Coming Out of the Coffin is a book by Dr. Mustafa Mahmoud in which he discusses how a thief could steal a useless corpse while leaving behind gold of such value. There was one explanation: the mummy was buried in another tomb, which was broken into by thieves who damaged the body (as was the custom of thieves in the Pharaonic era) and stole what they could of the tomb's belongings. The supervising priests then discovered the theft and the damage to the body, so they moved the empty coffin to its new location, covered it, and hid the theft from the Pharaoh. They piled the remaining belongings around the coffin, leaving everything in disarray because they were in a hurry and feared that the Pharaoh would discover what had happened and punish them severely for their failure to guard the tombs (the sole job of the tomb priests in those days was to guard them from thieves). This means that the coffin belonged to a person of great importance. And if these belongings were what remained of the tomb after it was robbed, they must have been luxurious and vast, which again confirms the importance and high status of the deceased.

• Author: Mustafa Mahmoud
• Publisher: Maktabat Misr-Cairo
• Edition: 1
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Number of Parts: 1
• Number of Pages: 142
• Binding: Paperback
• Paper Type: White
• Printing Colors: Monochrome
• ISBN: 9789771117681