Anthropoid coffin lids
Museum assignment: choose a specific object displayed in the British Museum collection relevant to themes covered in the course. Item: Clay coffin lid.
Ruiha Smalley, March 2007
Introduction
The clay coffin lid on display at the British Museum (The Levant Gallery) illustrates a form of artefact, known as an anthropoid coffin, that has been excavated at a number of sites in Egypt and the Near East. The object in the Museum (figure 1) was excavated from a tomb at Lachish, Israel, and is dated to the 13th century BC.
Early finds and theories
The earliest record of anthropoid coffins comes from Egypt, from Flinders Petrie's excavation (1885-86) at Tell Nebesheh, and Naville’s (1887-88) at Tell el Yahudiyeh. In the 1920s a series of coffins were discovered in the Levant at Beth Shan, Tel el-Farah and Sahab.
In 1929 Albright acquired a coffin and a quantity of pottery belonging to the coffin at Sahab. An examination of the pottery confirmed the date as Early Iron Age. The coffin lid was intact with three handles serving as features, two representing the ears and the other the beard. Albright described the beard as "typically Semitic like those illustrated on Egyptian monuments of the New Empire". The coffin itself was flat on the bottom and tapered to the feet. There were two remaining handles. Similar coffins had been found at Beth Shan by Fisher and Rowe and at Tel el-Farah by Petrie, all dated to the Early Iron Age. (Albright, p.295-298)
The Beth Shan coffins had been placed in rectangular tombs in contrast to the round shape of Late Bronze Age Canaanite tombs. The pottery found in these tombs was dated by Fisher to the 12th or 11th century BC (Albright, p.298). Only two coffins were reconstructed in full (figure 2). They were cylindrical and built of coils of clay then smoothed on the outside surface with the upper part of each cut away to form lids. These were ornamented with facial features, arms and hands. Fisher and Rowe divided the lids into two types, the naturalistic and the grotesque. The naturalistic facial features were lifelike and framed by a wig. The modelled hands lay horizontally beneath the face and were reminiscent of Egyptian mummy cases. The grotesque had exaggerated stylised features unlike the Egyptian prototypes. The faces were beardless and in place of Egyptian style wigs the heads had elaborate headdresses and head bands. (Dothan, p.59)
Fisher and Rowe noticed that sherds of Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery were found near several of the coffins, as was one thin gold-foil, typically Aegean mouth piece. This led them to believe that the burials could be connected to the presence of foreign mercenaries attached to the Egyptian army, based in the garrison town of Beth Shan. Pere Hughes Vincent argued that the features on the coffin lids had their "parallel in the gold masks excavated by Schliemann in the royal tombs of Mycenae". (Dothan, p.61-62)
Fisher and Rowe had not been able to identify the foreign mercenaries with the Philistines as no black and red Philistine pottery had been found in the cemetery. This changed when the Tell el-Farah dig uncovered coffins along with just such pottery. This led Petrie to label the group "the tombs of the Philistine lords" (Dothan, p.61, 67). Albright accepted the description as Philistine as a reference to the period of Philistine occupation but not as an ethnic description. His main objection was that "nothing resembling this type of burial has been found yet in Aegean lands, from which the Philistines came". He argued that burial customs involving anthropoid coffins and mummy cases were once restricted to the upper classes in Egypt, but in the New Empire, had been extended to the middle class and the poor. They were therefore of Egyptian influence.
"We have every reason to regard our class of anthropoid coffins [the Sahab find] as imitated from Egyptian models of the 18th and 19th Dynasties. Who the imitators were, whether they made the first pseudo-Egyptian coffins in Palestine or in Egypt, whether they belonged to one race or to many races, escapes us completely." (Albright, p.301 - 306)
In 1957 Dothan published details of coffins found at Deir el Balah, near the Egyptian border. She identified these as Egyptian as no Philistine ware was found with the burials but felt the burials at Beth Shan and Tell el Farah to be Philistine. She argued that the headdress on one of the Beth Shan lids was worn by the Sea Peoples. Such a headdress can be seen in the battle sketched on the walls of Medinet Habu in Upper Egypt. She felt that the pottery and objects found with the coffins indicated an eclectic background expected when Palestinian, Aegean and Egyptian influence mixed. Such features pointed to a common cultural background, explained by the service of foreign mercenary groups in Egyptian armies. (Yassine, p.38, Brug p.150) Waldbaum agreed while also arguing that the rectangular style of the tombs was in contrast to prevailing Palestinian customs and linked them instead to Mycenaean heritage. (Waldbaum, p.334)
More recent discussions
Brug, in 1985, re-examined the arguments involving the headdress and the tomb styles. Brug could not associate the burials with the Sea Peoples as had been done so easily in the past. The strongest argument for associating some of the Beth Shan burials with the Sea People was the feathered headdress but out of more than one hundred coffins in Palestine only one published example had a feathered headdress.
"Even if we accept some of the Beth Shan and the Fara coffins as Philistine, it is cleat that they are not a distinctive Philistine style, and neither their presence nor absence is in itself very helpful for identifying a specific burial as Philistine or non-Philistine." (Brug. P.151 -152)
He rebuked Waldbaum's claims regarding the style of the Farah tombs saying that although there are some features which appear in Greece or Cyprus there is no LBA – EIA burial in Palestine which is a true copy of a foreign burial. These tomb types do not provide clear evidence of the Aegean origin of the Philistines. (Brug, p.153)
He also argued (p.149 - 153):
- Although there had been Philistine pottery in the "tombs of the Philistine lords" it accounted for less than 10% and did not contain the spiral bowls so characteristic of Philistine ware;
- The features on the coffins were not to be identified as Philistine as the goatee and side locks from one tomb were instead like those of the Libyans pictured in Egyptian reliefs;
- It is not clear that the gold mouth pieces found in the Palestinian burials are in fact mouthpieces. Some have been interpreted as jewellery and others may have been decoration sown on clothing. Even so, they are very different to the full gold masks found at Mycenae.
Yassine (1988) examined the anthropoid phenomenon citing examples from the Raghdan Royal Palace tomb at Amman, Lachish, Beth Shan, Tell el Farah, Sahab and Dhiban. He divided them into four Types:
1. (11th – 13th century BC) Cylindrical coffins with lids modelled in high relief with crossed arms on the lid. These were found at Lachish in 1938 (figure 3, no.8), at Beth Shan and Tell el-Farah. They show the head, arms and hands and features of the deceased. Wigs are depicted on a number of lids.
2. (9th – 10th century BC) Cylindrical coffins with lids modelled in high relief and arms at the side of the body; found at Sahab and the Royal Palaces at Amman.
3. (7th – 10th century BC) Plain cylindrical coffin. No facial features and no arms; found at Amman.
4. (8th century BC) An elongated box with a rounded end with the lid covering the whole box; found at Dhiban, Jordan.
Yassine had witnessed the discovery at Pella of further coffins along with Egyptian scarab jewellery, beads, alabaster objects of different shapes of local and Egyptian origin and Mycenaean pottery. These tombs showed a combination of Egyptian, Mycenaean and Sea Peoples (Philistine) influence. He claimed that Types II, III and IV were from local people while Type I may have been influenced by the Sea Peoples. He felt the quantity of Mycenaean and Philistine pottery in some of the tombs was evidence of a neighbouring country’s influence, while the Egyptian influence was clear by depiction of facial features on coffins, the scarabs, alabaster vessels and amulets. The hieroglyphics that appear on one of the Lachish coffin is further proof of that influence.
"I would assume that these burials were for the chieftains of the country who were in a position to afford foreign imported materials. Those found in Egypt were for those chieftains who lived there under the control of the Egyptian Pharaohs." (Yassine, p.38-40)
Conclusion
Investigations into the origins and cultural influences of the burials involving anthropoid coffins in Egypt and the Levant have involved two major arguments. The first took the archaeological evidence to suggest cultural influences of the deceased to be from a Mediterranean background, perhaps Mycenaean. Petrie described the tombs at Tell el Farah as giving a "full and clear view of the burial customs during the age of the Philistine lords under the suzerainty of the Egyptians" (Dothan, p.69)
Albright disagreed, and later after the discovery of further coffins and a re-examination of the Beth Shan finds, others backed his view. Gonen has made what could be seen as a final comment on burial patterns in Canaan, claiming that there can be no doubt that these clay, anthropoid coffins derive from Egyptian prototypes and not the Philistines. Such coffins were introduced into Canaan before the arrival of the Sea Peoples and were probably burials of Egyptian soldiers or officers stationed in Canaan between the 13th and 11th century BC when Egypt lost its hold on the country. (Gonen, p.28 - 29)
References
Albright, W.F. (1932) An anthropoid clay coffin from Sahab in Transjordan. American Journal of Archaeology. Vol. 36, pp.295-306.
BRITISH MUSEUM. (2007) Clay coffin lid [Online] Available: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/index.html [24 February 2007]
Brug, J.F. (1985) A literary and archaeological study of the Philistines. BAR International Series 265. Oxford: BAR
Dothan, T & Dothan, M. (1992) People of the Sea: in search of the Philistines. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co
Gonen, R (1992) Burial patterns & cultural diversity in Late Bronze Age Cannan. ASOR Dissertation Series 7. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
Waldbaum, J.C. (1966) Philistine tombs at Tell Fara and their Aegean prototypes. American Journal of Archaeology, Vol.70, No.4, pp.331-340.
Yassine, K. (1988) Archaeology of Jordan: essays and reports. University of Jordan Department of Archaeology: Amman.
