The boards displayed here constituted the inner facing of the walls of a coffin of which next to nothing was left at the time when it was discovered, in 1914, due to the devastating action of termites. In spite of their poor condition, the remains of this coffin are extremely interesting. They are graced with images of offering bearers, granaries and storehouses, and the ritual purification of the deceased before his meal, and inscribed with spells from a local tradition of the “Coffin Texts,” religious formulas whose purpose was to preserve the deceased during his journey into the netherworld. Furthermore, what had once been the inner face of the lid of the coffin still carries an exquisite example of a “diagonal star clock,” with images of constellations in its central part. This is one of the very few examples of this kind of decoration found at a site other than Asyut.
