21ST DYNASTY COFFINS
Investigating reuse, scarcity, and social change through the material history of ancient Egyptian funerary art.
Reading the lives of ancient coffins
Kara Cooney’s 21st Dynasty Coffins Project, also known as the UCLA Coffins Project, is an ongoing research endeavour that began in 2008. Equipped with high-definition cameras and a passion to learn, Cooney takes her research team to investigate coffin reuse in Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period.
The project determines the amount of “borrowing,” or reuse, visible on a given coffin. These material histories help researchers build a detailed picture of the socioeconomic and political turmoil of the 21st Dynasty and consider how it affected the dynasties that followed.
2008
50%+
GLOBAL
What the coffins reveal
Each coffin is treated as a social document — evidence of ownership, alteration, scarcity, ritual practice, and changing political conditions.
BORROWING & REUSE
SOCIETY IN CRISIS
TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION
Research across museums and collections
Working with renowned museums and institutions in Europe, the United States, and Egypt, Cooney has travelled with a research entourage that includes graduate students, photographer Remy Hiramoto, and other archaeological experts.
The project connects object-based research across collections, allowing patterns of alteration and reuse to be compared internationally.
- Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Copenhagen and Edinburgh
- Florence, Leiden, London, Paris and Poznan
- Stockholm, Turin, Vatican City, Vienna and more
- Graduate students, photographers and archaeological specialists
Ancient objects as social documents
Cooney’s analysis indicates that more than half of the coffins studied show evidence of reuse. That unusually high rate suggests funerary objects were regularly recommodified during periods of crisis, offering a material route into unresolved socioeconomic questions in Egyptology.