Outer coffin of the Child Myt

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is the outer coffin of the child, Myt. She was buried in a set of two wooden coffins that were laid one inside the other and placed in a limestone sarcophagus.The mummy of Myt showed that she died as a little girl, probably not more than five years old. The embalmers added substantial padding to her feet and her head, which made the mummy much longer so that it looked like that of an adult. Myt’s tomb was robbed in antiquity, but her sarcophagus was not opened, and five precious necklaces were still in among the wrappings (see the five necklaces 22.3.320–.324). Myt is the ancient Egyptian word for a female cat, and Myt’s name is therefore written with a seated cat hieroglyph (see the left end of the inscription on the front of the coffin). Her coffin also features the so called wedjat eyes that were painted on the side of the coffin and correspond to the position of the mummy’s head. In the Middle Kingdom, the mummy was usually lying on its side and facing East, the location of the sunrise, which was associated with rebirth in ancient Egypt.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art