Skip to main content
© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Peter Harholdt.
Coffin of Nebetit
© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Peter Harholdt.
© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Peter Harholdt.
ClassificationsAncient Egyptian Art

Coffin of Nebetit

AAT Object Form/FunctionCoffins
AAT Object Form/FunctionFunerary Containers
AAT Object Form/Functionmummy case
Place FoundAsyut, Egypt, Africa
CultureEgyptian
PeriodMiddle Kingdom, late Dynasty 11
Date1958-1940 BCE
MediumWood, pigment
Credit LineCollected by William A. Shelton, funded by John A. Manget
Dimensions6' 1 7/16" x 1' 8" x 16 1/4" (186.5 x 50.8 x 41.3 cm)
Object number1921.002 A
Label TextWith the breakdown of the central government in the First Intermediate Period, fine timber was no longer imported into Egypt from the Levant. This coffin is made out of scraps of local wood pegged together and coated with gesso and painted yellow-brown to look like a fine piece of cabinetry. It is decorated with a pair of eyes through which the mummy could magically see.

Bands of text are inscribed with hieroglyphs executed in the crude, almost cartoonlike, style of the period. They recount the versions of the classic offering formula, the top band above the eyes reading: "An offering that the king may give through Osiris, lord of Busiris first of the westerners, lord of Abydos, on his thrones; an offering of beef and fowl, bread and beer to the ka of the deceased, may she be honored by the great god, the lord of heaven on his thrones, the deceased, Nebetit."

Other inscriptions on the sides and lid of the coffin invoke the god Anubis and other deities on behalf of the deceased.
Exhibition HistoryA Preview of the Collections, Schatten Gallery, February 15 - April 4, 1982
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 11, 1993 - Spring 2001
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2001 - Present
Published ReferencesEmory University Museum of Art and Archaeology, A Preview of the Collections (Atlanta: The Museum, 1982), 8.
Bonna D. Wescoat and Monique Seefried, "Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology Reopens," Archaeology 38 (1985): 60-63.
Michael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 1996), 18.
Peter Lacovara, "The New Galleries of Egyptian and Near Eastern Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum," Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art and Archaeology. (September/October 2001): 9-16.
Peter Lacovara and Betsy Teasley Trope, The Realm of Osiris (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum 2001), 45.
Peter Lacovara and Jasper Gaunt, "From Pharaohs to Emperors: Egyptian, Near Eastern & Classical Antiquities at Emory," Minerva: The International Review of Ancient Art and Archaeology (January/February 2006): 9-16.
Joel M. LeMon, "Through the Musuem with the Bible," SBL Forum, May 2006.
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum 2011), 16.
ProvenanceSaid to have been found at Asyut, Egypt. Acquired for Emory University Museum by William Shelton (1875-1959) through dealer, Egypt, ca. 1920.
Status
On view
Collections
  • Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art