Painted Coffin Interior
Description
Object Label: In the interior painting on this bottom half of a coffin, the large figure represents Osiris, king of the dead. The mummy would have originally lain on top of this figure, thereby associating the deceased with the king who was successfully reborn into the afterlife. Lesser figures here include three images, in the top and second registers, of the human-headed bird called the ba-soul, which acts on behalf of the deceased in our world; and deities such as Anubis and Horus, who here protect Osiris by supporting his legs. Caption: Painted Coffin Interior, ca. 1070–945 B.C.E.. Wood, gesso, pigment, 17 1/4 x 1 1/2 x 70 3/4 in. (43.8 x 3.8 x 179.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1810E. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A painted coffin interior panel is shown with a large central male figure in blue/green with attendant registers of figures and offerings, bordered by decorative columns and patterns.
The object appears to be a vertically oriented coffin interior surface with extensive polychrome painting over a prepared ground. A large, standing or enthroned human figure (male-coded by iconography) dominates the center on a yellow background, with a blue/green wig or head covering and a light-colored face. The figure wears a striped garment and holds or is associated with objects at the torso; behind/near the head is a radiating or framed motif. Surrounding the central figure are multiple stacked registers: smaller figures, including a second human figure and several offering-like shapes, are arranged alongside columns of colored blocks and schematic symbols. The composition suggests funerary iconography typical of coffin interiors, including ritual and offering scenes. The lower section includes additional horizontal bands and isolated colored bands that resemble hieroglyphic or symbolic layout, but individual signs are not confidently legible from the image resolution. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible. A small amount of white gesso/ground is visible where paint has flaked, and there are areas of abrasion and edge loss, especially on the upper left and along the borders. The depicted scene is consistent with the catalogue description of a painted coffin interior; no clear visual contradiction is present.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.1810E tier-2
- BKM-Object 4179 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.