Androgyny in Funerary Practices

In order to be reborn in the afterlife, it was necessary in death for one to adopt the androgynous manifestation of the gods.  There were never firmly set rules for funerary objects, despite the aforementioned necessity; however, there were a number of norms, evolving throughout Egyptian history, that became for the most part commonplace.

In the Old & Middle Kingdoms, rectangular coffins without an explicitly gendered appearance were the norm.  Women were depicted with darker skin, beards, & masculine pronouns.  During these periods, although elite men were frequently buried with a number of funerary implements, only lower-class women & children were buried with jewellery or ornamentation of any kind (Matić).  The practice of styling the deceased in name combined with that of Osiris, e.g., Osiris-Henut-mehyt, arose in the sixth dynasty.  In the Middle Kingdom women's coffins were often decorated with verses from the Coffin Texts, & men's coffins often depicted the deceased in a number of ways, with different gendered connotations.

By the New Kingdom, coffins depicting certain gendered aspects became the norm, & the idea of androgyny shifted from simply manifesting Osiris's androgyny to embodying aspects of masculinity & femininity (Cooney).  Coffins in this period offer depictions of the deceased, often decorated with verses from the Book of the Dead, notably forty-two, describing the deceased as having 'the breasts of Neith & the phallus of Osiris' (ibid.).  Both men & women within the coffin were depicted in a white dress of purity, but women were clearly set out as such.  An example of these changes is the Ramesside coffin of Ta-kayt whose exterior mentions only masculine pronouns, but whose interior shows her in a woman's wig, wearing jewellery, & a mask of breasts (ibid.).