This is a PhD dissertation, submitted at the University of Oslo in December 2012. It focuses on the layered structure of Ancient Egyptian mummies and coffin ensembles in the Ramesside period, and provide the source material for later papers on the same topic. The nested structure, which often has been compared with Russian dolls or Chinese boxes, is very characteristic for Egyptian elite burials. The core of the source material consists of 10 private coffin ensembles from the late 18th to the early 21st Dynasties. These objects have been studied in light of theories related to ‘wrapping’ as material culture. The structure of the coffin ensembles follows a duality of symbolism which can be retrieved in the individual coffins: 1) as a representation of the deceased, 2) as a representation of the space in which the transformation or rebirth of the deceased was believed to take place. The burial of the child-king Tutankhamun is a case in point. His nest of coffins contained three anthropoid coffins and five rectangular sarcophagi shaped as shrines. Furthermore, his mummy demonstrates well how the nested structure seen in the coffin ensemble continued inside the mummy, where artificial façades or attires had been constructed between the layers of bandages. In private coffins from the New Kingdom, the two main themes merge into one decorative scheme, where the primary decoration represents the mummy and the secondary decoration represents the mythological space surrounding it. This tendency to merge layers is typical. In the 19th Dynasty (inner) coffins, four such layers can be identified. This system created a flexibility that made it possible for people from lower social strata to copy the nested structure of elite coffin ensembles in a single coffin.