Rishi coffin
Rishi coffin (from Arabic , rishi, feather ) or feather pattern coffin is the modern name for an ancient Egyptian coffin type that was particularly popular in the Second Intermediate Period (around 1650–1550 BC).
Type and motive
Rishi coffins are first anthropoid ("human-like"), then anthropomorphic ("human-shaped") and get their name from a feather decoration that covers almost the entire coffin lid and imitates the plumage of a bird of prey . This new decoration scheme appears in Thebes from around the 12th dynasty . The coffins have a length of up to 3 m and are among the largest Egyptian coffins at all.
The Rishi coffins can be divided into two different groups in terms of time and iconography . The "older group" has a strictly geometric feather pattern with an ornamental character. The main representatives of this group include the royal coffins of Nub-cheper-Re Anjotef , Sechemre-Wepmaat Anjotef , Seqenenre and Ahhotep II , all from the time of the 17th Dynasty , as well as the coffin of Hornacht, which is a prime example of this type of coffin . In contrast, what is typical of the “younger group” is a feathered robe enveloping the body with wings folded over one another, as can be found, for example, in the innermost, golden coffin from Tutankhamun's grave .
iconography
Based on the sarcophagus of the Horn night, a certain basic type can be described. Above the foot of the coffin there is a feather pattern in the longitudinal direction as a stylized representation of plumage. The first row of nibs consists of round nibs with no interior drawing. The individual springs of the 2nd and 3rd row are more detailed, in schematic form. In the feathers, the feather coil, the feather shaft, the feather branches and the arc rays are recognizable, only the hook rays are missing.
Above that there is a longitudinally aligned pair of wings spread out in front of the body that almost completely covers the coffin lid. Each wing consists of three rows of springs of different lengths (hand and arm wings), which are directed from the inside to the outside towards the edge of the coffin and partially close with it. Above the spring structure in the middle runs a band delimited by a “color conductor”, which is provided with an inscription. This is often a sacrificial formula with the title and name of the deceased. A hint of the knees and shins can be seen under the feather pattern.
Over the wings there is a narrow neck collar made of teardrop-shaped pearls on the chest, at the ends of which there are 2 clasps in the shape of falcon heads. At Falk collar a jewelry chest is fixed, a uraeus shows with swelled breastplate and a vulture with outstretched wings. These symbolize the gods Nechbet and Uto as well as Isis and Nephthys . Falcon neck collars and Uräus vulture breast ornaments are also part of the corresponding mummy equipment, which was used in royal burials in the 17th dynasty and the like. a. can also count a pectoral or diadem .
The Nemes headscarf is used as headgear , which is only depicted on kings and coffins of male and female private individuals. Since the Middle Kingdom , private individuals have also used some other regal insignia as symbolic grave goods that can be found on device friezes on the coffins. The female members of the Ahmosids, on the other hand, wore a long-haired or strand wig, the uraeus snake and, optionally, an additional vulture hood .
On anthropomorphic coffins, the face is often depicted idealized . An exception are the royal coffins of the Ahmosids, which have quite portrait-like features. Up to Amenhotep I , the faces had a fleshy chin shape and a special shape of the eyes, which are slightly inclined inwards and have their largest opening in the inner corner of the eye. Nor do they seem to be as torn as in the early 18th Dynasty.
Transition to the anthropomorphic coffin
The tradition of the older group also includes the sarcophagi of the royal wives Ahhotep I , Ahmose-Nefertari and Ahmose-Meritamun II , whose iconographic innovation consisted of three-dimensional arms with crossed hands. These represent a link between the older and the younger group. Arms and hands are signs of humanization and initiate the transition to the purely anthropomorphic coffin. Until then, the human body with its plumage and bird wings symbolized a human or soul bird ( Ba ).
The coffin as the "body of the groove"
Often one can find representations of Isis and Nepthtys on the feet of Rishi coffins. The rischi motif is also an icon of the human-shaped sky goddess Nut in appearance with spread wings, who occupies a central position in this female triad . Isis and Nephthys act as different manifestations of the groove as goddesses of conception and birth.
A close connection between the sky goddess Nut and the sarcophagi has existed since the Old Kingdom. On the Papyrus Louvre 3148 Nut speaks as mother and coffin:
“This mother (i.e. Nut) says,
“ Your (earthly) mother carried you for ten months.
She fed you for three years.
I carry you indefinitely.
I will never give birth to you »."
Accordingly, the coffin is seen as the "body of the groove" in whose arms the dead rests. Your protection prevents his second death. The coffin is also given the title “Lord of Life” because it enables the dead in the body of the “Heavenly Goddess” and “Divine Mother” Nut to be reborn cyclically in the hereafter .
Final interpretation
The Rishi coffin thus combines two central themes of the Egyptian belief in the dead : the heavenly ascent of the soul as Ba and the otherworldly cyclical rebirth of the deceased. These find an iconographic equivalent in the coffin in the form of an anthropoid hybrid being as a feathered human body with bird wings.
Furthermore, the rishi motif symbolizes the union of the Re (Ba) with Osiris (the corpse), as the “archetype of individual immortality”.
The plumage of the coffins is also an icon for the connection between the vulture (Nut) and the king's wife as well as the falcon ( Horus ) and the king.
history
The first anthropoid coffins were produced in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom. It is always an inner coffin of a coffin ensemble, the outer coffin is box-shaped. In the Second Intermediate Period, the box-shaped stone and wooden sarcophagi from the Old and Middle Kingdoms were replaced by the Rishi coffin shape, which is mostly individual coffins that are not part of a coffin ensemble. The anthropoid shape is characteristic of the late 17th and early 18th dynasties and is replaced by the anthropomorphic coffin shape. This then remained the standard type until the Greco-Roman period .
Development of private coffins
Probably the oldest Rishi coffins date to the 13th dynasty and belong to the "scribe of the great framing" Neferhotep and the "ruler of the city" Iuy. However, both coffins are only known from descriptions by the excavators and are no longer preserved today. All preserved royal coffins of the 17th dynasty are rishi coffins. Numerous specimens from private individuals date from this time, such as the coffin of Teti (Cairo TR 19.11.27.5) or that of the "king known" Hornacht. The lack of personal names is typical of many of these coffins. Most of these coffins come from a Theban series production in which the name of the deceased was still released. So it is z. For example, in the case of the coffins of Sechemre-heru-her-maat Anjotef (Louvre E 3020) and Kamose (Cairo 14.12.27.12), anonymous private coffins that were reused and subsequently labeled with the respective king's name. In the case of non-royal burials, the Rishi coffin is used at the time of Thutmose III. then replaced by the "white coffin type".
Archaism in the 21st Dynasty
At royal burials the rishi coffin remained predominant until the time of Tutankhamun and then experienced a renaissance again in the 21st dynasty under Psusennes I. His silver coffin (Cairo JE 85912) again has an anthropomorphic shape and means a return to the ornamental rishi decor the older group of coffins. During this time, the restoration and reburial of the old royal coffins from the 17th dynasty took place first in the tomb of the Ahmose-Inhapi and later in the cachette of Deir el-Bahari . With the reburial was discovered the rischi -Särge anew and began to copy them, both royal and private burials in.
literature
- Alfred Grimm, Sylvia Schoske: In the sign of the moon. Egypt at the beginning of the New Kingdom (= writings from the Egyptian collection . Volume 7 ). State Collection of Egyptian Art, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-87490-691-4 .
- Gianluca Miniaci : Re-excavating rishi coffins in museums and archives. In: Egyptian Archeology. No. 39, autumn 2011, pp. 37-40.
- Gianluca Miniaci: Some Remarks on the Development of Rishi Coffins. In: S. Grallert, u. a. (Ed.): Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt During the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period (= Egyptology. (London, England) Vol. 7). Golden House Publications, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-906137-01-4 , pp. 94-99.
- Gianluca Miniaci: Rishi Coffins and the Funerary Culture of Second Intermediate Period Egypt (= Egyptology. (London, England) Vol. 17). Golden House Publications, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-906137-24-3 .
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ The uraeus snake is only withheld from royal coffins.
- ↑ See also: Coffin Mask of the Satdjehuti Satibu .
- ↑ Good examples of this trinity of goddesses are the coffins of Ahhotep II and the coffin of the priest Amenophis (Leiden AMM 16)
- ↑ Pyr. 616d-f, entry 364
Individual evidence
- ↑ A. Grimm, S. Schoske: In the sign of the moon. Egypt at the beginning of the New Kingdom. Munich 1999, p. 80.
- ↑ A. Grimm, S. Schoske: In the sign of the moon. Egypt at the beginning of the New Kingdom. Munich 1999, p. 11.
- ↑ G. Miniaci: Rishi Coffin and the Funerary Culture of Second Intermediate Period Egypt. London 2011, pp. 116-117.
- ↑ G. Miniaci: Rishi Coffin and the Funerary Culture of Second Intermediate Period Egypt. London 2011, pp. 129, 230-231
- ↑ G. Miniaci: Rishi Coffin and the Funerary Culture of Second Intermediate Period Egypt. London 2011, p. 122.