Coffin of Nefnefret

Coffin of Nefnefret

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1919, the Museum's Egyptian Expedition found a large deposit of coffins and objects in a fill below the causeway of Thutmose III in the central part of the Asasif Valley, in an area known as "East of Pabasa." The coffin of Nefnefret is one of the more than fifty coffins that were part of this deposit, which seems to have been made up of the contents of tombs that were destroyed by the cutting of the Dynasty 18 causeway to the royal memorial temples at Deir el-Bahri and represents a significant number of burials of the late Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period in Thebes. The Museum has four black-painted coffins from this find including the coffin of Nefnefret, all on display in gallery 109. These include the coffin of a wab-priest named Entemaemsaf (32.3.428a, b); the coffin of a wab-priest named Ikhet (32.3.430a, b); and the coffin of an un-named owner (32.3.431a, b).

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.