In ancient Egypt, as with many cultures, funerary objects often communicated aspects of access, power, and social status. Lebanese cedar, for instance, was selected as a particularly desirable material from which to craft the coffins of Egypt’s upper echelons. This imported timber was both structurally superior to local woods and had important social and religious significance. For the slightly lower-ranking elite of Egypt, for whom cedar was inaccessible, local wood skeuomorphs that imitated cedar coffins were created in their place. The skeuomorphs enabled these individuals to demonstrate their knowledge of elite styles and tastes, and, due to the power of the image in ancient Egypt, also allowed for them to borrow the religious power of cedar wood to protect and enhance their own coffins. In this paper, a selection of Old to Middle Kingdom coffins are discussed to demonstrate the ways that cedar was emphasized as a construction material by the upper elite and mimicked by the middle and lower elite. This helps to demonstrate both the value of cedar in ancient Egypt, as well as the means by which imagery could be manipulated to gain access to the power of this potent material.

中文翻译：

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黎巴嫩雪松、怪形体、棺材和在古埃及的地位


在古埃及，与许多文化一样，陪葬品通常传达着访问、权力和社会地位的各个方面。例如，黎巴嫩雪松被选为一种特别理想的材料，用于制作埃及上层的棺材。这种进口木材在结构上优于当地木材，并且具有重要的社会和宗教意义。对于埃及地位稍低的精英来说，他们无法获得雪松，他们创造了模仿雪松棺材的当地木制 skeuomorphs。这些 skeuomorphs 使这些人能够展示他们对精英风格和品味的了解，并且由于古埃及图像的力量，还允许他们借用雪松木的宗教力量来保护和增强自己的棺材。在本文中，讨论了一些从旧到中王国的棺材，以展示上层精英强调雪松作为建筑材料并被中下层精英模仿的方式。这有助于证明雪松在古埃及的价值，以及可以操纵图像以获得这种有效材料的力量的手段。