" Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Royal Cache Repositories of Thebes"

"Funerary datasets serve as the primary source for social history in Egyptology, yet many tombs, coffins, Book of the Dead texts, and mummies from the 19th to 22nd dynasties remain underutilized as social documents, largely due to the scattered nature of data from this period, making reconstruction challenging. This culmination of fifteen years of coffin study analyzes coffins and other funerary equipment of the elite from the 19th to the 22nd dynasty to provide essential insights into the social strategies and adaptations employed during the collapse of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age resettlement.

Many coffins from the 20th to 22nd dynasties show evidence of reuse from older coffins, along with clear signs of gold removal or re-lining. Innovative scenes drawn on coffin surfaces reflect new religious strategies and mechanisms for adaptation during this crisis period, while developments in mummification techniques reveal Egyptian concerns about long-term burial without coffins, leading to the development of a new style of elaborately painted mummies for the wealthy. In the context of insecurity in the court, economic crisis, and mass burial in reused and uninscribed chambers, a complex and multilayered approach emerged.

The first part of this book focuses on the theory and evidence of coffin reuse, situated within the social collapse characterizing the 20th and 21st dynasties. The second part presents illustrated articles showcasing visual data explanations of over sixty Egyptian coffins mostly from the so-called royal caches, most of which are from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Enhanced throughout with high-quality images, line drawings, and black-and-white photographs are ideal for detailed study, especially in the digital edition, where pages can be enlarged for close examination." 

— Recycling for the Afterlife: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Royal Cache Repositories of Thebes, by Kara Cooney