Anthropoid ceramic coffins
These coffins have been found at Deir el-Balah, Beth Shean, Lachish, Tell el-Far’ah, Sahab, and most recently in the Jezreel Valley in 2013.
[2] The graves contain wealthy funerary offerings from a variety of origins from Cyprus, Mycenae, Egypt, Phoenicia, and Canaan.
[3] The anthropoid clay coffins are generally believed to have been a product of the First Dynasty in Egypt that were gradually disseminated to other regions and peoples.
[16] In a cemetery south of Deir el-Balah anthropoid coffins were found when locals were reclaiming sand dunes.
[19] In earlier times, at the end of the Predynastic Period and during the First Dynasty of Sumer and Egypt, clay coffins were imitations of ornamental wooden ones.
[23] Large objects can be built in stages this way as a result of the lower sections being allowed to dry to support the continued additions of clay.
[24] There is evidence that the lids were cut out of the forms after the initial building, to be reworked and molded; this would have been done at the leather hard stage when the clay was firm but still mailable.
[25] Some times handles can be found along the sides of the coffins, used for carrying as well as adapted and molded into representing the facial features on the lids.
The formations of the arms sculpted thinly along the edge of the lid are a conceptual representation and on a majority of the coffins they are not overly defined.
More durable ceramic pieces had been fired to a higher temperature, allowing the clay to dehydrate and burn off all of the water that was mixed into it to create a malleable material to craft and mold.
With the smaller face masks, where more time was devoted to sculpting, molding and carving the features, more care had been taken to ensure that they would last.
The features of the face have visibly Egyptian, the slanting shape of the eyes, arched eyebrows, and representation of the hair and the wigs are the most notable.
Many of the excavated anthropoid ceramic coffins from Deir el-Balah were buried in similar ritual contexts dating from the 14th-11th centuries BCE.
The coffins were cut into a foundation of Kurkar (sandstone) or hamrah (red sand) and lined with rough stones and oriented to the west.
At Beth Shean the coffins were placed into rock cut tombs also facing the west from the same time period as Deir el-Balah.
[39] The northern cemetery at Beth Shean contained roughly fifty coffins with surviving face lids.
[40] At Lachish and Tell el-Far’ah the several rock cut tombs found there containing anthropoid ceramic coffins date from a later period, 12th–10th centuries BCE, and are mostly associated with Philistine offerings.
Wide ranges of ceramic offerings are found with the burials such as Cypriot, Canaanite, Egyptian, Mycenaean, and Philistine pottery.
The pottery found inside the coffins is smaller and of a higher quality, including Cypriots milk bowls, Egyptian alabaster cups, pilgrim flasks, and juglets.
[43] In a rich coffin of a woman at Deir el-Balah an Egyptian New Kingdom style bronze mirror was found.
[44] These anthropoid ceramic coffins appear to have been associated with wealthier individuals and consequently have a trove of expensive small finds.
[45] Golden beads in the shapes of palmettes and lotus blossoms were common and showed the incorporation of Egyptian and Near Eastern art motifs in the funerary adornment.
[46] Another interesting find associated with one of the coffins at Deir el-Balah was a makeup spoon in the shape of a diving woman.
