With the appearance of this volume, the Oriental Institute marks the
true completion of the Egyptian Coffin Texts Project, an international
cooperative program begun by James Henry Breasted and Alan H. Gardiner
in 1922 and edited by Adriaan de Buck from 1935 until his death in 1959.
When published in 1961, Volume 7, de Buck's final volume, was announced
as "the last volume of the autographed Coffin Texts in the contemplated
Project" (p. vii), although the Oriental Institute had never produced
the autographed edition of Pyramid Texts within the Coffin Text corpus
that had been explicitly promised in the introduction to Volume 1.
Assumed to comprise a "distinct" and "foreign body" within the Coffin
Texts, these long-lived spells were "reserved for later" (p. xi). After
a lapse of forty years, a formally renewed Coffin Texts Project was
authorised by the Director of the Oriental Institute in 2001, with the
goal of completing the Oriental Institute's outstanding commitments. The
translation volume once envisioned and entrusted to Tjalling Bruinsma
had been rendered unnecessary by the publications of Robert O. Faulkner
in 1969 ( Pyramid Texts ) and 1973-1978 ( Coffin Texts ), which serve to
engage scholars and laymen alike. Glossaries, bibliographies, symposia,
and detailed textual studies appeared, but the critical edition of
Middle Kingdom Pyramid Texts remained unaccomplished. By careful
examination of the Oriental Institute's original collation sheets and
unpublished sources from Lisht, James P. Allen, after years of
concentrated study, has now fulfilled the task admirably. It is hoped
that the new edition stimulates discussion not only of the longevity of
the Pyramid Texts, but of the nature of the Coffin Texts themselves.
While Breasted insisted that the Pyramid Texts were "sharply
distinguished" from the Coffin Texts, the frequent appearance of
"Pyramid Texts" on coffins (among the narrowly defined "Coffin Texts")
leaves this opinion open to question. Ironically, the one coffin
acquired in Chicago by Breasted for study by the Coffin Texts Project
(OIM 12072) contained only "Pyramid Texts" and was therefore excluded
from the initial seven volumes. Now at last these Middle Kingdom texts
on a coffin can be examined among the "Coffin Texts" (Robert K. Ritner,
Director, The Egyptian Coffin Texts Project, 2001-05).
