REVIEW BY CAMPBELL PRICE
Much-anticipated from the prolific pen of Kara Cooney, the undisputed queen of coffin (re)commodification, this enormous tome is not for the faint-hearted. Introductory chapters gather, reformulate, and re-emphasise arguments Cooney has put forward in a number of other studies, and applies them to the extraordinary dataset of the royal coffins from royal ‘mummy caches’, principally DB (Deir el-Bahri) 320, but also drawing on evidence from others.
Existing studies detail the historical and iconographic interpretation of these coffins. Cooney instead sets out the socio-economic background, paying close attention to telling details of adaptation. Particularly fascinating is the extent to which she is able to draw on texts from Deir el-Medina – written by the workers who built (and ultimately robbed) the royal tombs.
The main part of the volume (pp.119-433) is composed of two photo essays, which provide the most-detailed and -informative commentary ever published on the craftsmanship of individual coffins found in DB320. Most images are high resolution, but depart from standard catalogue ‘glamour shots’ to show more indicative details of construction, (re)decoration, and reuse. The lids (and especially the faces) of some of these coffins will be familiar from more populist studies, and some readers may recognise details from the high-quality replicas made for the 1969 Egyptian film Al-Mumiya or The Night of Counting the Years. However, many details have never been published before and offer significant value for further study.
Secret Tunnels