Between the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom and the Book of the Dead of the New Kingdom lies a fundamental and less familiar link: the Coffin Texts. These are spells painted or written in ink inside wooden coffins, above all in the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom. With them, magical knowledge of the afterlife leaves the chambers of kings and reaches provincial governors, officials and their families.
An immense corpus
The standard edition is the work of the Dutch Egyptologist Adriaan de Buck, who published the texts in seven volumes between the 1930s and the 1960s. His numbering counts 1,185 spells. No coffin contains them all: each one presents a selection, often tied to the traditions of a place and a workshop.
Many examples come from provincial cemeteries of Middle Egypt, such as Beni Hasan, Asyut, Meir and Deir el-Bersha, as well as from the Saqqara area and Thebes. This reflects a precise historical situation: in that era local governors had gained wealth and prestige and could afford burials with texts once reserved for the ruler.
What changes compared with the Pyramid Texts
| Aspect | Pyramid Texts | Coffin Texts |
|---|---|---|
| Recipients | Kings and queens | Non-royal elite |
| Medium | Stone walls | Inner panels of wooden coffins |
| Script | Carved hieroglyphs | Cursive hieroglyphs and hieratic in ink |
| New themes | The king's ascent | Transformations, reunion with family, maps of the afterlife |
Many older spells are taken up and adapted: where the king was once named, the name of the deceased now appears. But there are also new themes, such as spells to find one's relatives again in the afterlife, spells to avoid having to walk upside down or eat impure things, and a large series of transformation spells.
Transformation spells
A characteristic part of the Coffin Texts concerns the ability to «become» something: a falcon, a swallow, a snake, a crocodile, a flower, even a specific deity. These spells do not describe reincarnation in the modern sense, but the freedom of movement and form of the deceased, who could take on whatever appearance best suited the overcoming of each obstacle.
It is here that the god Heka speaks in the first person, presenting himself as the creator's primordial force. Magic is no longer just an instrument of the king, but a quality that every justified dead person can make his or her own.
The Book of Two Ways
The most fascinating text in the corpus is the so-called Book of Two Ways, attested mainly on coffins from Deir el-Bersha, the cemetery of the governors of the Hermopolis province, a city sacred to the god Thoth. On the inner floor of the coffin, directly beneath the body, a true map of the afterlife was painted.
The map shows two winding routes:
- a waterway, often painted blue;
- a land route, often painted black;
- between them a channel or zone of fire, painted red.
Along the way one meets gates, guardians with terrifying names, enclosures and dangerous places. The spells beside the drawing explain what to say in order to pass. The final goal is closeness to the gods, in particular the solar god and Osiris, in a region of light.
The Book of Two Ways is often described as one of the oldest maps of an afterlife known to us. More than a geographical chart, it is a ritual scheme: whoever owns it carries knowledge of the territory.
A new relationship with knowledge
What is striking in the Coffin Texts is the centrality of knowledge. The deceased must know the names of the gates, of the guardians, even of the parts of the net with which certain beings try to catch him. One particularly well-known spell lists the individual components of the net, and the deceased proves he knows them all so as not to be trapped.
This attitude leads directly to the Book of the Dead, where knowledge of names becomes the universal key.
A reading for today
For anyone studying the tradition, the Book of Two Ways suggests an inner image: every spiritual path knows alternative roads, thresholds to recognise and burning zones to cross with awareness. Studio Esoterico Cornelio presents it as a text to contemplate, not a manual to apply literally.
In short
- The Coffin Texts are funerary spells painted on Middle Kingdom wooden coffins.
- Adriaan de Buck's edition numbers 1,185 of them.
- They extend to the non-royal elite spells once reserved for the king.
- They contain many transformation spells and spells to find one's family again.
- The Book of Two Ways, from Deir el-Bersha, is one of the oldest maps of the afterlife.
