Another brightly painted coffin found at Lahun shows Osiris, god of the dead, in the form of large hawks, archaeologists said in April 2009.

Although the depictions of gods on their coffins varied over time, even the earliest Egyptians used decorated caskets to protect the physical body and the ka--a person's life-force--during the afterlife.

Egyptian archaeologist Abdul Rahman El-Aidy, who found the Lahun tombs, thinks the person inside the coffin above was a female who likely lived during Egypt's 22nd dynasty.