 And welcome to your daily barns takeout. I'm Karl Walsh. I'm a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Research, Interpretation and Education here at the barns. And today I wanted to take you to a journey to the Egyptian afterlife through this wonderful coffin fragment, which we have as part of the ensemble on the south wall of room 16. And this coffin fragment is really interesting because it's obviously a small part of the original object that it would have formed from. But we actually have a number of other coffin fragments from this particular coffin, which are in the Grenoble Museum in France as well, which include an image of the person who this belongs to, and as well as her titles as well. So part of the research that I'm doing is actually trying to figure out how this fragment relates to the other fragments that we have still preserved and what part of the coffin it might come from. But today I wanted to focus on having a look at the imagery on this fragment and how it relates to Egyptian concepts of the afterlife and the person that it belongs to as well. So this is the side that we have on display in the barns. And you can immediately see that it's got these really lovely colors that it's used, such as green, blue, red, we have some white and some brown as well, and black. And it's a really nice example of Egyptian coffin painting in general. And you can see that we have two different scenes that are divided by our register. And on the upper seam we have the image of the jackalheaded god of mummification Anubis. And we know this is Anubis because we very helpfully have his name spelled out here. And most people will be familiar with Anubis having this kind of black jackal's head. But in this scene we have him with green color skin, which is kind of unusual. But green is like black is a color of regeneration and rebirth in Egyptian art. Because green is obviously the color of kind of fresh vegetation. And it complements kind of the dark colors of the Nile silt that these plants grow out of. So this is very much a symbol of regeneration and rebirth. And this is why Anubis' skin is green rather than black here. You can also see that he has this kind of unusual form in that he looks kind of very like contained. And that's because he is a mummy. Basically he's in the mama form pose. And you can see his hands are kind of sticking out a bit of an odd angle. And that's because he's mostly kind of wrapped up in the mummy bandages, which makes sense because Anubis is the god of mummification. So we can see that he is kind of nice and tightly bound there. He's also sat on this really lovely little rectangular throne underneath him. And I really kind of wanted to zoom into this just a little bit more to show you some of the little lovely details that the artist is included here. We've got this lovely pattern of feathers with alternating bands of color, blue, red and green. And then in the corner of the image of the throne, we have this little motif, which is called the Sematawi. And this is a combination of sedge and lotus flowers and a kind of little esophagus motif. And this is a symbol of the unity of the Egyptian state of all the parts of Egypt kind of combined together. And so this is appropriate that it's on a throne because Anubis is sat on it and kind of establishing order through the act of sitting there. Across from Anubis, we've got this little human headed bird. And this is called a bar bird. And the bar is part of a human being after they die. It's one of the kind of essential aspects of a human being. And the bar is able to, it kind of dwells in the tomb with the body and after death. And during the day, it's able to fly out of the tomb and visit the kind of the land of the living where it can kind of enjoy the life of a normal person. And then at night, it comes back to the tomb and it rests inside the body. And so the bar is kind of like a mobile part of your soul that enjoys the delights kind of of the living world even after death. And then on top of this little bar bird, which represents here the deceased, so the person whose coffin this belongs to, this would originally have, this would be a kind of representation of them. And they're sat on top of this little rectangular structure here, which is probably the depiction either of a shrine, or it could be a representation of a box full of shakti figurines. And these are little figurines that are usually placed in a person's tomb. And they are meant to be little models of the deceased. And they perform little menial tasks for them in the afterlife. So just like in life, after death, you're expected to kind of do the same things that you would do in life. And so these little figurines are a way of kind of performing those tasks for you rather than actually having to do them yourself. So this could be a little representation of the tomb owner's shaktis in their tomb with the little bar bird perched on top of them. Then at the top, we've got this part of a bird, which is a little, which is cut off from the original coffin fragment. And this probably represents the goddess Moot in the form of a vulture, and she has her wings kind of outspread over the top of the scene, which is acting as a nice kind of compositional element of kind of framing and ordering the scene, as well as kind of filling up spaces and things as well. So that's probably an image of the goddess Moot, but we're not quite sure. So then at the bottom, we have another kind of small little scene, which is divided by a blue register. And you can see that we have the image of a recumbent jackal who's wearing this nice little red scarf and a rearing cobra to the left. And both of these animals would have been very fierce, dangerous creatures in life that you would usually want to avoid. But those kind of fierce qualities also make some really good protectors as well. And so they're probably being included here as kind of magical images to help protect the body, both kind of physically and kind of magically as well. But there are also examples of the type of creatures that the tomb owner would encounter when they're traveling into the realm of the dead and that they would have to navigate around. And so these are probably also ways of kind of taming those creatures through kind of providing images of them on the coffin that are kind of under the subjugation as well of kind of larger forces. And so we have Anubis at the top, and he kind of helps, I think, to kind of contain and tame these dangerous creatures too. So this entire meaning of these two scenes and the reason why that we put on a coffin is really to help the deceased, the person who owns this coffin, to successfully navigate their way into the afterlife through acquiring the aid of Anubis and through kind of harnessing the fierce powers of these kind of dangerous animals as well. And this is the side that's on display in the Barnes Gallery. But on the other side, we have actually more scenes and inscriptions and things as well. And these aren't on display. So what I would like to actually do is now show you what you can't see on this object. And I'm just going to flip over and we'll have a look at the other side of this coffin fragment. And so here we can see the other side of the fragment. And you can see that it's actually kind of flipped 90 degrees in orientation. So the composition on this side of the coffin is different from what we have on the other side. And I mentioned earlier that the other side is actually the interior. So this would be the side of the coffin that is actually facing the mummy. And this side is the exterior. So this would be the outside surface of the coffin. And so what we have displayed in the Barnes Gallery is actually the interior side on display. And the exterior is on the other side, which you can't see. And this is a really lovely scene. It's a shame that you can't see this in the gallery as well, but obviously that's kind of impossible to do. But we have this really lovely scene, which has the tomb owner, sorry, the coffin owner appearing for different funerary gods. But at the top we have this really nice register, which is full of images of little bar birds and seated gods and hawks and kind of cobras. And then underneath that we have this long running inscription, which actually is really useful because it includes the name of the tomb owner as well. And this is a woman whose name was Tantwen and Miheriti. And she was a singer in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, at ancient Thebes, where this coffin likely was found. And you can actually visit this temple today in Egypt in modern Luxor. And this inscription is therefore really useful because it tells us exactly who this coffin belongs to and what position in Egyptian society she had. And she likely was quite an important person or come from a quite wealthy family because she was involved in the temple cult. And also the fact that she has this wonderful decorated coffin shows that she's probably also a wealthy person in Egyptian society. So this little inscription gives us her name and her titles, and it also includes little offering formulas. So these are things that she's hoping to be given to after she's dead. My members are from family. They're things like food, like bread and beer and meat. And she's hoping that these will be given to her so that she can continue to enjoy sustenance after her death and her continued existence in the afterlife as well. And then underneath this, we have these little scenes of, again, Tantwen and Miheriti as a little bob bird. And she appears before different gods. We have Anubis here. And then we have a personification of the West. And the West was believed to be the realm where the dead lived because that was where the sun set. And therefore it's kind of this place of death, but also rebirth as well. So we have this little personification of the West with her little bob bird, this time with a nice sun disk on top of her head. And then we have the goddess Cyrus, who is the god of the dead, so appropriate that he is here too. And then we have this really interesting figure of a lioness-headed goddess who is framed by these lovely kind of tree leaves and tree branches. And this could be a personification, again, of the West, the place where the dead go to. Or it could possibly be the goddess Hathor, who also is sometimes depicted as this kind of goddess of the West as well. And the reason that we have all these tree leaves and tree branches is because trees are kind of, they provide shade from the sun, and so they kind of provide a nice cool, refreshing atmosphere, which is something that you want to enjoy in the afterlife as well. So trees are kind of go hand in hand with this kind of nice existence after death as well. And then this very long series of columns with text in them, which was painted after the scene, because you can see the way that they wrap and contour around the figures, and sometimes even kind of have to go through the figures as well, show that it was done after the scene was composed. But they work in conjunction with the images as well. They are also asking for kind of favour and prayers to these gods, and providing and receiving as well offerings to help in the continued survival of the deceased, but also to kind of as gifts to kind of invoke favour from these gods. And you can actually see that a lot of the things that they're mentioning in the text are as offerings are actually depicted here as well in front of the gods too. So we have little bowls where full of bread and food. We have little vessels that would be full with drink and with oils and perfumes and things as well. So this is a really nice example as well of how texts and images work together in Egyptian art to help communicate Muni and also kind of magically produce tangible results as well, because this is really believed to help you achieve existence in the afterlife as a regenerated spirit as well. So this is a really nice example of Egyptian coffin painting and it's been a real pleasure to be able to show you this part of the object which you don't normally get to see in the collection. I hope you enjoy this little journey into the Egyptian afterlife and that's it for today's Barnes Takeout. If you haven't already, please subscribe to our channel and please leave a comment as well. We really enjoy reading these and responding to them as well and take care and keep safe. Thanks for watching and for your support of the Barnes Foundation.