Coffin Texts

The Coffin Texts are a collection of approximately 1,185 spells inscribed on the interior surfaces of wooden coffins during the Middle Kingdom period. They represent the democratisation of funerary literature previously reserved for royalty in the Pyramid Texts: now wealthy non-royal Egyptians could aspire to the same afterlife protections once available only to pharaohs. The spells draw heavily on the Pyramid Texts but adapt, expand, and reorganise them, adding new material and a different theological emphasis. Many spells address the journey through the Duat — the Egyptian underworld — and the dangers that await the deceased: monsters, hostile spirits, gates guarded by divine doorkeepers who must be addressed by name. The deceased must demonstrate knowledge of the correct formulae, the names of the gatekeepers, and the secret topology of the underworld. Spell 335, the Book of Two Ways, is particularly significant: an illustrated guide to the afterlife geography with two paths, one on water and one on land, both leading to the realm of Osiris.