Coffin Of Pedi Osiris Analysis

In the ancient world, Art was commissioned and used by the rulers, nobles and very wealthy people wherever a royal, an imperial system or an aristocracy dominated a society and controlled a significant share of resources. Each piece of art had its religious, social, and political or other cultural context and was created using plural form of medium ranging from drawings on papyrus through wood, stones, and paintings. The coffin of Pedi-Osiris is an artwork that is exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, United States of America in the department of antiquities. It is classified under mommies, tomb and funerary art. It held the mummified body of Pedi-Osiris, a priest of the god Osiris, also known as the lord of the underworld.

The coffin was made in Ancient Egypt by various unknown artists during the period in which Greek conquest of Egypt led to the establishment of the Ptolemaic Kingdom by Ptolemy Soter, one of the generals of Alexander the Great: The Ptolemaic period, 332-30 BC. This period was characterized by Greek colonization. The Greeks now formed the new upper and ruling classes in the Egyptian society, replacing the old native aristocracy. In general, the Ptolemies brought changes that went far beyond any other measures that earlier foreign rulers had put in place. They used and adopted the religion, traditions and local practices to increase their own power and wealth instead of imposing Greek culture. Although they established a prosperous kingdom, enhanced with fine buildings, the native population enjoyed few benefits, continued having a role, yet a small one in the Ptolemaic government mostly in lower posts and outnumbered the foreigners; and there were frequent uprisings. They exported their cultures and languages bringing unprecedented amount of change as they overlaid the existing Egyptian society with that of their own. As result, a mixed culture was formed along with a hybrid art richly diverse in subject matter and in stylistic development, the Hellenistic art.
Created during an age characterized by a strong sense of history, The Hellenistic art combined Egyptian themes (i.e.

age-old Pharaonic traditions) with elements of Greek culture and also made great innovations. Egyptian depictions tended toward the idealistic but stiff, with no attempt to likeness but with the influence of Greek culture, they started to emphasis on the face more than it the past. Smiles suddenly appear. Like on the head of the carved and painted wood featured a large face synonym of smile. It was round and painted in gold. The face was decorated with a fake beard, a wig painted in blue, and has black-lined eyes and eyebrows makes it look exotic. Colors were more expressive rather than natural: blue or gold association with precious materials indicated divinity because of its unnatural appearance; the use of black for royal figures expressed the fertility of the Nile from which Egypt was born. This is probably the reason why the coffin covered with a red net clothing above which many iconography, and gods and goddesses of the ancient Egypt were painted. Animals were also highly symbolic figures. For example, on the coffin of Pedi-Osiris above the painting of a goddess named Nut, there were paintings of a scarab beetle named Khepri, god of the morning sun, with wings and it ball of dung. On each shoulder of the wooden coffin featured paintings of a baboon that was raising its arms in a worshiping position. Also the paintings of two jackals, gods of embalming, appeared on the base of the coffin, representing veneration and protection of the deceased. Symbolism played an important role in establishing a sense of order. The fake beard in ancient Egypt was symbolic and meant wisdom, high rank, wealth, etc. In the usage of hierarchical proportion, the size of figures indicated their relative importance. The figures of gods and goddesses or the divine pharaohs, high officials were usually larger compared other figures: any servants and entertainers,

animals, trees, and architectural details. The coffin of Pedi-Osiris was seven feet tall. Artists reached a highly stylized and symbolic level in painting and sculpture that vividly represented the socioeconomic status of the Egyptians and their complex polytheistic belief systems.
After the death of Alexander the great, his general Ptolemy I Soter made himself king of Egypt, declared by a priest. Ptolemy respected most cherished traditions of Egypt, the pharaonic religions and customs; and turned them to people’s own advantage. He created a new god, Serapis, from was a combining Egyptian gods: Apis and Osiris, plus the main Greek gods: Zeus, Hades, Asklepios, Dionysios, and Helios. This new god, Serapis, had powers over fertility, the sun, corn, funerary rites, and medicine. The population started to worship this god. In time, the cults started to worship of the new Ptolemaic line of pharaohs.
Not all Egyptian sculptures created in relief were painted and less prestigious works were just painted on a flat surface. Any rough surfaces were prepared by whitewash, or a layer of coarse mud plaster, with a paint mixture, the gesso, made of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, and pigment applied above. Finer limestones could take paint directly. Pigments came mostly from mineral and were chosen to withstand strong sunlight without fading. A permanent, fast-drying painting medium such as the Egg tempera and various gums and resins were suggested. Paintings rapidly done in watercolor on wet plaster, a wall or ceiling (fresco) were not used. Instead a fresco painting technique, the fresco a secco, was applied to dried plaster. A varnish or resin was usually applied as a protective coating after painting. Many ancient Egyptian paintings survived due to the extremely dry climate of Egypt. The artworks were often made with the intent of making a pleasant afterlife for the deceased. The themes included journey through the afterworld and protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld, Osiris. Egyptian pharaohs were always regarded as gods. Deities were much less common in large statues, except when they represented the pharaoh as another deity. However the other deities were frequently shown in paintings and reliefs. Just like appears on the back of the coffin, the painting of the body of Pedi-Osiris laying on top of a splendid funeral bed shaped like a lion under which stand four deities: Imsety (the protector of the liver), Hapy (the protector of the lungs), Dua-mut-ef (the protector of the stomach), and Qebeh-Senu-ef (the protector of the intestines). They were the sons of the falcon god of the sky, Horus. They were symbolic and were charged with protecting the internal organs of the deceased. Most tomb paintings showed activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity. The fact that most of the surviving art come from tombs and monuments shows that there was an emphasis on life after death and the preservation of knowledge of the past. The book of the dead, considered important for an introduction to the afterlife, was buried with the deceased.
Egyptian paintings were painted in such a way to show a profile view and a side view at the same time. For example, the painting could show the head from a profile view or shown from the side and the body from a frontal with the torso from the front and parted legs. Their distinctive and very common technique, the sunk relief, which was well suited to very bright sunlight and was mainly used for large reliefs on external walls, and for hieroglyphs and cartouches become the dominant type used after the Amarna period of Akhenaten, as opposed to low relief. Hieroglyphs were the ancient Egyptian writing system with more than 700 symbols in which pictures stand for words, syllables or sounds. They were decoded by a French scholar, philologist and orientalist named Jean-François Champollion hieroglyphs from the Rosetta stone which was found in 1799. On the bottom part of the coffin has hieroglyphs, in other words Egyptians scripts inscribed in columns that are bordered in black ink.
Deceased were placed in coffins so that their mummified body could be preserved as intact as possible for the afterlife. The reason why gods and goddesses were painted on coffins was because of the Egyptian belief that they provided protection to the deceased and helped promoting reincarnation. The ancient Egypt artists used their artistic style as language of the culture. They did not focus on the details or anatomy instead they created art work that were related to the life after death and the life style at that time. The idealized features of rulers, like other Egyptian artistic conventions, changed little until after the Greek conquest. Although the Egyptian artistic styles changed remarkably over time due to the integration of foreign styles, its unique art form persisted and still these works ensured that there will be successful reincarnation and after life.