Contents -- Preface -- Note to the Reader -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 Nomarchal Culture: Political, Administrative, Social, and Religious Aspects -- The Origin of the Nomes -- The Nomes during the Fifth Dynasty -- Nome Administration under the Sixth Dynasty -- Regional Administration during the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom -- The Nomarch Title in Egyptian and in Egyptology -- Chapter 2 A Middle Kingdom Nomarchal Cemetery: Dayr al-Barshā -- The 2006 Excavations in Zone 10 -- The Early Middle Kingdom Nomarchal Cemetery in Zone 2 -- 1 The Evidence of the Shaft Types -- 2 The Debate on the Date of the Nehri Graffiti (once more) -- 3 The Ahanakht I Tomb Group -- The Ritual Landscape of Dayr al-Barshā -- Chapter 3 The Coffin Texts and Democracy -- The Roots of the 'Democratic Hypothesis' -- Transformations of the Funerary Equipment during the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom -- A Demographic Perspective on the Coffin Texts -- Quantification of the Decorated Coffins from Dayr al-Barshā -- Quantification of the Decorated Coffins from Banī Hasan -- Quantification of the Decorated Coffins from Asyūt -- The Uneven Distribution of the Coffin Texts -- The Geographic Distribution of the Coffin Texts -- Saqqāra and Abū Sīr -- Thebes and al-Lisht -- Middle Egypt -- The Coffin Texts and Funerary Religion in Nomarchal Key Sites -- A Hypothesis on the Meaning of the Coffin Texts -- The Letters to the Dead -- Coffin Texts Spells 131-146 -- Coffin Texts Spell 149 -- Coffin Texts Spells 30-41 -- Coffin Texts Spell 312 -- A First Conclusion -- The Case of Heqata -- The Case of the Coffins of the Mid-Twelfth Dynasty -- Conclusion -- Family Life in the Middle Kingdom -- The Coffin Texts and the Nomarchs' Courts -- Owners of 'Text Coffins' and Users of Coffin Texts -- The 'Bottom-up' Proliferation of Funerary Customs.

Conclusion: The Rise and Fall of the Coffin Texts -- Concordance to the Sigla of Coffin Texts Manuscripts and Middle Kingdom Coffins -- Bibliography -- Plates -- Index.