amarna Period coffins that the site has yielded. The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, while clearing the sand and rubble from the courtyard of house P47.6 in the Main City in 1912, uncovered a coffin sitting adjacent to the boundary wall of the courtyard (Borchardt and Ricke 1980, 106, plan 29). The coffin is only mentioned briefly in the excavation report,

where it is dated to the later New Kingdom, but information in diary entries and archive photos (VII.6.13.065–6) suggests an Amarna Period date is possible (Bettum 2015, 32; a fuller dis-cussion of the coffin is pending).

3 This work is being undertaken by Anders Bettum (Oslo Museum) and a team of conservators and materials scientists headed by Julie Dawson (Fitzwilliam Museum) and Lucy Skin-ner. For preliminary reports, see Dawson and Skinner (2013; 2014), Skinner (2015) and Bettum (2015).

BEYOND ICONOGRAPHY: THE AMARNA COFFINS IN SOCIAL CONTEXT

Anna STEVENS

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of twenty deco-rated wooden coffins excavated from the South Tombs Cemetery at Amarna from 2005 to 2013. It considers how the coffins fit temporally and socially within the cemetery, and the social dynamics through which they came to be used as burial containers for a small portion of the Amarna population. It suggests that some of the coffins might have been used by family members of the officials who owned the South Tombs, but argues against straightforward associations between coffin use and socio-economic strata.

Introduction

From 2005 to 2013, the Amarna Project undertook fieldwork at the South Tombs Cemetery, the largest of the burial grounds of ancient Akhetaten (Fig. 1). Over the course of the excavations some 378 graves were recorded and a minimum number of 432 individuals recovered. Twenty of the burials showed evidence of having contained painted wooden coffins.1 Almost all had been subject to heavy looting in antiquity and in many cases all that survived were small pieces of wood and painted plaster. In eight cases, however, more sub-stantial portions of the coffins survived to be exca-vated, conserved and studied.

As the only decorated coffins preserved from Amarna, these objects offer an unprecedented opportu-nity to explore religious beliefs concerning death and the afterlife during the Amarna Period.2 A study of

their iconography is ongoing, undertaken in conjunc-tion with a broader project to conserve and investigate the technology of the coffins.3 The South Tombs Cem-etery, as a single-phase, well-excavated and broadly sampled burial ground, also brings the opportunity to explore and contextualise burial materials in ways that are not possible at many Egyptian cemeteries, espe-cially those excavated before the advent of ‘new archaeology’ and the careful excavation, sampling and study of mortuary assemblages and human remains. With this in mind, the focus of this paper is the archae-ological and social context of the coffins; the paper asks how the coffins fit into both the burial landscape of the South Tombs Cemetery and, more broadly, the social environment of ancient Akhetaten. It is also a response to calls for greater consideration of non-elite burial practice in ancient Egypt (Baines and Lacovara 2002, 12–14; Richards 2005, 49–54; Cooney 2007, 275–9).

The South Tombs Cemetery

The South Tombs Cemetery occupies a long wadi in the cliffs adjacent to the South Tombs, which represent the elite component of the cemetery. The wadi is about 400m long, and seems to have been almost completely filled with graves, implying that several thousand peo-ple were buried here.

The approach to fieldwork was to open three main excavation windows (Figs 2 and 3), termed the Upper Site, Lower Site and Wadi Mouth Site, with smaller exposures at the Middle and Wadi End Sites and some

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Fig. 1: Map of Amarna by Barry Kemp, based partly on survey data from Helen Fenwick.

BEYOND ICONOGRAPHY: THE AMARNA COFFINS IN SOCIAL CONTEXT 141

Fig. 2: Plan of the South Tombs Cemetery showing the areas excavated between 2006 and 2013 by Barry Kemp and Anna Stevens, based partly on survey data from Helen Fenwick.

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investigation of isolated squares on the edges of the cemetery.4 As the fieldwork progressed, it became clear that the burials had been affected not only by looting, but by one or more flash floods that formed or enlarged a channel down the axis of the wadi, and washed away looted materials from the burials. Despite these events, much evidence remained from which to reconstruct a picture of burial practice. Careful excavation has pro-vided some understanding of what is likely to be miss-ing from robbed and flood-damaged graves – at least in general terms, if not on a burial-by-burial basis.

The social patterning that underlies the organisation of the graves is difficult to reconstruct, but when the

interments are plotted according to age and sex, they reveal a mixed distribution, with the burials of adults, children and infants, and males and females, intermin-gled. Presumably these are, at least in part, family groups. While most graves contained only a single individual, there were examples of multiple burials, in which the deceased persons seem to have been interred at the same time, although it is never possible to be certain of this.

Overall, a sense of simplicity and uniformity pre-vails across the graves; some of this is a side effect of looting, but certainly not all. In terms of superstructure, most burials were probably marked with a rough stone

Fig. 3: A view across the excavations at the Upper Site in 2008 (Photograph: G. Owen).

4 A summary of the work up to 2012 is provided by Kemp et al. (2013). Preliminary excavation reports appear in the Journal�of�

� Egyptian�Archaeology from 2005 to 2013, and the final excava-tion monograph is in preparation.


cairn, a small number of which survived the looting. Sometimes a stela seems to have been placed at the graveside, usually made of limestone and with a dis-tinctive pointed shape, finishing at the top in a single, double or triple triangle (Fig. 4). The decoration rarely survives, but traces of carving on some suggest that the main scene was an image of the deceased sitting in front of a table of offerings. This scene is usually placed within a recess, giving the impression of a stela

set within a frame. Two small limestone pyramidia were also recovered from the site, one measuring 44cm in height and the other, not quite intact, surviving to 36cm. The latter has a small round-topped niche on one face that presumably was once carved or painted with an image of the deceased (Kemp 2010, 16–17, fig. 6; Kemp et al. 2013, 69, fig. 4). A preliminary interpreta-tion of these stelae and pyramidia is that they combine a model of a rock-cut tomb (the pointed element) with

Fig. 4: a (left) A roughly carved stela with a triangular motif (obj. 39425). b (right) A well-preserved stela showing a seated man and woman receiving offerings

(obj. 39938).

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Fig. 5: A mud-brick burial chamber encountered at the Upper Site during 2006.

a memorial representation of the deceased (on a stela), the pointed iconography presumably implying a solar association.

None of the stelae were found in�situ, although one example – unique in being round-topped and made of a granular off-white plaster – was found with pieces of impressed mortar that suggest it was attached to a stone grave cairn (obj. 39448; Stevens and Shepper-son 2009, 19–20, fig. 9). One of the pyramidia has a shallow rectangular recess in its base and might thus have been raised up on a foundation, while small frag-ments of mud brick, found very occasionally in dis-turbed grave fills and bulk sand deposits, are possibly the remains of small mud-brick superstructures. One of the excavated graves had a mud-brick burial cham-ber and it seems a good candidate for a superstructure of some kind (Fig. 5). If so, nothing survived the loot-ing and weathering in� situ, although fragments of a window grille found in a disturbed grave nearby per-haps originated from such a structure. Undoubtedly,

though, simple constructions such as low stone cairns were the norm.

As regards the artefact record, potsherds were by far the most common item recovered during the excavation (Rose 2007; 2008; 2014; Rose and Gasperini 2015), potentially originating both from offerings left grave-side and within the burial pit itself. The disturbance of the site largely removed sherds from their original con-text, although there were examples of vessels found in�situ within graves, a few containing food offerings (Clapham 2007; 2015). There were also examples of jars with probable ‘killing holes’. Otherwise, grave goods were fairly rare, but did include items of personal adornment or significance such as cosmetic implements, and amuletic or ritual objects, such as scarabs, used presumably to aid the transition to the afterlife and ensure well-being thereafter.

The deceased individuals were usually wrapped first in textile and then placed in a burial container, of which five different kinds were encountered. By far the most


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common was a mat that had been wrapped around the body and bound with rope. It was made usually of palm mid-rib (gereed) or tamarisk sticks, or less often of palm-leaf, halfa-grass, reed or sedge (Paqua 2015; Clapham 2015). There is evidence for the use of pot-tery coffins, although only as a few fragments found during surface survey (Rose 2005, 24), and a single example of a mud coffin, for an infant (Ind. 301; Ste-vens, Shepperson and King Wetzel 2013, 6–8, fig. 4).

Forty wooden coffins were also encountered. Twenty take the form of simple undecorated boxes, which in all cases were far too degraded to be lifted and studied further. But around twenty graves showed evidence of having contained painted wooden coffins. All but one of these graves had been robbed, often reducing the coffins to small fragments of wood and plaster. Sub-stantial portions of eight examples were however pre-served. Most of the coffins were coloured black, the paint often apparent even when only small fragments survived; and while the coffins were often too dam-aged to determine their shape, at least eight were anthropoid. The decoration on most of the eight better-preserved examples falls into two broad groups: those that continue the pre-Amarna tradition, utilising BD 151 and assimilating the deceased with Osiris, and those in which these elements are replaced by figures of humans undertaking ritual activity. It is not yet clear how much interplay might exist between the two decorative schemes (Bettum 2015). There is one exception: a rec-tangular coffin for an infant with yellow and black bands (Coffin 8 below).

A brief description of the decorated coffins and their archaeological context follows.5 It should be noted that during the earlier fieldwork seasons the coffins were photographed extensively in� situ and lifted out of the ground without treatment. From 2011, a new approach to excavating the coffins was insti-gated, with the use of cyclododecane (CDD), a wax that is applied in liquid form to the surface of an object and forms a rigid shell that helps the object to be lifted. The CDD is later allowed to sublime into the air in a controlled environment. This allowed an improved recovery rate, but the need for rapid appli-cation of the CDD limited the time available to pho-tograph and study the coffin walls as they were exposed, the controlled sublimation of the CDD being an ongoing process. There is, therefore, only a partial record at present of most of the coffins excavated post-2011, while the study of the very fragmentary examples also largely awaits completion.

The decorated coffins

The�Wadi�Mouth�Site

Three decorated coffins were found at the Wadi Mouth Site (Fig. 6). One of these, in square AM111, survived only as fragments of wood and painted plaster. To judge from the scale of the grave, the coffin was adult-sized, but no human remains survived, nor were there any objects, other than a few potsherds, in the grave fill.

5 The numbering of the eight better-preserved coffins follows that of Bettum (2015); all have in addition object and/or excavation numbers. The determination of the age and sex of the individuals

interred in the coffins is the work of the bioarchaeological team headed by Jerry Rose (University of Arkansas) and Gretchen Dabbs (Southern Illinois University).

Fig. 7: Coffin 8 (obj. 40106) after conservation treatment (Photograph: N. Peters).


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The other two coffins, both excavated in 2012, were better preserved. One was a full-size anthropoid coffin, Coffin 7 (obj. 40105). The wood was badly rotted and somewhat crushed and the decorated plaster layer was in particularly bad condition. It was covered in CDD to enable lifting, but from what was visible during exca-vation it seems to be of the traditional type. The name Tiy can possibly be read (Bettum 2015). Inside the cof-fin there remained the lower body of a female aged between 40 and 45 years (Ind. 300).

The second, Coffin 8, was a small rectangular coffin decorated with yellow text bands with black frame lines, the bands and image panels left blank (obj. 40106; Stevens, Shepperson and King Wetzel 2013, 4; Bettum 2015; Fig. 7). The coffin was consolidated in the ground and lifted intact, before undergoing conser-vation treatment (Peters 2015). The skeleton was not removed, but seems to be that of a child aged around 3 or 4 years (Ind. 332).

Fig. 9: Preliminary reconstruction of Coffin 3 (unit 13281) based on field photographs (Drawing: B. Kemp).


The�Lower�Site

Excavations at the Lower Site revealed the remains of eleven decorated coffins (Fig. 8). Most survived only as small fragments of wood and painted plaster, although four were more substantially preserved. Of the former, the majority were so badly robbed-out that

no skeletal elements remained, with two exceptions: a grave with coffin fragments in square V104 contained skeletal elements from an adult male aged 35–50 years (Ind. 117), while the skeleton of a man aged 35–45 years (Ind. 71) was found adjacent to, and may have originated from, an unoccupied grave with coffin frag-ments in U102.

Fig. 10: Preliminary reconstruction of Coffin 4 (unit 13262) based on field photographs (Drawing: B. Kemp).

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The 2010, 2011 and 2012 seasons produced better-preserved coffins. In 2010, work in square Y105 yielded, within the space of a single week, two full-sized coffins that remained largely intact apart from their lids, which had been smashed through by robbers in order to remove the contents. Unfortunately, the ini-tial impression of good preservation was misleading; the wood survived largely as a grainy powder held together by the layers of paint and gypsum plaster on its surfaces. The coffins were lifted out of the ground in fragments after a photographic record was made, from which reconstruction drawings have been pro-duced (Kemp 2010, 18–21, figs 7–8).

Both coffins are of the ‘new type’ with human offer-ing bearers and columns of text on their walls. Coffin 3 (unit 13281; Fig. 9) has four male offering figures separated by columns of hieroglyphs, with a fifth female figure at the shoulder. The name bands alternate the personal names Hesy(t)en-Ra and Hesy(t)en-Aten. Coffin 4 (unit 13262; Figs 10 and 11) was slightly larger, at 2m long, and shows on each wall four men carrying offerings or standing before a table of offer-ings, each figure separated by columns of largely unin-telligible hieroglyphs. A larger table of offerings is

placed at the shoulder. In neither case were any skeletal remains or burial goods preserved within the grave.

The 2011 coffin, Coffin 5 (unit 13438), was situated in square AA105 and was again almost intact apart from the lid (Stevens 2012a, 4–5, fig. 4). While one of the coffin panels is still covered in CDD, on the other traces of four standing figures can be discerned. The decoration is very poorly preserved, and requires closer study, but one of the figures is clearly jackal-headed (Fig. 12). The coffin was densely filled with jumbled bone representing the remains of four individuals. The most complete, and most likely to have been the origi-nal occupant, was a female aged 15–18 years (Ind. 199A). Bones from a foetus (Ind. 199D) suggest she may have been pregnant at the time of death. There were no remaining grave goods.

A further coffin with what seems to be traditional imagery, Coffin 6 (obj. 40107), was found in 2012 in square AL105. It had been smashed into pieces by rob-bers, but some of the wood was in good condition, retaining a black-painted ground with cream-coloured decoration, a jackal-headed figure again visible ( Bettum 2015). The grave contained skeletal elements from a child aged 8–12 years (Ind. 315).

Fig. 11: An offering bearer and text columns on the side of Coffin 4 (unit 13262), photographed during excavation.


The�Middle�Site

No decorated coffins were found at the Middle Site, where only a small area was excavated, although two plain wooden coffins were present; Fig. 13 shows their locations.

The�Upper�Site

Remains of five probable decorated coffins were found at the Upper Site (Fig. 14). The disturbed fill of the mud-brick tomb chamber in square G51, excavated in 2006, contained fragments of plastered and painted coffin wood, and also loose pieces of gold leaf. The same fill contained about half of the skeleton of a prob-able male aged 20–35 years (Ind. 21). A grave pit crossing squares I52 and J52 also contained small frag-ments of painted plaster that are perhaps from a coffin once interred here. A small portion of a juvenile skel-eton, aged around 6.5 years (Ind. 62) was found within the grave, but was possibly intrusive. Another entirely robbed-out grave crossing squares H51 and I51 also contained painted plaster fragments, some perhaps from a coffin lid; in this case, no skeletal remains sur-vived. In the latter two examples, both excavated in 2007, only small amounts of painted plaster were found, but the very regular shape of the grave pit and the heavy disturbance are noteworthy – both are typical of graves with painted coffins.

The 2007 excavations yielded a third example, Coffin 1, in square H52 (objs 37841–52, 37854, 37987; Kemp 2007, 21–2, fig. 8). The grave had been heavily looted and the coffin survived mostly as fragments of

Fig. 12: A jackal-headed figure on the side of Coffin 5(unit 13438), after conservation treatment

(Photograph: L. Skinner).

Fig. 13: Distribution map of wooden coffins at the Middle Site.

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The�Wadi�End�Site

The 2012 excavations at the Wadi End Site produced small fragments of plaster and wood from a decorated coffin, the same grave containing parts of an adult skel-eton (Ind. 292), of indeterminate age and sex (Fig. 16).

Who was buried at the South Tombs Cemetery?

The South Tombs Cemetery is not the only non-elite cemetery for Akhetaten, and it is not entirely straight-forward to ascertain who was buried here. There were at least three burial grounds located at the North Tombs, and each of the workers’ villages, the Workmen’s Vil-lage and Stone Village, had its own small cemetery (see Fig. 1). It has been proposed – on the basis of levels of degenerative joint disease, trauma and mus-culo-skeletal stress at the South Tombs Cemetery – that many of the people buried here had undertaken hard labour that might have included quarry work (Kemp et al. 2013, 71–4). The intention was not to imply, how-ever, that these people necessarily belonged to a sepa-rate workers’ community as such.

The most straightforward explanation of the fact that there are two main cemetery groups at Amarna, one at the north and one at the south, is that this reflects the division of the residential suburbs of the city into two zones, the North Suburb and North City to the north of the Central City, and the Main City to its south (see Fig. 1). Undoubtedly, some caution needs to be exer-cised here. The high priest Panehesy, who evidently lived in the Main City (Griffith 1924, 302, pl. XXXIII), also having a formal residence beside the Great Aten Temple (Pendlebury 1951, 26–7, fig. 6, pls XI, XXX.1, XXXI), was not buried at the South Tombs, but was the owner of North Tomb 6. Below his tomb, there is a small cemetery of pit graves, not yet excavated, but with Amarna Period pottery on its surface, which was perhaps used by Panehesy’s dependents, people who might have lived in small houses adjacent to his Main City estate. Furthermore, recent excavations at the larg-est of the northern cemeteries, located in a wadi between North Tombs 2 and 3, suggest this burial ground might have been for a labour force, whose place of residence is not yet clear (Stevens et al. 2015; 2017; Stevens and Dabbs forthcoming). A strict correlation between the north and south residential zones and cemeteries cannot be maintained, but we can probably assume nonetheless that a large number of the people buried at the South Tombs Cemetery were from the Main City.

plaster and degraded wood. Recognisable amongst the former are facial elements including two modelled ears, painted red, and it is likely that many of the fragments are from the coffin lid. It remains to be ascertained whether parts of the coffin case were also present, or whether the lid might have been thrown in from else-where. Human remains belonging to a female aged 30–39 years (Ind. 29) were found in association with the fragments, but nothing remained of any grave goods.

In 2008, a further decorated coffin, Coffin 2, appeared in square I51 (obj. 38819; Kemp 2008, 35–41, fig. 10; Fig. 15). Small parts of the coffin case sur-vived, but the most notable element was the face from the lid. The coffin is for a female, named in inscriptions as Maya. Its decoration is of the ‘new type’, showing ritual scenes (Bettum 2015). Disarticulated bone was again found, being that of a female aged 40–49 years (Ind. 69A). An intact bowl containing botanical remains was found in�situ on the grave floor at the head end of the coffin.

Fig. 15: The mask from Coffin 2 (obj. 38819)after conservation treatment.

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obviously, the royal family, and perhaps also very poor or outcast members of society who may not have attained a proper burial. It offers a fruitful basis from which to pursue social analysis (see also Stevens 2017).

Coffin use at Amarna

Evidence from the South Tombs Cemetery indicates that wooden coffins were either rarely sought after or – more likely – rarely attainable at Amarna. They rep-resent only around 10% of the burial containers exca-vated at the South Tombs Cemetery, and decorated examples around just 5%.6 This is an important dataset that confirms that coffins were rare commodities in

The Main City, to judge from the excavation and study of its houses (Tietze 1985; Crocker 1985; Shaw 2004, 16–18), was home to a population that varied considerably in socio-economic status and occupation. The study of the human remains from the South Tombs Cemetery in turn reveals individuals who died at various ages, from infants to older adults, while morphological analysis of cranio-facial features shows high levels of diversity, suggesting a popula-tion that originated from across Egypt and – at an indeterminate level of generational remove – beyond its borders (Gretchen Dabbs, pers. comm.). So at the South Tombs Cemetery (including the rock-cut tombs) we probably have a mixed and broadly repre-sentative sample of the Amarna population other than,

6 These figures are obtained by dividing the number of coffins by the number of graves. They may be refined slightly as post-excavation analysis continues.

Fig. 16: Distribution map of wooden coffins at the Wadi End Site.


7 The situation is even more extreme at the cemetery between North Tombs 2 and 3, where no evidence of wooden coffins at

all was encountered amongst the eighty-five graves excavated in 2015 (Stevens et al. 2015).

many coffins surviving only as small fragments, we cannot be sure that similarly decorated examples were not once located further down the wadi. More signifi-cant, perhaps, is the close proximity of one of the ‘jackal coffins’ (Coffin 5) at the Lower Site to those of examples with ‘godless’ decoration, suggesting that these were potentially interred not far apart in time, and perhaps even used by people who were in some way associates.

Despite the robbery of the site, there is still informa-tion to be gleaned on the identity of those interred in the coffins through a combination of skeletal analysis, the inscriptions on the coffins, or simply the size of the grave in which coffin fragments were found. This is presented in Table 1, where a couple of patterns are clear: namely, the association of decorated coffins with adults, both female and male (although age is often deduced solely on the basis of grave size); and the large number of infants buried in plain wooden coffins. In the latter we might see a heightened desire to protect the young and vulnerable, if not through ritually charged iconography, then at least through a more sub-stantial container than a burial mat. It is not clear, due to poor preservation, whether all of these infant coffins were purpose-made or might have been reused boxes. Coffin 8, the partially decorated child coffin at the Wadi Mouth Site (see Figs 6 and 7), offers an interest-ing case, the child being too big for the coffin and a hole having been cut through the foot-board to accom-modate the feet. It presumably represents the expedient procurement of a burial container, perhaps from a cof-fin-maker’s non-commissioned stock. No attempt was made to finish the decoration of the coffin, or even it seems to inscribe a name; its incomplete decoration may have had little ritual value.

One of the underlying research questions for the cemetery is whether it can contribute to our under-standing of the socio-economic make-up of the Amarna population, as a complement to previous work on the topic based on house sizes and fittings (Tietze 1985; 2010, 98–117; Crocker 1985; Kemp 1989, 298, 300). The cemetery data is not immediately promising because of the effects of robbery, but also because of the sense of uniformity across the graves. The site

New Kingdom Egypt, assuming they were no more or less attainable at Amarna than at contemporaneous sites.7

The wooden coffins are not confined to any one part of the South Tombs Cemetery but spread across it, with a concentration of both decorated and plain examples across the south-western excavation squares of the Lower Site and probably the southern squares of the Upper Site, although here their identification is based on more fragmentary evidence (see Figs 8 and 14). Graves with coffins fit smoothly into their setting, mostly conforming to the same orientation as surround-ing burials, and surely belonging to the same general process of infilling that populated the cemetery as a whole. It is difficult to know how exactly this pro-gressed, although it was presumably a fairly organic process, to judge from the mixed nature of the inter-ments and the lack of a gridded or similarly structured layout to the graves. Local topography may have been one of the influences on how graves were oriented. Those on flat ground often follow the line of the wadi itself – the dominant directional prompt in the land-scape – but those on the sloping sides of the wadi tend to run across the gradient, often with the head of the deceased on the higher ground, mimicking perhaps the way a person would lie on uneven land. It seems likely that the colonisation of the ground was driven espe-cially by family-level agency; it was potentially rife with social tension, including that connected to secur-ing family plots. If there were mechanisms in place to regulate the use of space, they can only be guessed at.

It is tempting to see the cemetery beginning at the mouth of the wadi and the graves spreading down its length over time, although there is little scope to test this idea. If it is correct, however, the fragmentary cof-fin at the Wadi End Site (see Fig. 16) would lie exactly at the far limit of the burial ground and may thus have been interred close in time to the abandonment of Amarna, providing one temporal marker – unfortu-nately, almost entirely destroyed. It may be notewor-thy, too, that the two coffins that have so far been iden-tified with images of traditional divinities (Coffins 5 and 6) occur at the Lower Site (see Fig. 8), reasonably close to the beginning of the wadi, although with so

156 A. STEVENS

8 The identification of wood and pigment types is the work of Rainer Gerisch (Free University, Berlin) and Corina Rogge (Houston Museum of Art) respectively.

this perception necessarily uniform across the life–death–afterlife transition?

The Setne text is a reminder of the central role of the funeral in marking this transition, and of the socially charged occasion this constituted. Status, closeness to court culture and religious affiliation – of the deceased and/or those who took on responsibility for the funeral – would have been amongst the aspects on display. The ritual power that decorated coffins embodied, relative to simple matting coffins, must have imbued the deco-rated forms automatically with value – and public responses to the parading of ‘traditional’ or ‘new’ cof-fin types are fascinating to consider in this respect.

The quality of workmanship and materials must like-wise have been open to some degree of scrutiny. In these respects, the Amarna coffins appear to be broadly comparable to non-elite coffins from other New King-dom sites (Bettum 2015). Local woods are predomi-nant, especially sycamore fig, and a typical New King-dom palette of pigments is attested: red and yellow ochre, carbon black, Egyptian blue, calcite (white) and orpiment.8 Flakes of gold leaf found loose near coffin fragments in the mud-brick chamber at the Upper Site (see Fig. 5) could suggest the use of more precious decorative elements in at least this one case. Based on the artistic style and legibility of the text, the prelimi-nary study of Coffins 3 and 4 from the Lower Site sug-gested that they were the products of ‘village’ crafts-men, who worked to a standard coffin template but were not trained as artists (Kemp 2010, 21). Greater artistic skill might be seen, perhaps, in the execution of the jackal figure on Coffin 5 (see Fig. 12) and the carv-ing of the mask of Coffin 2 (see Fig. 15; Bettum 2015).

does, nonetheless, reinforce the idea that there was a large divide between the upper elite and the rest of the population, given that it contains only a small number of rock-cut tombs and a much larger number of simple pit graves. Across the latter, there is little further sign of socio-economic difference, and it has been sug-gested that diversity for the non-elite may not have been strongly expressed in mortuary data (Kemp et al. 2013, 74–5).

The main exceptions, of course, are the wooden cof-fins, which must be viewable, to some extent, as ‘status markers’ (Cooney 2007). The Roman Period Tale of Setne (II) (Papyrus British Museum EA 10822 verso; Lichtheim 1980, 139), with a Ramesside prince as its hero, illustrates this nicely, in contrasting the funerals of a rich and poor man. The relevant passage is incom-plete, but the meaning is clear:

Setne heard the sound of wailing ---. He looked [down from the window] of his house [and saw the coffin of a rich man] being carried out to the cemetery with [very loud] wailing ---, and great were the honors ---. [In another moment] as he was looking down, he saw [the body of a poor man being carried out of Memphis] wrapped (only) in a mat --- without anyone walking [behind him].

Situating the Amarna coffins in their socio-economic context, however, is not straightforward. It seems forced to separate out those individuals buried in dif-ferent coffin types as coming from distinct social strata, and while house-size data provide a lynchpin of sorts, a more nuanced approach needs at least to be pursued: what did coffin ownership mean in terms of how these people were perceived within the community, and was

Table 1: Breakdown of coffin ownership according to age and sex. Note that one of the undecorated coffins seems to have contained two infants (Inds 140 and 165).

Coffin type Infant (0–2.9)Early child

(3–6.9)Late child (7–14.9)

Young adult

female (15–24.9)

Young adult male

(15–24.9)

Young adult

(indet. sex)

(15–24.9)

Adult female

(25–50+)

Adult male

(25–50+)

Probable adult (on the basis of grave

size)Decorated wooden coffin 0 1? 1 1 – – 2 + 2? 2 + 1? 10Undecorated wooden coffin 12 – 3 – – 2 2 1 1


9 One grave did contain a plain wooden coffin at least. It occurred as part of a tomb assemblage that included a wooden object identified as a chair leg, a set of eight vessels, some apparently containing food offerings, and a hieratic ostracon. This would be considered a rich assemblage if found at the South Tombs

Cemetery, the ‘chair leg’ unparalleled here. Burial architecture at the Workmen’s Village, and to some extent the Stone Village, is also more elaborate, both sites lying on a plateau of desert marl and soft rock that allowed the cutting of shaft-and-chamber tombs (Stevens 2012b, 442).

perhaps originated from a mud-brick superstructure at one or both of the graves with decorated coffins here. It might be no coincidence, too, that the Lower Site, with the largest number of wooden coffins proportion-ate to graves excavated, also has the most stelae (eight of fifteen definite examples), and one of the two small pyramidia. Although all were from disturbed contexts, three of the stelae were excavated near graves contain-ing decorated coffins.

The stelae from the cemetery are of very variable quality. The simplest is little more than a roughly smoothed piece of limestone with a triangular design that is now weathered, but seems never to have been carefully incised (obj. 39425 from the Lower Site; see Fig. 4a). But even such simple monuments may have stood out at the site, assuming their rarity is not a result of post-depositional processes. The best-preserved of the stelae is a remarkable example in which a seated man and woman are shown in an intimate style remi-niscent of imagery of the king and queen (obj. 39938 from the Lower Site; Kemp 2010, 16–17; see Fig. 4b), and it is difficult not to suppose that status – real or sought after – was inherent in the mimicking of court style.

But to what extent were statements of ‘otherness’ as inscribed in the burial landscape, or conveyed through the parading of a decorated coffin during a funeral, reflections of position during life? Emotions connected with bereavement may have prompted family members to acquire items beyond their normal means, while for some individuals attaining a coffin may have been a product of personal investment over the course of a lifetime – a pinnacle of achievement. Some people bur-ied in coffins might indeed have had elevated status, but in a restricted social context – as the head of a household for example – rather than in a broader com-munity setting. Individuals buried in coffins may have attained in life such benefits as a larger or better fitted-out house, but need not always have done so. It is worth asking whether some of the patterning seen at the South Tombs Cemetery could reflect such mecha-nisms of attaining coffins: the association of decorated

In any case, there is perhaps enough variation in the quality of decoration to suggest that this was executed in somewhat varied environments, although reposition-ing the coffins into their manufacturing contexts is not an easy task. We are looking for industries that are par-ticularly ephemeral in the archaeological record – woodworking and painting – and beyond identifying suitable tools or pigments, we are unlikely to get far in finding direct evidence of spaces in which coffins were made at Amarna. It seems worth noting, nonetheless, that one concentration of artistic skill occurred at the Workmen’s Village, most evident in the vibrant paint-ings that decorated the chapels adjacent to the walled settlement (Weatherhead and Kemp 2007). Might it be that, like their Ramesside counterparts at Deir el-Medina (Cooney 2007), the artisans of the Amarna Workmen’s Village were sometimes engaged to take on private commissions of coffins? There is no record of decorated coffins being found amongst the graves of the workmen themselves, which might have provided support for this idea, but very few graves have been cleared here (Peet and Woolley 1923, 94; Stevens 2012b, 442; Stevens and Rose forthcoming).9

Once interred at the South Tombs Cemetery, the cof-fins were rendered invisible, and any role as visual sta-tus markers was nullified. There are hints, however, that a sense of otherness was maintained at some of these burials through the use of superstructures some-what more elaborate than average. The mud-brick chamber at the Upper Site – with its possible gold-leaf coffin – is the most likely example (see Fig. 5). Might we imagine a small pyramid and attached offering place, the latter in the grave-free area of ground to the north-east of the chamber (see Fig. 14)? In this one burial it is almost possible to see signs of the adjacent graves lining up orthogonally around it as though it was a monument, or represented a person, of some presence – although because it lies on the edge of an excavation area, the full picture of its setting is lacking.

At the Lower Site, loose fragments of mud brick found along the junction of squares U102 and U103

158 A. STEVENS

10 Large quantities of pottery and burial materials, including inter-ments wrapped in matting and in coffins, were removed from the South Tombs in the late 19th century, but not published (Davies 1906, 10–11; 1908, 13–14, n. 5). These are assumed to have been secondary, and indeed the pottery at least dates to Dynasties 25 and 30 (French 1986). The possibility that New Kingdom burial materials were amongst these, however, cannot be entirely ruled out. Amongst items found by Flinders Petrie at

the South Tombs is a group of wooden funerary models (Petrie Museum UC 1982–2001, 24313–15; Petrie 1937, 12–13), some probably later than the New Kingdom, but including pieces of model boats that find general parallel within New Kingdom set-tlement and funerary contexts, although not exclusively (Stevens 2006, 115–16). There is also a number of shabtis thought to be from Amarna that potentially come from the elite tombs (Martin 1986).

one coffin with traditional imagery (Coffin 5) to others in the new ‘godless’ style (Coffins 3 and 4) at the Lower Site might suggest that both decorative types were in circulation close in time, and perhaps used by people who were associated.

The general lack of evidence for subsidiary burials at the rock-cut South Tombs raises the possibility that some of the burials containing decorated coffins within the wadi itself are those of family members of the own-ers of these tombs. At the same time, consideration of the social dynamics of coffin ownership cautions against assumptions that there were always straightfor-ward associations between coffin use and social-eco-nomic status.

Acknowledgements

The Amarna cemetery excavations are made possi-ble through the support of the Ministry of Antiquities, with special thanks owing to the staff of the Minia and Mallawi offices. The conservation and study of the cof-fins has been generously funded by USAID, via the American Research Center in Egypt’s Antiquities Endowment Fund, the Thriplow Trust, the Aurelius Trust, the Egypt Exploration Society and private donors through the Amarna Trust. The support of the Fitzwil-liam Museum is also acknowledged. For access to archive records and photographs of the coffin exca-vated in the Main City, I wish to thank the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft. The excavation and study of the Amarna cemeteries is very much a team effort, made possible by a dedicated group of excavators, bioarchae-ologists, conservators and other specialists. Lucy Skin-ner and Julie Dawson need to be singled out for thanks for their dedication to the long-term coffin conserva-tion project that unexpectedly developed from the excavations, while Megan Paqua’s help in organising and analysing the cemetery data during a study season in 2014 was invaluable in the preparation of this paper.

coffins especially with adults, for example, and the fact that decorated coffins do not always occur in clus-ters, but sometimes in isolation from other examples (see Figs 6, 8, 14 and 16; allowance needs to be made for areas of unexcavated ground). When groupings of coffins do occur, such as at the Lower Site and prob-ably the Upper Site, it raises the question whether fam-ily circumstances were enough to sustain the repeated investment in decorated coffins, and whether these were groups of people who were perceived as different in life. One important question is where the families of officials who owned rock-cut tombs were buried. Very few of the twenty-seven numbered South Tombs show evidence of burial shafts, either inside or in the cliffs adjacent, to suggest they were used to accommodate interments (Davies 1906, 9, 21, 25; 1908, 8, 12),10 yet these families must have suffered deaths during the occupation of Akhetaten. Some may have been buried in family tombs beyond Amarna, but the possibility exists that some of the individuals interred in coffins at the South Tombs Cemetery are also from these households.

Conclusions

Amarna provides a rare opportunity to situate cem-eteries and burial assemblages within their broader urban context, while the cemeteries of Amarna in turn provide the chance to approach this extensively studied settlement not from the perspective of houses and households, but that of individual lives. In a burial landscape characterised by uniformity and the wide-spread use of burial mats to wrap the deceased, the decorated wooden coffins stand out. Their widespread distribution across the cemetery suggests that graves here were not strongly segregated according to socio-economic status, although clusters of somewhat better-off burials, perhaps grouped according to kinship ties, can also be found. The reasonably close proximity of


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