Description:
This is the upper part of a panel from a rectangular wood coffin. Since wood was scarce in ancient Egypt, larger objects were often constructed from smaller pieces of wood, held together by means of dowels. This was also the case here: a dowel is still visible which connected our panel to a lower part.
The panel is painted in black on a layer of white stucco, and contains two lines of hieroglyphic text, reading: "Words spoken by Re, I have given to you Nephthys under ..." The sentence ends abruptly, due to a lack of space. Below the top end of four columns of text is visible; just a small part was preserved, not enough to allow us to know what was written in them; only in the column on the right hand side the name of Duamutef can be read.
Dating:
Middle Kingdom, 11th-12th dynasty, circa 2119-1794 B.C.
Size:
Width circa 38 cm., height circa 23 cm.
Provenance:
Dutch private collection A. De Kock, acquired from collection Ramaekers, Brussels, 1971; thence Dutch private collection P.d.K.; thence with Kunsthandel Mieke Zilverberg, Amsterdam.
Price:
€ 9,500
Stock number:
E1359
Background information:
Coffins were - at least in theory - oriented according to the cardinal axes, the longest side being oriented north-south (Nyord (2014), p. 29). The body was placed in the coffin on his left side, the head towards the north. This meant that the deceased was facing towards the sun rising in the east; two eyes were usually depicted on the long eastern panel of the coffin, near the head end so in front of the face of the mummy.
Texts on coffins are oriented in such a way that they are legible from the corpse's "viewpoint". Hence, on the long sides, they run from the head panel to the foot panel, and on the short sides they run from the front panel to the back panel (Willems (1988), p. 119). This means that the text on our panel, running from right to left, can be either the inside of the head panel, or the outside of the foot panel. The other side of our panel appears undecorated, and therefore does not provide any clues; panels undecorated on the inside or outside are known, although the former is far less common.
It has been argued that our panel is the head panel of a coffin. If this is correct, it may be assumed that the complete sentence should have read: "Words spoken by Re, I have given to you Nephthys under your head"; after all, texts and images relating to a specific part of the body can almost always be found on panels near the area where that part of the mummy was resting: for example necklaces and a headrest near the head, sandals near the feet.
It would also imply that the position of Nephthys is at the head end of the deceased, and indeed, on many Middle Kingdom coffins that is the case. Likewise, Isis can usually be found at the feet of the mummy. The short panels of the coffin were not only associated with Isis and Nephthys, they were even considered manifestations of these goddesses (Münster (1968), p. 24-53; 31; Willems (1988), p. 126-127; 134-135; 169-170; Willems (1996), p. 55-56), and therefore Isis and Nephthys were divine embodiments of the coffin ends (Willems (1996), p. 92); Willems asserts that the decoration of the coffin symbolises a ritual situation, derived from the role of the two female mourners sitting at the deceased's head and feet during the burial proceedings. Isis, as the widow of the deceased who was identified with Osiris, would then face him, while her sister Nephthys would wield protection over him from behind (compare also Camacho (2014), p. 136-137). Although this may be the origin of the concept, soon the two goddesses assumed clear cosmic connections with the south and north (Raven (2005), p. 41).
However, the position of Isis and Nephthys was not always consistent. During the Middle Kingdom, but also later, during the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period, Isis is predominantly represented on the foot panel and Nephthys on the head panel (Camacho (2014), p. 136-137). There have however always been exceptions to this rule. Compare for example Lacau (1903-1906), who published coffins with the formula "revered with god X", where Nephthys is mentioned on the head panel (for example Lacau I, p. 102-103; 160; p. 171, 174 and pl. XXV), both also where she is mentioned on the foot panel (Lacau I, p. 162; II, p. 21).
About our panel the suggestion has also been made that there is a scribal error in the writing of the name of the sun god Re (a circle with a dot in its middle), which should have been the name of the goddess of the sky Nut (a small pot, often drawn as a circle with a stroke on top of it). It is correct that on most coffins it is Nut who speaks these or similar words. However, the assumption may be incorrect. There are a few other coffins on which indeed Re is speaking the text; see for example the coffins of Wepwautnekht (Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim, inv. no. 5999 and 6000) (Eggebrecht (1990), cat. no. 17; 35; Eggebrecht (1993), figs. 32-33), which date from the 11th dynasty and were found in Assiut; here Nephthys is placed under the feet, while Isis is placed under the head.
Lapp, in his publication on the typology of coffins, devotes a special paragraph to the "Words spoken by Re"-formula (Lapp (1993), p. 129, § 290); all the coffins on which it occurs come from Assiut. He also states that the formula in which Re speaks is typical for Assiut, where the earliest examples of the so-called Götterreden are found in the 11th dynasty; they were also used in the 12th dynasty, but disappeared after that (Lapp (1993), p. 218-219, § 512). On p. 222 (§ 523) he speaks about the "special case Assiut" (plus one coffin from nearby Rifeh), where special texts were used, including the formula in which Re speaks; this is in line with what Willems wrote about Middle Kingdom coffins from Assiut, mostly representing local types which differ markedly from comparable material in the rest of Egypt (Willems (1988), p. 102).
Therefore it seems likely that our panel comes from Assiut. It should also be noted here that, although the hieroglyphs for "words spoken" can be written in several ways, the spelling on our panel is consistent with the spelling used in Assiut (Grotenhuis (2020-2021), p. 3327, appendix 6.357, table 6.316).
It is also important to note that on all the coffins with the "Words spoken by Re"-formula, the goddess Nephthys is placed under the feet of the deceased (Lapp (1993), p. 129). Therefore our panel was most likely made in Assiut, and was designed as a foot panel of a coffin. The text should read: "Words spoken by Re, I have given to you Nephthys under your feet".
There is one more argument that might indicate that it is indeed a foot panel. In the right hand column Duamutef is mentioned. He was one of the children of Horus. The disposition of the chilldren of Horus on coffins was very consistent; Duamutef is invariably present on the front panel, on the left, near the feet (Willems (1988), p. 138, figure 11; Lapp (1993), p. 63, § 160; p. 78, § 187; p. 100, § 233; p. 105, § 244; p. 168, § 387; p. 170, § 396; p. 190, § 436; p. 220, § 516).
Apart from their well known task of protecting the mummy, especially of the inner organs, the children of Horus also had cosmic qualities. The four gods might be personifications of the supports of the sky, and as such be present in "supportive" text columns below the corners of the lid (itself equated with the sky goddess Nut) (Willems (1988), p. 139-141; Raven (2005), p. 41-44). They were usually paired with goddesses, for example Duamutef with the goddess Neith; each duo was preferably orientated in a fixed direction. In texts Duamutef is often associated with the south, or with the feet of the mummy which were positioned in the south (for example in a recitation belonging to the liturgy of the place of embalmment, in the Coffin Texts where he is called one of the ba's of Nekhen (a place in the south of Egypt) or in depictions where is is wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt). Therefore his position in the text columns near the foot-end (= south) of the coffin was in accordance with the theological notions about the god. More precisely, given the official orientation of the coffin, Duamutef was assigned to its south-eastern corner.
If our panel is indeed a foot panel, the place where the name Duamutef appears is exactly the south-eastern corner of the coffin. Precisely the same disposition can be found on the foot panel of Wepwautnekht in the Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim (inv. no. 6000), mentioned above.
Bibliography:
- Kenaya Camacho, Head or Foot, Right or Left: Analyzing the Positions of Isis and Nephthys on Coffins and Sarcophagi from the Old Kingdom (2663-2160 BC) through Ptolemaic-Roman Periods (332BC-395 AD) (Master's Thesis, American University in Cairo, 2014);
- Arne Eggebrecht (Hrsg.), Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim, die ägyptische Sammlung (Zaberns Bildbände zur Archäologie) (Mainz am Rhein, Philipp von Zabern, 1993);
- Arne Eggebrecht (Hrsg.), Suche nach Unsterblichkeit. Totenkult und Jenseitsglaube im Alten Ägypten (Mainz am Rhein, Philipp von Zabern, 1990);
- Jorke Grotenhuis, Regional Variation in the Coffin Texts. A study of Sentence Structure, Verbal Structure and Graphical Forms (PhD thesis, Université de Liège, Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, Département des Sciences de l’Antiquité, 2020-2021);
- Pierre Lacau, Sarcophages antérieurs au Nouvel Empire, Tome I-II (Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du musée du Caire, nos. 28001-28126) (Le Caire, Imprimerie de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 1903-1906);
- Günther Lapp, Typologie der Särge und Sargkammern von der 6. bis 13. Dynastie (Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens, 7) (Heidelberg, Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1993);
- Maria Münster, Untersuchungen zur Göttin Isis, vom Alten Reich bis zum Ende des Neuen Reiches (Berlin, Hessling, 1968);
- Rune Nyord, "Permeable Containers: Body and Cosmos in Middle Kingdom Coffins", in Rogério Sousa (ed.), Body, Cosmos and Eternity. New Research Trends in the Iconography and Symbolism of Ancient Egyptian Coffins (Oxford, Archaeopress Egyptology, 2014), p. 29-44;
- Maarten J. Raven, "Egyptian Concepts on the Orientation of the Human Body", Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, volume 91 (2005), p. 37-53;
- Harco Willems, Chests of Life. A Study of the Typology and Conceptual Development of Middle Kingdom Standard Class Coffins (Mededelingen en Verhandelingen van het Vooraziatisch Genootschap "Ex Oriente Lux", 25) (Leiden, Ex Oriente Lux, 1988);
- Harco Willems, The Coffin of Heqata (Cairo JdE 36418). A Case Study of Egyptian Funerary Culture of the Early Middle Kingdom (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 70) (Leuven, Peeters Publishers, 1996).