Lebanese Cedar, Skeuomorphs, Coffins, and Status in Ancient Egypt

Abstract

In ancient Egypt, as with many cultures, funerary objects often communicated aspects of access, power, and social status. Lebanese cedar, for instance, was selected as a particularly desirable material from which to craft the coffins of Egypt’s upper echelons. This imported timber was both structurally superior to local woods and had important social and religious significance. For the slightly lower-ranking elite of Egypt, for whom cedar was inaccessible, local wood skeuomorphs that imitated cedar coffins were created in their place. The skeuomorphs enabled these individuals to demonstrate their knowledge of elite styles and tastes, and, due to the power of the image in ancient Egypt, also allowed for them to borrow the religious power of cedar wood to protect and enhance their own coffins. In this paper, a selection of Old to Middle Kingdom coffins are discussed to demonstrate the ways that cedar was emphasized as a construction material by the upper elite and mimicked by the middle and lower elite. This helps to demonstrate both the value of cedar in ancient Egypt, as well as the means by which imagery could be manipulated to gain access to the power of this potent material.