Funerary Barge Model

During the Middle Kingdom model boats were interred with the dead, placed on or near the coffin.  Boat models often depicted fishermen gathering food to sustain the deceased in the afterlife, and would be part of a larger ensemble of models depicting daily activities like making bread, butchering cattle and planting crops. 

This model had a more cosmic function, representing a funeral barge which carried the deceased’s coffin as part of a pilgrimage on the Nile to a sacred site associated with the god Osiris, king of the underworld.