Coffin Texts
The Middle Kingdom corpus of Egyptian funerary spells painted on coffins, ancestor of the Book of the Dead. Composed anonymously within priestly tradition.
- Original byline
- Anonymous
- Published
- Date not recorded
- Form
- Other works
- Authorship
- Still unknown
- Reason for anonymity
- Religious
- Copyright
- Public domain
- Reference
- Wikipedia · Wikidata
The authorship story
The Coffin Texts are roughly 1,185 spells written on Middle Kingdom coffins, extending to private persons the royal afterlife promises of the older Pyramid Texts. They chart the perils of the underworld and supply the words needed to survive them, and they fed directly into the later Book of the Dead. No spell names its composer. The corpus accumulated in temple and workshop tradition over centuries, and Egyptian scribal culture did not record individual authorship of religious text. Their anonymity is that of an institution, not a person.
Questions readers ask
Who wrote Coffin Texts?
Nobody knows. No author for Coffin Texts has been identified in the documented record.
Can I read Coffin Texts for free?
Yes. Coffin Texts is in the public domain and the full text is free to read at the Internet Archive.
Related works
- Still unknown
Book of the Dead
The ancient Egyptian collection of funerary spells guiding the dead through the afterlife. Tradition associates such texts with the god Thoth; no historical author exists in the record.
- Still unknown
Book of the Earth
An ancient Egyptian funerary composition showing the sun's night journey through the earth god Aker. Anonymous, like all Egyptian netherworld books.
- Still unknown
Key of Solomon
The most famous of the grimoires, attributed by its own tradition to King Solomon. Its actual medieval and Renaissance compilers are unknown.
- Still unknown
Litany of Re
A New Kingdom Egyptian funerary text invoking the sun god in seventy five forms. Produced by priestly tradition; the record names no author, only 'the clergy'.