Middle Kingdom box coffin fragments from Assiut: the unpublished coffin boards Birmingham S1Bir and S1NY

Editio princeps of hitherto unknown fragments of a box coffin from the necropolis of Assiut, Middle Egypt, kept at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. While the sequence of spells CT 30-32+609 represents a standard choice for Assiut coffins, all spells are abbreviated and altered and apart from one instance, no space has been provided to accommodate a coffin owner's name. It will be argued that despite its high quality craftsmanship achieved at the height of Assiut coffin production, this coffin was never fit for purpose; together with S1NY, it served as an exhibit instead, perhaps displayed by a workshop in the Assiut region to inform future customers inclined to buy coffins. Both S1Bir and S1NY celebrate the pinnacle of Assiut coffin production during the reigns of Sesostris I and Amenemhat II.