Weinberg Lecture, “Recycling for Death: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches”

In this lecture Kara Cooney, professor of Egyptian art and architecture at UCLA, discusses her latest book, Recycling for Death, a meticulous study of the social, economic, and religious significance of coffin reuse during the Ramesside and early Third Intermediate periods.

Funerary datasets are the chief source of social history in Egyptology, but the numerous tombs, coffins, Books of the Dead, and mummies of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Dynasties have not been fully utilized as social documents. This is mostly because the data of this time period is scattered and difficult to synthesize. This book is the culmination of 15 years of coffin study, analyzing coffins and other funerary equipment of elites from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-Second Dynasties to provide essential windows into social strategies and adaptations employed during the Bronze Age collapse and subsequent Iron Age reconsolidation.

About the speaker
Kara Cooney is a professor of Egyptology at UCLA and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Specializing in social history, gender studies, and economies in the ancient world, she received her PhD in Egyptology from Johns Hopkins University. Her popular books include The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt, and The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World. Her latest books include Ancient Egyptian Society: Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Approaches (Routledge, 2023) and Recycling for Death: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches (American University in Cairo Press, 2024).

Photo: Mikel Healey