Theban tomb reveals how Egyptian burial trends evolved in time

For instance, the earliest burials from the 25th Dynasty were of individual burials (mummies 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17) with men and women often separated, although the authors caution against reading too much into that evidence. In the intermediate and later stages (late 25th Dynasty through the Persian phase), new bodies were placed in areas that were already occupied by mummies, resulting in increased density. Per the authors, this is consistent with observations in other Theban tombs from the first millennium BCE, roughly 80 percent of which have remains from different time periods in the same shared space, as well as evidence of material and practices from different time periods.

A “dynamic mortuary environment”

There was also a notable decline in coffin use in later stages; more reuse and vertical superposition of bodies, as opposed to bodies being laid out horizontally in the earliest stages; and evidence of coffins that had been dismantled or simply became badly degraded.

“This transformation can be understood within a wider reconfiguration of the Egyptian funerary system, in which the growing density of deposits and the reuse of earlier funerary structures reduced the capacity of coffins to act as the sole organizing frame of burial space,” the authors wrote, noting “a shift in focus towards the integrity of the body and the symbolic efficacy of the ritual, rather than the container itself.”

The authors noted changes over time in the positioning of limbs: earlier burials had the arms stretched out, while later ones had the arms folded in, for instance. The earliest phases also featured artifacts that clearly had been buried with the individuals: amphorae, incense cups, amulets, and beads, for instance. Such artifacts were increasingly more dispersed in later burial stages.