John H. Taylor, The British Museum, "Evidence for social patterning in the Theban coffins of Dinasty 25"
"As coffins can be assigned to particular periods and regions with increasing confidence, it becomes easier to examine not only diachronic changes, but also contemporaneous variation and to search for meaningful patterns therein. A person’s social status was strongly reflected in their funerary provision, and in the Third Intermediate Period, when private tombs were rarely conspicuous or original works, the main funerary indicatorsof status were the coffins. This paper examinesthe decorative programmes of two contemporaneoustypes of Theban coffin assemblage, which can be associatedwith particular groups in the social hierarchy ofDynasty 25. These ‘higher’ and ،lower elite’ types canbe identified as key points within a broader spectrumof coffin production, and it can be proposed that adaptationsof these two models reflect the differing socialrank and/or purchasing power of their owners. The patternof [...]"
