Religious and Artistic Features of Elite’s Coffin during (LP) Late Period: Applied on Two Coffins at Hurghada Museum (HM)

There is no doubt that the ancient Egyptians used the coffins as a shelter for mummies from Prehistoric to the end of the Late Period. They had paid attention to the coffins because it is considered as safe means of passage to the other world and it is the guarantor for him to pass from darkness to light. So, the drawings were expressive and have religious dimensions. The author aims to study two unpublished coffins that belong to individuals; they date back to the end of the Late Period that was preserved in the Hurghada Museum (HM) after they were transferred from the Egyptian Museum stores in Cairo. The author studies the religious and artistic features found on these coffins, taking into consideration the period in which they were made, from the end of the 26th Dynasty to the end of the 30th Dynasty. Neither surveying nor comparing the artistic and religious decoration features of the Late Period coffins has been done by the author. This paper aims to compare the artistic and religious decoration features that occurred in the ancient Egyptian Late Period depending on these decorated coffins in the newly inaugurated ‘Hurghada Museum’. Two coffins reveal different artistic and religious decoration features that are studied. Analyses of religious and artistic in each of these coffins have taken place and major features emerged, then, these features and results are discussed. This paper was developed using analytical and comparative approaches based on document and picture analyses. It had been concluded that two coffins at the Hurghada museum had carried distinctive artistic and religious features of their era. These two coffins were able to preserve the religious traditions that prevailed before with some artistic changes in expressing these traditions to simulate the evolution of the era compared to the coffins of the New Kingdom.