The Coffin Texts followed the Pyramid Texts and were written mainly on Middle Kingdom coffins.
They developed during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, especially from the First Intermediate Period into the early Middle Kingdom. Unlike the earliest Pyramid Texts, which were primarily royal, Coffin Texts were used for a wider range of elite deceased people.
The spells were painted or inscribed on the inside surfaces of coffins. They offered protection, guidance, and magical knowledge for the journey through the afterlife. Some compositions later influenced the Book of the Dead.
The name can mislead readers into thinking every text was on a coffin. Coffins are the defining context, but related spells also appear on other funerary objects. The corpus is therefore a tradition of spells, not one fixed book.