This anthropoid coffin, with its yellow coating and densely arranged decoration, is typical of examples from Thebes dating to Dynasty 21 and early Dynasty 22. It belonged to a man named Nespahertahat. His priestly titles, God’s Father of Amun-Re, Scribe of the Double Treasury of the Estate of Amun, and God’s Father of Mut, indicate that he served in the Karnak Temple in Thebes (now Luxor).^[1] Coffins like this were usually part of a set of two, one nested within the other, and a mummy board (a separate, anthropomorphic-shaped board that was positioned between the mummified individual and the lid of the inner coffin). The decoration of the mummy board typically resembled that found on the lid of the coffin. Fragments of mummy bandages that adhere to the floor of this coffin indicate that it was the inner coffin of such a set. The current location of Nespahertahat’s mummy, outer coffin, and mummy board are unknown.1

Both the lid and the box are constructed from multiple pieces of wood. On the lid, the face and hands (and the missing beard) were carved separately from high-quality wood and attached with dowels. Clay mixed with a protein-based material and applied over the joins covers any imperfections.^[2]2

Decoration

The lid shows the deceased wearing a blue-and-yellow-striped tripartite wig tucked behind his ears, with yellow bands at the end of the lappets. His almond-shaped eyes, set below arched eyebrows, are framed with blue cosmetic lines. His skin, which is painted the same yellow color observed elsewhere on the coffin, is partially marred by a material that dripped down from the top of the head, covering parts of the face and wig.^[3] Nespahertahat’s fisted hands are crossed on his chest, the left holding a short mekes—a cylindrical document container that symbolically held the divine decree that Osiris was the legitimate ruler of Egypt (fig. 1).^[4] The complicated motif between Nespahertahat’s hands consists of a jackal-headed Anubis figure; ba birds (representations of the soul) holding ankhs; a scarab wearing the hemhem crown; and the kneeling god Heh (the personification of “millions”), who holds ankhs and notched reeds (the reed is the hieroglyph for “year”) that together convey the endless years of the deceased’s eternal existence.3

Variations on this central motif appear repeatedly down the middle of the coffin’s lid (fig. 2). An enormous floral wreath made of layers of different flowers, the outermost of which depicts open papyrus flowers, covers the upper part of the deceased’s body.4

Important to determining the date of this coffin are the red mummy braces (also called stola), which here are crossed on the chest of the deceased, with their yellow, flare-ended tabs lying on his abdomen. Actual mummy braces, representations of which appear on coffins of late Dynasty 21 and early Dynasty 22 into the reign of King Osorkon I (reigned about 924–889 BCE), were made of leather and their tabs were usually embossed with the name of the king or high priest under whom the individual served.^[5]5

The lower part of the lid is decorated with densely arranged images of deities and religious emblems modeled in blue, red, and yellow pigments that were thickly applied to imitate the appearance of glass inlay.^[6] A winged sun disk and winged goddesses separate the area corresponding to the upper legs into zones. The area around the winged sun disk and winged goddesses is interspersed with hieroglyphic captions, images of ba birds, scarabs, and a multitude of deities shown kneeling, seated, standing, or in a fully zoomorphic form. Below the knees, blue bands covered in yellow hieroglyphs divide the surface into compartments that depict the deceased and gods, including Osiris (the ruler of the underworld) and Anubis (the god of embalming). The vertically arranged texts in the center are a funerary-offering formula that continues onto the tops of the feet, where Nespahertahat’s titles are enumerated.^[7] To the sides, horizontal bands of text describe the deceased being honored by Osiris, Anubis, Isis, and Nephthys.6

Along the lower edge of the lid on both sides, a line of hieroglyphs calls upon Re-Horakhty and other gods to provide Nespahertahat with the necessary funerary offerings. These hieroglyphs are oriented so that they are legible when the coffin is lying on its back. A similar line of text appears along the top edge of the coffin’s box.7

The decoration on the exterior of the lid stresses the divine nature of the deceased through his association with Osiris. Elements include the curved beard (now missing), the mekes, and the mummy braces, which were initially worn by gods, including Osiris.^[8] As is typical with this style of coffin, the underside of the lid is not decorated, although a small notation in hieratic (cursive script) has been added in black on the inner lip (fig. 3).^[9]
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The decoration on the exterior of the box follows the style characteristic of Dynasty 21, which changed very little throughout the period.^[10] The motifs used on these stola-type coffins were not derived from the Book of the Dead—the inspiration for the decoration of earlier coffins—but from texts preserved on contemporary mythological papyri.^[11] Columns of multicolored hieroglyphs divide the long sides of the box’s exterior into vignettes in which the deceased—or his ba—interacts with deities. In one such scene (located in the center of the proper right side) a green-skinned goddess of the west (the realm of the dead) leads the deceased before an enthroned Osiris (fig. 4).^[12] Identified by the text above his head, a goateed Nespahertahat wears the voluminous pleated linen garments of the living. Mythological scenes are positioned at either end of the long sides. On either side of the head, four baboons are shown adoring the rising sun (fig. 5). At the right side of the feet, a tree goddess pours a libation (fig. 6). On the proper left, Hathor, in the form of a cow, emerges from the western mountains of Thebes while a ba perches beside a tomb (fig. 7). The bottom of the feet on both the lid and the box were not decorated.9

Figs. 4–7

The interior of the box depicts divine figures whom an Egyptian might expect to encounter in the Duat (the underworld) (fig. 8). A standing goddess, dressed in a broad collar and a mid-calf-length gown patterned to evoke birds’ wings enveloping her body, fills most of the box’s floor. Her headdress, which includes a large falcon, is the emblem for the west, the land of the dead for the ancient Egyptians.^[13] The two long sides are mirror images of each other; both are divided into three registers by star-filled bands in the shape of the hieroglyph for “sky” (figs. 9–10). In each register, a ba sits on a shrine in front of a seated deity: a human-headed god in the register, a jackal-headed Anubis in the second, and a baboon-headed deity at the bottom. At the head of the box, a ba bird extends its wings in flight as if it were ascending from the coffin (fig. 11).10

Coffins of Dynasty 21 and Early Dynasty 22

During the period when this coffin was made, and generally through the Third Intermediate Period (Dynasties 21–25), decoration on coffins became far more elaborate, their surfaces crowded with small-scale images resulting in a dense, overall pattern with hieroglyphs and small images of deities tucked into any available space. The few private tombs that were built during this time were no longer decorated, and most tombs were shared by a family or people of a specific profession, so the mythological, religious, and ritual scenes that had formerly appeared on the walls of an individual’s tomb were transferred to their coffin, which in essence acted as a substitute for the tomb itself.^[14] This entailed considerable editing of texts and images, with scenes being compressed to fit on the coffin. This effect is especially notable in the texts on Nespahertahat’s coffin: on the lid, hieroglyphs and epithets were inserted wherever there was room; and on the box, the vertical dividing columns include the phrase “words said by Osiris” (although Osiris is not shown in that section), followed by the general wish that the god(s) will grant offerings.11

Approximately one hundred thirty stola coffins are known, all made for men and women who served in the cults of Amun-Re and Mut in Thebes.^[15] An example in Copenhagen shows that the title “God’s Father of Amun-Re, King of the Gods” was inscribed without any personal name, indicating that it, and perhaps many more coffins like it, was not made for a specific buyer but to appeal more generally to a group of priests.^[16] It has been suggested that Nespahertahat’s coffin was the product of the same workshop that made the one in Copenhagen.^[17]12

Additional Views of Cat. 98

The Coffin’s Origin

Registration records state that the coffin came from Thebes (now Luxor), which accords well with its style of decoration.^[18] In late Dynasty 21, officials began collecting coffins from Theban group burials to secure them in larger, more easily guarded tombs near Deir el-Bahri. Several caches of these coffins were discovered and dispersed in the early and mid-nineteenth century. In about 1875 or 1881, a large collection in Theban Tomb 320 (often referred to as the First Royal Cache; for more on this cache, see cat. 40) was discovered by the Abd el-Rassul family of Thebes. The contents of this tomb were cleared by the Egyptian Antiquities Service in 1881. Another group of 153 coffins and associated funerary goods was found in 1891 (see cat. 44 for this cache, often known as the Second Royal Cache).^[19] Allen suggested that Nespahertahat’s coffin may have come from the 1891 discovery because objects from that deposit attest to an individual with a very similar name (Nespaherenhat) who held the same administrative titles. Allen reasons that the individual named on the Chicago coffin is the same as that mentioned on these objects, which would make it “quite possible” that the coffin came from the Second Royal Cache.^[20] More recently, Niwiński has suggested that because most stola coffins date slightly later than the coffins in both of the major caches, they may be from a different deposit.^[21] Based on present evidence, it seems unlikely that this coffin was ever part of that cache.13

This coffin was acquired in 1894 along with over two thousand other objects, including a Book of the Dead of a woman named Tayuhenutmut (cat. 44), which preserves her father’s name, Nespaherentahat, and administrative title Scribe of the Double Treasury.^[22] The similarity in the name and title suggests that the Nespaherentahat of that Book of the Dead and the Nespahertahat of the Chicago coffin may have been the same man.14

Provenance

The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in 1894; price reimbursed by Henry H. Getty, Charles L. Hutchinson, Robert H. Fleming, and Norman W. Harris.15

Publication History

James Henry Breasted, “Report on the Egyptian Antiquities,” in Seventeenth Annual Report of the Trustees for the Year Ending June 2, 1896 (Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago: 1896), 32.16

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 10–12 (ill.), 16, 45.17

C. Ransom Williams, “Review: The Chicago Art Institute Egyptian Collection,” The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 41, no. 3 (April 1925): 204.18

Andrzej Niwiński, 21st Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies, Theben 5 (Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, 1988), 134, no. 158 (referred to as Chicago, Oriental Institute 17333).19

René van Walsem, The Coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden: Technical and Iconographic/Iconological Aspects (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1997), 378, 471, pl. 21, fig. 38 (referred to as Chicago Oriental Institute, 17333 [formerly Art Institute 94.369]).20

Karl Jansen-Winkeln, Inschriften der Spätzeit: Teil I; Die 21. Dynastie (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 258, no. 151 (referred to as Chicago OIM 17333).21

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago, by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 24.
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