Phoenix Ancient Art S.A.

One of the enduring characteristics of ancient Egyptian religion is its reliance on animals as manifestations of the divine. In the past, scholars have suggested that the ancient Egyptians created mummies of animals sacred to specific deities which were then sold to pilgrims visiting sanctuaries.[i] The pilgrim would then dedicate the animal mummy in the appropriate sanctuary as either a “please” or “thank you” offering, that is, “please grant me this present wish” or “thank you for having granted me a previous wish.” Often, those animal mummies were placed in elaborately decorated coffins. This practice of mummifying animals was an extension of depicting some of the major Egyptian deities in animal form and was often considered an expression of zoolatry which was condemned as repugnant by the Romans[ii] and as blasphemous by the early Christians.[iii]

It is within this context that one has traditionally understood such objects.

An examination of this painted coffin within the context of newly emerging archaeological evidence[iv] suggests that this traditional interpretation is flawed and in need of revision. Such a revisionist approach is supported by the imagery and inscriptions on this painted coffin, and it is to its particulars to which we now turn before suggesting a new interpretation.

The principal scene on this side consists of four figures on an unusual gray-blue background, which imbues the vignette with emphatic overtones of regeneration.[v] To the far left, is a seated image of a falcon-headed deity holding an ankh-sign. Next, one finds a sun-disc, its wings designed as an L, which open up like embracing arms intended to protect the image of a seated ibis whose bill rests on the ostrich feather of truth symbolizing Maat, cosmic order. A male figure, his arms raised in adoration, worships the ibis. This figure is clothed only in a long, white pleated kilt, woven of fine linen, and wears a broad collar. He can be identified as a pharaoh by virtue of his headdress which is variously identified as either a cap or blue crown[vi] fronted by a sacred cobra or uraeus. One can confidently suggest that a mummified ibis was originally contained within this coffin, based on the decoration.

There is a Demotic inscription in the field between the head and chest of the ibis and the ostrich feather of truth. Demotic is a particular notational script used to write ancient Egyptian which increased in popularity during the course of Dynasty XXVI, about 650 B.C., and continue to be employed into the Roman Imperial Period.

The Demotic text on this painted coffin consists of two lines which may be translated into English as:

"The Ibis god"

"Written by Thoth-iu (son of) Teos.”

The text clearly identifies the ibis as a hypostasis of the god Thoth and indicates that the inscription was added by an individual named Thoth who was the son of an individual named Teos. Both names are very common and of little value in attempting to establish their identities.

The writing of the word “ibis” in line 1 is so unusual that this inscription has now been included in the working corpus of the international Demotic Dictionary project.[vii]

The second long side of this painted coffin contains a virtually identically designed figural composition. The differences are limited to two details, namely, pharaoh here wears the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and the inscription, in a single column of hieroglyphs, is placed between the figure of pharaoh and the ostrich feather of truth. The inscription may be translated into English as, May Horus and Isis protect Osiris.

The first of the two short sides of this painted coffin contains a scene which is a variation on the adoration scene just described. The scene is contained within a frame consisting of alternating dotted squares and floral elements. To the left, the god Thoth, depicted as an ibis-headed male figure, sits on an elaborately decorated throne, its side ornamented with a checker-board pattern in the bottom left hand corner of which is the heraldic motif of the unification of the two lands represented as tied floral elements. His throne is provided with a red and yellow colored back rest and is placed on a rectangular dais ornamented in the same way as the framing panel is. He wears a kilt and an ancient version of a tank-top. His skin tones are green. He holds an ankh-sign and was-scepter and wears a tripartite wig and a variation of the hemhem- crown[viii] which consists of ram’s horns, cobras, sun discs, two ostrich feathers, and a wicker-work vertical element. The three vertical rectangles of alternating green and yellow color in the field in front of the crown of Thoth may originally been intended to be inscribed, but were anciently left empty and were merely ornamented with a dot-like pattern.

He is enthroned in front of an offering stand of traditional design on which is placed a ewer and a lotus blossom.

Thoth is being worshipped by pharaoh who is shown wearing a long, pleated white kilt and the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. His hands are raised in adoration, the near hand holding a ewer used for making reverential liquid libations. The two cartouches in the field over his hands are not inscribed, but this was a common practice in Egypt during the Late Period.

The second short end of this coffin is ornamented with a decorative pattern consisting of two bands of alternating dotted squares and rosettes which frame two tyet-amulets[ix] framing a djed-pillar.[x] The tyet-amulets, often termed “the knot of the goddess Isis,” here stand for the goddesses Isis and her sister Nephthys who are symbolically protecting their brother, Osiris, represented by the djed-pillar in the center.

The lid of this painted, wooded coffin is truly extraordinary. The field is dominated by a monumental image of the god Thoth, represented as an ibis-headed male figure. He is to be regarded as mummiform because his body appears to be tightly wrapped in red bandages. His arms and hands protrude from those bandages, as paralleled in traditional images of Osiris, god of the dead in his mummiformed representations. Thoth’s hands hold a stylized mummy bandage. He wears a broad collar and the same composite crown as that worn in his enthroned depiction on one of this coffin’s small panels.

The majestic figure of Thoth is enclosed within a trapezoidal frame, its four sides ornamented by three distinctive motifs. At the bottom, in red, green, and white, is stylization of the palace façade or serek, on which the principal figure stands. The sides are ornamented with a metope-frieze of squares alternating with floral images. The top is ornamented with a plain banded design.

The figure of Thoth is accompanied by two columns of hieroglyphs which are somewhat cryptographic in nature. Their context deals with benefactions conferred upon Horus.

Recent archaeological investigations suggest that the spread of cemeteries created specifically for depositing mummified animals was intended to articulate the relationship between the ba-beings of the deities represented by those animals and pharaoh.[xi] A study of the documents associated with these animal cemeteries suggests that during the annual New Year Festival and during the Sed Festivals in which the power of pharaoh was symbolically regenerated, the ba-beings of these deities became part of a cyclic transformation which transferred the power of those deities to the king. As a result of these festivals and via the agency of these animal mummies the king is symbolically united with the supraregional demiurge and supreme deity of every major sanctuary of the land. And since the only deity represented on this painted coffin is Thoth, one can assume that the pharaoh represented in its decoration is being symbolically identified with Thoth in ceremonies performed at that deity’s major cult center which is suggested to have been in Minya in Middle Egypt. [xii]

This association is further emphasized by the repeated references to the god Horus in the inscriptions on this painted coffin. During these annual festivals, the deities represented by their respective animal mummies were deified as manifestations of the gods Osiris and Re and were regarded as assisting in other ritual acts in the company of the glorified Horus.

The individual named in the Demotic inscription was doubtless conscripted by the state to participate in particularly narrowly-defined episodes within these major festivals celebrated at the main center of Thoth’s worship in this area.

The dating of this painted coffin and the identity of the pharaoh depicted remains to be addressed. Representations of pharaohs on such coffins and related funerary material are securely dated to the time of Darius I of Dynasty XXVII (525-404 B.C.), as this example in the Mellawi Antiquities Museum[xiii] reveals: There are, however, several stylistic differences in the depiction of the pharaoh, particularly in the design of the costume and accessories which suggest that the painted coffin under discussion is not to be dated to Dynasty XXVII, or before. Such depictions, however, do continue to appear during Dynasty XXX(383-342 B.C.) and persist into the Ptolemaic Period (305-30 B.C.).[xiv]

A clearer indication of the dating of this particular painted coffin is suggested by the ornament in the frame of its elaborately decorated lid which consists of a metope-pattern characterized by a rectangular floral blossom with X-shaped elements extending beyond each of its four sides. Given the nature of the medium, paint, and the incorporation of this decorative element into an ornamental framing element of a larger composition, the floral form is understandably stylized. Nevertheless, this ornament finds is closest parallel in finely executed millefiore glass plaques which exhibit an extraordinary number of variations on this particular design:[xv] These admittedly consummate works of art are universally dated to the Ptolemaic Period (305-30 B.C.). Because of the demonstrable interdependence of all of these floral elements, the painted coffin under discussion can be assigned to the Ptolemaic Period. The framing element of its lid suggests one possible use for these glass plaques, but this demonstrable interdependency further suggests that this coffin was executed in a highly accomplished atelier under the direct supervision of the Ptolemaic court of Alexandria, if one now accepts the revisionist approach to animal mummies in general. Consequently, this painted coffin is one of the rare, extant examples of a masterpiece of Ptolemaic painting.

[i] For this traditional view, see, see Carol Andrews, Egyptian Mummies (London 1984), pages 64; and more fully in S. Davies and H. S. Smith, “Sacred Animal Temples at Saqqara” in Stephen Quirke (editor), The Temple in Ancient Egypt (London 1997), pages 112-113.

[ii] Particularly, Virgil, The Aeneid, Book VIII, verses 698-703; and Juvenal, The Satires, XV. The refusal of the Roman emperor Augustus to visit the Apis bull, according to the account in Suetonius, The Life of Augustus, 93, is indicative of this Roman attitude toward Egyptian animal cults in general.

[iii] On this subject, particularly with relation to Patristic literature condemning animal worship, see L. Kakosy, “Das Emde des Heidentums in Aegypten,” in P. Nagel (editor), Graeco-Coptica (Halle 1984), pages 61ff.

[iv] Dieter Kessler, Die heiligen Tiere und der König (Wiesbaden 1989).

[v] S. Aufrère, L’universe mineral dans la pensée égyptienne 2 (Cairo 1991), page 575.

[vi] The identification of headdress of this particular design is vexing in the extreme and at this time there is no academic consensus, see, W. V. Davies, “The Origin of the Blue Crown,” JEA 68 (1982), pages 69ff, for a succinct discussion of some of the issues involved.

[vii] The Demotic Dictionary Project, centered at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, represents the concerted efforts of an international consortium of specialists in this phase of the ancient Egyptian language to record words and their variants as they occur. This particular variant spelling of the noun “ibis” is now included within this growing corpus.

[viii] L. Török, The Royal Crowns of Kush (Cambridge 1987), page 15, passim.

[ix] Carol Andrews, The Amulets of Ancient Egypt (Austin 1994), pages 9, 44-45, passim.

[x] Andrews (1994), pages 10, 19, passim.

[xi]Kessler (1989), pages 12ff.

[xii] For the site and its description, see J. Baines and J. Malek, Atlas of Ancient Egypt (New York 1980), pages 126-128.

[xiii] Hishmat Messiha and Mohamed A. Elhittqa, Mallawi Antiquities Museum. A Brief Description (Cairo 1979), plate XVI, inventory number 200. We apologize for the quality of the image, but photographic restrictions imposed upon scholars and visitors alike to Egypt’s museums preclude the ability to obtain images with better resolution.

[xiv] Examples from both periods, one in particular with its cartouches containing names of the Ptolemies (unpublished, in a private collection) are recorded in ALEA, the Archive of Late Egyptian Art, a bibliographicl and photographic archive maintained by Robert Steven Bianchi in Holiday, Florida.

[xv] These examples were offered by Christie’s (London), Ancient Egyptian Glass Inlays, Part II (7 July 1993), lots 51, 53, 52, and 55.