Opening the Vision of Osiris Sarenput: A Contextual and Typological Analysis of the Coffin of Sarenput the Younger from Qubbet el-Hawa

In 2009, the Spanish Mission of the University of Jaén found an intact burial in the courtyard of tomb QH33. The burial chamber comprised a very fragmented coffin and a mummy of a young man decorated with a funerary mask, a cartonnage pectoral, and a necklace of glazed-stone beads. The burial also included a small wooden coffin that contained a shabti figurine. The coffin and shabti inscriptions allowed archaeologists to identify the deceased as Sarenput, son of Sattjeni, a member of the provincial ruling family. Upon arduous restoration work, the mission was able to reconstruct an excellent example of a late twelfth dynasty coffin, with wadjet-eyes, false-door palace-façade decoration, and an exceptional and unparalleled textual program. Examination of the iconographic and textual program on the coffin of Sarenput the Younger shows that it includes features common to the late twelfth dynasty, but no modifications observed in thirteenth dynasty coffins. Nevertheless, the design of the coffin anticipates some of these modifications, through its absence of inner decoration and the use of religious texts on the outer sides of the coffin. When taken together, these details mean that the coffin can be dated to the middle of Amenemhat III’s reign, around 1800 BCE.