ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HISTORY, CLASS 4, FALL 10, SPRING 2011, MIDDLE KINGDOM, BURIAL TRADITIONS

GCCC Encore Instructor – Joe Boisvert

Middle Kingdom Pharaoh•After a Dark Age of four chaotic centuries a strong-willed Charlemagne arose, set things severely in order

•Changed the capital from Memphis to Thebes

•Amenemhet I inaugurated that Middle Kingdom Twelfth Dynasty during which all the arts, Excepting perhaps architecture, (no Pyramids) Egypt reached a height of excellence never equaled in Egypt before or again.

Through an old inscription Amenemhet speaks to us:

"I was one who cultivated grain and loved the harvest god; The Nile greeted me and every valley; None was hungry in my years, none thirsted then; Men dwelt in peace through that which I wrought, and conversed of me."

Then the Hyksos, nomads from Asia, invaded disunited Egypt, set fire to the cities, razed the temples, squandered the accumulated wealth, destroyed much of the accumulated art. For two hundred years subjected the Nile valley to the rule of the "Shepherd Kings.“ There are other theories.

Hyksos

INvaders

Burials Traditions Changed During Different Periods of Egyptian History

Pit Burials Predynastic Period

Middle Kingdom Coffin

Old Kingdom Sarcophagus

Coffins in Ancient Egypt One of the most important objects purchased,

whether for royalty or other elites, for a tomb was the coffin.

It's purpose from the earliest times was the protection of the body, preserving it from deterioration or mutilation.

During Predynastic times, the Egyptians shrouded corpses in mats or furs and enclosed them in pots, baskets or clay coffins.

Old Kingdom 3rd Dynasty Sarcophagus

The first clearly established royal coffins date to the 3rd Dynasty, and some of these made of stone have been preserved.

They were often very plain, with a flat cover, though some are more elaborate with vaulted lids and crosspieces.

However, there was considerable differences between coffins belonging to private individuals as opposed to royalty

False Door

The false door was intended to allow the deceased a link between the living and the dead

So that the deceased could receive sustenance from the land of the living. 

The Coffin Texts  The Coffin Texts superseded the Pyramid

Texts as magical funerary spells at the end of the Old Kingdom.

Although they are principally a Middle Kingdom phenomenon, there are examples of the texts appearing as early as the late Old Kingdom period

Both Royal and Commoners Could Have Access to the Afterlife in Middle Kingdom

Previously, the right to be embalmed and the prospect of a guaranteed afterlife were restricted to royalty and nobility

The introduction of the Coffin Texts eliminated the exclusivity of the Pyramid Texts.

They were inscribed on the coffins of both the royalty and the common people who could afford them

Middle Kingdom Coffin and Coffin Text – Did not need to be Royalty

Instructions to the Afterlife

Providing an eerie greeting for the 20th-century visitors was a linen-wrapped painted head perched on top of a coffin,

Coffin Text democratized the afterlife, eliminating the royal exclusivity of the Pyramid Text.

In the coffin text, we now find that all of the deceased must be subjected to the "Judgment of the Dead", based on their actions during his or her life

Decorations move from Pyramid Walls to the Sides of the Coffin, Middle Kingdom

 Udjat Eyes on a Coffin, Middle Kingdom (wood & paint) by Egyptian 12th Dynasty

c.1900 (sepia photo) by American Photographer (20th century) Private Collection used to take pictures of Egyptian Relics

George R. Lawrence's (1869-1938) Mammoth Camera

Pyramid Texts Modern name for the writings inscribed

in the inner chambers of late Old Kingdom (about 2686-2181 BC) pyramids; Instructions on how to get to After Life.

In later periods some of these compositions continued to be used in ritual, and were sometimes copied as funerary texts 

Pyramid Text Old Kingdom

Book of the Dead There is probably no text in the popular imagination

more closely associated with the ancient Egyptian beliefs about life after death than the work popularly known as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, 

This work received its name from the fact that many of the earliest specimens to reach Renaissance Europe—centuries before Champollion deciphered the hieroglyphs in 1824—had been found next to mummies in burials

Pyramid Text Become Coffin Test In the First Intermediate Period and in the Middle

Kingdom (about 2025-1700 BC) funeral texts from the pyramids are now also found in burial chambers of high officials and on many coffins. When used in Coffins now called Coffin Texts.

Some Prayers for the Dead from the Pyramid Texts are still in use in the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) and in the Late Period.

The Book of the Dead The Book of the Dead represents the most important

of the illustrated book in ancient Egypt. The text itself represents a continuation of an

ancient tradition of afterworld guides that began with the royal Pyramid Texts in the Old Kingdom and continued with the more "democratized" Coffin Texts for wealthy individuals of the Middle Kingdom

The End