Anthropoid coffin of Puia

From the Museo Egizio record

“Anthropoid” coffins, that is, coffins with the lid shaped in the image of the mummy, gradually replace rectangular coffins starting from about 1800 BC. This specimen belonged to a man named Puia. Its inscriptions do not mention his titles, but he was quite probably the like-named father of the high official Puyemre, second priest of Amon under the woman pharaoh Hatshepsut (1479-1458). It was found by the Egyptologist Robert Mond in a shaft grave not far from the tomb of Puyemre and later purchased by Ernesto Schiaparelli. The burial had been plundered in pharaonic times, when robbers were only interested in precious materials, not in artifacts per se. They stripped away the gold-leaf necklace and gold-leaf imitation mummy-bands inscribed in hieroglyphs. One of the inlaid glass eyes, which the thieves had forgotten or dropped, was recovered by Mond in the tomb. The face and hands were painted in red. At the head and feet are the goddesses of mourning, Isis and Nephthys. On both sides, painted in blue, are the funerary gods Osiris and Anubis (second and fourth figure), alternating with the Four Sons of Horus (first and third figure): Amset and Duamutef on the right, Hapy and Qebehsenuf on the left. This “incomplete symmetry” is typical of Egyptian art. On both sides of the head is a chapel door surmounted by a Horus eye and the shen sign. The mummy (not found), originally lay on the ladder-shaped support. Dimensions: 61.5 cm x 47.5 cm x 225 cm. Museum location: Museum / Floor 3 / Writing Gallery / Showcase 14. Image views available: 6.