Coffin Panel with Paintings of Funerary Scenes
Description
<p>This panel is from a human-shaped coffin ensemble typically used for the priests of Amun at Thebes, who ruled there during the 21st Dynasty. These wooden coffin groupings usually consisted of two nesting coffins with lids and a mummy board carved to resemble the deceased and placed directly on top of the mummy. The panel is from the exterior right side of the inner container. During the 21st Dynasty, both the interior and exterior of coffins were decorated with amuletic symbols, short texts, and small, highly colored scenes that covered every inch of the surface. The owner of the coffin, not named on the panel, is depicted as a woman in one of the painted scenes.By the 21st Dynasty, decorated chapels and tombs were no longer used. Instead, burials took place in unmarked rock-cut chambers, probably to deter tomb robbers. Religious scenes that had once appeared on tomb walls were now painted on coffins and papyri. The panel is divided into three zones. The upper zone displays uraeus serpents, symbolizing protection, and Maat feathers representing the concepts of justice, truth, and divine order. The second zone contains a religious text, and the main zone below has different sections with representations of Osiris as well as the sun god in their shrines and scared places. The union of the mythologies of Osiris and the solar god Re is significant, as each set of beliefs, both concerned with resurrection and rebirth, was thought to benefit the deceased in their journey through the underworld. </p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/62.2' rel='external'>Coffin Panel with Paintings of Funerary Scenes</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A painted coffin panel segment decorated with densely arranged registers of figures and extensive hieroglyphic text along the upper band, with multiple funerary-scene vignettes shown in blue/green/black tones.
The image shows a rectangular wooden coffin-panel fragment painted with polychrome decoration. The composition is organized in horizontal registers: at the top is a broad band of tightly packed hieroglyphs and decorative elements, including repeated motifs. Below, several scaled figures and animals appear in compartmentalized scenes. Some figures are shown standing and/or facing forward while others are in motion, with iconography consistent with funerary imagery (e.g., processional or ritual attendants) rather than daily-life or purely ornamental scenes. A central figure or group is framed by surrounding ritual elements. The overall palette includes dark blue/green figures against light/yellowish backgrounds, with black outlines and accents. No modern markings or signatures are visible. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is apparent. No cartouches are clearly legible from the provided resolution, so specific royal names cannot be securely identified.
Cross-references (2)
- Walters-AccNum 62.2 tier-2
- Walters-id 38642 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.