© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Peter Harholdt.

ClassificationsAncient Egyptian Art

Coffin Lid of Pashedkhonsu

Place CreatedEgypt, Africa

CultureEgyptian

PeriodThird Intermediate Period, Dynasty 21

Date1076-944 BCE

MediumWood, pigment

Credit LineCharlotte Lichirie Collection of Egyptian Art

Dimensions73 1/4 x 14 9/16 x 21 1/16 in. (186.1 x 37 x 53.5 cm)

Object number1999.001.015 B

Label TextLike many of the most beautiful coffins of the Twenty-first Dynasty, this one has belonged to a high official from Thebes, Pashedkhonsu, high priest of Amun at Karnak. With the wealth and power of a de facto royal court centered at the great temple, the priests of Karnak had access to the finest goods for their own burials.

Pashedkhonsu is shown wearing the divine beard that associates him with Osiris, the god of the dead. His chest is covered with a representation of an elaborate floral collar, through which his clenched fists emerge. Scarabs and sacred images decorate the rest of the lid in designs modeled in plaster to give them a three-dimensional quality as if they were actual jewels. The shimmering, yellow varnish mimicked the sheen of gold, giving the entire piece the appearance of the most sumptuous of sepulchers.

The sides of the coffin are elaborately decorated and show Pashedkhonsu seated and standing in front of piles of food offerings and various gods. Outside the head end of the coffin is a much-worn depiction of a djed-pillar and on the proper right is a representation of the goddess Hathor standing in a solar boat, being worshiped by a flock of ba-birds. This is followed by Pashedkhonsu standing before a heaped offering table and facing the three enthroned gods.

The other side is painted in a similar way, but with varying details. A ram-headed solar deity stands in the boat, and Pashedkhonsu is positioned before a slightly different mound of offerings in front of three enthroned gods with still more variant arrangements.

The interior of the coffin has been somewhat damaged but still retains images of a goddess with sun disk and cow horns at the bottom standing above a djed-pillar. The sides are also imperfectly preserved but are decorated with depictions of mummiform gods standing before sketchily drawn offering tables, as is standard for the period. The interior of the head end is adorned with a frontal depiction of a ba-bird flanked by parallel offering inscriptions.
Exhibition HistoryJuly Egyptian Preview, Michael C. Carlos Museum, July 18 - 20, 1999
Searching for Ancient Egypt, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama, October 3, 1999 - January 16, 2000
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2001 - Present
Published ReferencesCatherine Fox, "Glimpses of Ancient Egypt: Artifacts for Afterlife on View in Birmingham and New York," Atlanta Journal Constituion, September 26, 1999.
"On Exhibit: Newly Shown Egyptian Splendor Arrives in Alabama," Veranda (September/October 1999): 205-52.
Peter Lacovara, "The New Galleries of Egyptian and Near Eastern Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum," Minerva 12 (September/October 2001): 9-16.
Peter Lacovara, Sue D'Auria, and Therese O'Gorman, "New Life for the Dead," Archaeology 54 (September/October 2001): 22-27.
Peter Lacovara and Betsy Teasley Trope, The Realm of Osiris (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2001), 51.

ProvenanceEx coll. Niagara Falls Museum, Niagara Falls, Canada. Purchased by MCCM from William Jamieson (1954-2011) [Golden Chariot Productions], Toronto, Canada.

Status

On view

Collections