DOI issue:
Egypt
DOI article:Zych, Iwona: Wooden coffins from the Moslem Cemetery at Kom el-Dikka
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41370#0034
ALEXANDRIA
WOODEN COFFINS FROM THE MOSLEM
CEMETERY AT KOM EL-DIKKA
Iwona Zych
The unexpectedness of the discovery of
wooden coffins at a Moslem burial ground
at Kom el-Dikka in Alexandria,hinting
of practices not in the mainstream burial
tradition, warrants a few words of ad-
ditional description.
Both coffin burials seem to have been
secondary internments and both have suf-
fered from the specific conditions of the
site. The wood in the case of the coffin in
grave E-3 was in fairly good condition, but
many of the elements were missing. In
grave E-9A, the box was apparently largely
preserved, although crushed by imploding
stone walls of the tomb structure, but the
condition of the wood was poor. In either
case the damages are too considerable for
the reconstruction of the form to be
anything but dubious at best.
The wood does not appear to be of the
same species in these two coffins. However,
until examination by an expert little more
can be said on the subject except that it
was definitely not palm wood.1 2)
The woodworking technique is skilled,
the boards dressed smoothly, and especially
in the case of the coffin from grave E 9A
cut very thin, 1 cm when the rule is rather
2 cm. Traces of sawing can be seen, and the
rough parts on some elements evince the
difficulty the carpenter had in dressing
some of the pieces (around knots in
particular). The technique itself and the
tools used remain to be studied.
COFFIN FROM GRAVE E 3
The surviving elements of this coffin
include about half the length of a long
board, the head board and a piece of the
foot board, and five beam uprights (Fig. 1).
The long board was actually very
cleverly made of two narrower boards,
joined together with a virtually square
tenon (5 by 4.5 cm, 0.3-0.5 cm thick) set
equidistant into a slot cut into the side
edges of two boards (Fig. 2). The fit was not
snug, but the hold was firm, since the slots
were not exactly opposite one another. The
tenon must have been cut to size to match
the part of the two slots that meets (4.5 cm
long). The tenon-in-slots joining of the two
boards occurs in about the middle of the
surviving length which is 92-95 cm. The
combined width of the two boards was at
least 40 cm, the thickness 2 cm at the short
edges, thinning to 1.6 cm near the other
1) For the discovery and the work at the site this season, see report by G. Majcherek and W. Koi^taj in this volume,
especially, pp. 21-22. I am grateful to Dr. G. Majcherek for permission to publish these finds and to the Lanckoronski
Foundation from Cracow for a grant to study worked wood in London in 2002.
2) I am indebted to Dr. T. Wazny for identifying the wood of the coffin box from grave E 3 as pine (Finns pinaster).
32
WOODEN COFFINS FROM THE MOSLEM
CEMETERY AT KOM EL-DIKKA
Iwona Zych
The unexpectedness of the discovery of
wooden coffins at a Moslem burial ground
at Kom el-Dikka in Alexandria,hinting
of practices not in the mainstream burial
tradition, warrants a few words of ad-
ditional description.
Both coffin burials seem to have been
secondary internments and both have suf-
fered from the specific conditions of the
site. The wood in the case of the coffin in
grave E-3 was in fairly good condition, but
many of the elements were missing. In
grave E-9A, the box was apparently largely
preserved, although crushed by imploding
stone walls of the tomb structure, but the
condition of the wood was poor. In either
case the damages are too considerable for
the reconstruction of the form to be
anything but dubious at best.
The wood does not appear to be of the
same species in these two coffins. However,
until examination by an expert little more
can be said on the subject except that it
was definitely not palm wood.1 2)
The woodworking technique is skilled,
the boards dressed smoothly, and especially
in the case of the coffin from grave E 9A
cut very thin, 1 cm when the rule is rather
2 cm. Traces of sawing can be seen, and the
rough parts on some elements evince the
difficulty the carpenter had in dressing
some of the pieces (around knots in
particular). The technique itself and the
tools used remain to be studied.
COFFIN FROM GRAVE E 3
The surviving elements of this coffin
include about half the length of a long
board, the head board and a piece of the
foot board, and five beam uprights (Fig. 1).
The long board was actually very
cleverly made of two narrower boards,
joined together with a virtually square
tenon (5 by 4.5 cm, 0.3-0.5 cm thick) set
equidistant into a slot cut into the side
edges of two boards (Fig. 2). The fit was not
snug, but the hold was firm, since the slots
were not exactly opposite one another. The
tenon must have been cut to size to match
the part of the two slots that meets (4.5 cm
long). The tenon-in-slots joining of the two
boards occurs in about the middle of the
surviving length which is 92-95 cm. The
combined width of the two boards was at
least 40 cm, the thickness 2 cm at the short
edges, thinning to 1.6 cm near the other
1) For the discovery and the work at the site this season, see report by G. Majcherek and W. Koi^taj in this volume,
especially, pp. 21-22. I am grateful to Dr. G. Majcherek for permission to publish these finds and to the Lanckoronski
Foundation from Cracow for a grant to study worked wood in London in 2002.
2) I am indebted to Dr. T. Wazny for identifying the wood of the coffin box from grave E 3 as pine (Finns pinaster).
32