The yellow coffins from the tomb of Bab el-Gasus: problems associated with discovery documentation and material fragmentation
Abstract
The richly decorated yellow coffins and their associated funerary materials are important sources of information about Theban society, including its politics and religious beliefs, from the end of the 20th Dynasty to the beginning of the 22nd Dynasty. This spans a period during which the practice of highly decorated private tombs containing minimally decorated coffins gave way to its opposite, that is, minimally decorated collective tombs containing highly decorated coffins. The corpus of yellow coffins was increased by 153 sets with the discovery of the intact tomb of Bab el-Gasus in Deir el-Bahari in 1891. However, the subsequent development of new understand-ings of these materials has been seriously hindered by insufficient documentation as well as the haphazard diffusion of the associated objects across the globe. This paper will analyse some of the problems associated with the study of the coffins originating from the tomb, highlighting the need to reconsider the circumstances and records associated with their modern rediscovery.Downloads
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