Rishi coffins are funerary

coffin A coffin is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, either for burial or cremation. Sometimes referred to as a casket, any box in which the dead are buried is a coffin, and while a casket was originally regarded as a box for jewel ...

s adorned with a

feather Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and a premier ...

design, which were used in Ancient Egypt. They are typical of the Egyptian

Second Intermediate Period The Second Intermediate Period marks a period when ancient Egypt fell into disarray for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a "Second Intermediate Period" was coined in 1942 by ...

, circa 1650 to 1550 BC. The name comes from ريشة (''risha''), Arabic for "feather". During the Egyptian

Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth ...

and Middle Kingdom, coffins were rectangular. The first coffins in anthropoid (human) shape only appear in the

12th Dynasty The Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty XII) is considered to be the apex of the Middle Kingdom by Egyptologists. It often is combined with the Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth dynasties under the group title, Middle Kingdom. Some s ...

. These designs copied mummies showing a human head and the body without arms and legs as if they are wrapped in linen. The coffins were always in several sets with the outer coffin being rectangular. Perhaps already in the

13th Dynasty In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the note thirteen scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the thirteenth. The interval can be also described as a compound sixth, spanning an octave p ...

, these anthropoid coffins were decorated all over with a feather design and are no longer placed within an outer, rectangular coffin. These are the first rishi coffins. The earliest example mentioned in literature is the coffin of the ''scribe of the great enclosure'' Neferhotep, dating to the 13th Dynasty.Gianluca Miniaci,

Stephen Quirke Stephen Quirke is an Egyptologist. He is the current Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College London. He has worked at the British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history ...

: ''Mariette at Dra Abu el-Naga and the tomb of Neferhotep: a mid-13th dynasty coffin (?)'', In: ''Egitto e Vicino Oriente'', 31 (2008), 1-25 However, this coffin was only described by the excavator and is now lost. The earliest secure known examples of rishi coffins belong to the kings of the

17th Dynasty The Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XVII, alternatively 17th Dynasty or Dynasty 17) was a dynasty of pharaohs that ruled in Upper Egypt during the late Second Intermediate Period, approximately from 1580 to 1550 BC. Its mainly Theba ...

, and were found in the 19th century at Thebes (Luxor). The depicted person most often wears a ''

nemes Nemes were pieces of striped head cloth worn by pharaohs in ancient Egypt. It covered the whole crown and behind of the head and nape of the neck (sometimes also extending a little way down the back) and had lappets, two large flaps which hung ...

'' headdress, the body is covered with feathers, there is an inscription in the middle going from the top to the bottom and on the chest are shown a vulture and a cobra, both royal symbols. From the 17th Dynasty are also known many private rishi coffins. This type of coffin is still attested in the early

New Kingdom New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

, but is later replaced by other coffin types.

Literature

Gianluca Miniaci Gianluca Miniaci is an Italian Egyptologist, currently Associate Professor at the University of Pisa. He studied from 1999 to 2004 Classical Archaeology and wrote his dissertation in Egyptology on "The royal necropolis of the 17th dynasty at Dra ...

: ''Rishi Coffins and the Funerary Culture of Second Intermediate Period Egypt'', London 2011,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rishi Coffin Egyptian artefact types Coffins