Lebanese Cedar, Skeuomorphs, Coffins, and Status in Ancient Egypt

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Excellent paper, approaching a very interesting subject which really deserves to be explored. The 'Conclusions' does not reflect the extent of the work carried out and it deserves to be improved, showing slightly more detail into the analysis that was carried out, for example in highlighting the patterns of craftsmanship detected and relating them to certain regional centres.

 

1. What is the main question addressed by the research? The main topic of the paper is how cedar wood was used in high elite body containers from the Middle Kingdom and how this use triggered the creation of skeuomorphs, as well as the techniques used by the latter to provide a plausible and effective imitation of the former.  
2. What parts do you consider original or relevant for the field? What
specific gap in the field does the paper address? The focus on the craftsmanship strategies to imitate cedar wood and the regional centres that paid more attention to this question is well addressed in this paper. Coffin studies had been traditionally focused on the study of texts and decoration. Attention to materials had been recently more valued but the thorough study of the craftsmanship techniques that aimed at reproducing the qualities of a given species of wood is a novelty in the field. Of course the subject had been acknowledged previously but not as a creative phenomenon in itself.  
3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published
material? The selection of examples and the analysis of the diverse strategies detected in coffin craftsmanship is very enlightening: the author presents examples of cedar objects, objects coated with cedar oil and finally objects decorated to imitate cedar wood.
4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the
methodology? What further controls should be considered? A wider sample of objects would be suggested, but of course we sense that this is a first presentation of the material. More elaboration on the representations of the cedar tree in the Egyptian mindset would also have been interesting to explore to better understand why this particular kind of wood was imitated. But again, the goal here seems to have been focused on the material aspects of the phenomenon and I would not ask for changes in this respect. 
5. Please describe how the conclusions are or are not consistent with the
evidence and arguments presented. Please also indicate if all main questions
posed were addressed and by which specific experiments. The conclusions, as I mentioned, do not make justice to the materials presented and it remains too generic. As I mentioned, I think the Author can explore the results relating to the main centres of production and to other patterns known in terms of coffin decoration.   6. Are the references appropriate? Yes.
7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures and
quality of the data. The figures are good. They show the details that are mentioned in the text. 

Author Response

 

Thank you for your comments. I have replied in the attached word document. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

For comments and suggestions see the uploaded file.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

I thank you for your detailed review. I've responded to the specific comments in the attached documents. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx