Furnishing a Tomb in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptian kings like Tutankhamun could have anything he wanted for his tomb. But the king’s subjects, ordinary middle-class Egyptians, were forced to make choices about the objects they included in their tombs. They wanted to guarantee their entrance to the next world, but they simply could not afford everything that royalty had. This lecture explores how Egyptians furnished their tombs on a budget. Their strategies included choosing cheaper materials, combining two or more necessary objects into one item, or even buying a coffin second hand. Examples of all these strategies will be illustrated and explained.