RECYCLING FOR DEATH
Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches
A meticulous study of the social, economic, and religious significance of coffin reuse during the Ramesside and early Third Intermediate periods, illustrated with more than 900 images.
Fifteen years of coffin research
476
hardcover pages
900+
images and illustrations
60+
Royal Cache coffins documented
15 YEARS
of research synthesized
Coffins as documents of social change
Funerary material is one of the richest sources for social history in Egyptology. Yet evidence from the Twentieth and Twenty-first Dynasties has often remained scattered across tombs, coffins, Books of the Dead, mummies, and museum collections.
This book brings that evidence together to examine how elite coffins from the Nineteenth through Twenty-second Dynasties were acquired, altered, stripped, repainted, and reused.
The study connects material changes to necropolis insecurity, economic crisis, group burial, political uncertainty, and new religious strategies during the transition from the Bronze Age collapse to Iron Age reconsolidation.
What the evidence reveals
The book treats coffins not as static artworks, but as objects with changing biographies shaped by owners, institutions, craftspeople, political actors, and later reuse.
COFFIN REUSE
Physical traces reveal how coffins were appropriated, dismantled, redecorated, and assigned new identities.
THE ROYAL CACHES
The volume examines coffins associated with New Kingdom royal mummies, High Priests of Amun, kings, queens, and elite burial networks.
CRISIS & ADAPTATION
Reuse is placed within political instability, tomb robbery, economic pressure, changing patronage, and altered burial practice.
VISUAL DOCUMENTATION
Annotated photo essays, line drawings, color photography, and digital enlargement support close object-based study.
Seven chapters of object-based analysis
Reuse and Its Discontents
The Context of Funerary Arts Reuse
Patterns of Coffin Reuse
Coffins of the Priests
Coffins of the Kings and Queens
The Royal Cache Mummies
Conclusion
Detailed evidence for close examination
The second part of the volume presents annotated visual data for more than sixty coffins from the Royal Caches, most associated with the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
High-resolution photographs, line drawings, and comparative documentation allow readers to follow alterations, erased identities, removed gilding and inlay, repainting, and changing funerary strategies across individual objects.
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Recognized across Egyptology
Highlights the book’s unprecedented access to Royal Cache coffins and its reconstruction of changing agendas behind appropriation and reuse.
JOHN TAYLOR
The British Museum
Presents the volume as a major synthesis of fifteen years of research and an important resource for both specialists and students.
DAVID ASTON
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Emphasizes the book’s contribution to understanding the religious, social, economic, cultural, and technological life of ancient Egypt.
SALIMA IKRAM
The American University in Cairo