The “Invisible” Side of Yellow Coffins—The Set of the Chantress of Amun Tanethereret in the Musée du Louvre and Some Considerations on the Production of Yellow Coffins in the First Half of the 21st Dynasty

Abstract

Through the coffin set of Tanethereret—dated to the first half of the 21st Dynasty—this article aims to underline the importance of analysing the masks and human features of ancient Egyptian yellow coffins and their value in disclosing new and important information about the Third Intermediate Period society. By moving between different visualisations, overlapping layers, measuring, and comparing, the sculpted human forms can be, for example, further indices of the quality of the production/”workshop”/artist and of the socio-economic power of the client. The possibility of making a three-piece set—coherent not only in decoration but also in form—suggests the existence of workshops capable of producing high-quality coffins and, consequently, that some people could still economically afford such coffin sets. Gaining access to such “workshops” and this type of production may indeed represent a further attempt to “manufacture social power” for the middle or high elites. Moreover, this specific case study also shows the dynamism of ancient Egyptian artistic production in a period of crisis, with artists able not only to re-adapt and re-commodify an ancient object but also to create possible new compositions with a balanced mix of styles between tradition and innovation. The study of this “invisible” part of the yellow coffins thus represents a new way of reconstructing the history of the people “hidden behind” the yellow coffins and the socio-economic sphere of ancient Egyptian society in the Third Intermediate Period, manifested through the resulting art and material culture.