Coffin Fragment

1973.1.636

Information

Right fist from an anthropoid (human-shaped) coffin. The front is naturalistically formed with a thin application of plaster painted yellow with details in red. The back surface is a flat plane. A dowel hole passes through the thickness of the hand. Hands on anthropoid coffins were carved separately and would have been pegged in place on the coffin during the manufacture process. This construction technique is characteristic of coffins made in the late New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period and Late Period (about 1100 BC – 715 BC). CONDITION NOTE (1998): Dry and damaged wood, fine surface crack, surface loss of decoration, surface dirt.