Coffin of Ahhotep Tanodjmu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The coffin of Ahhotep Tanodjmu was found in the offering hall of tomb CC 37 in the Lower Asasif, stacked with thirteen other coffins. The style, with a white background and sparse decoration, dates it to early Dynasty 18. The deceased is shown in a long striated wig and broad festival collar. An elongated figure of the sky goddess Nut, her arms outstretched in a gesture of protection, dominates the decoration of the lid. Horizontal bands of inscription that begin on the lid and continue down the sides invoke funerary gods, whose figures are shown between the bands on the sides of the box. Inside the coffin was the mummy of a woman with her right arm across her chest and her left arm by her side. When the shroud that covered her was lifted, the excavators found two figures. On her legs was a small round basket containing a heart scarab (26.7.575). Two scarabs had been tied to her left hand with string: one bore the name of the Herald, Reniseneb; the other had a winged kheper beetle with a sun disk on its base. Another small basket, this one containing three copper forceps and a kohl stick, was found underneath the body.

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