ClassificationsAncient Egyptian Art

Coffin Lid of Taosiris

Place FoundAkhmim, Egypt, Africa

CultureEgyptian

Periodearly Ptolemaic Period, reign of Ptolemy II

Date282-246 BCE

MediumWood, gesso, paint

Credit LineGift of the Georges Ricard Foundation

Dimensions72 1/4 x 20 1/2 x 12 in. (183.5 x 52 x 30.5 cm)

Object number2018.010.824A

Label TextTaosiris’s coffin, like others manufactured during the first part of the reign of Ptolemy II, is brightly painted in a color palette that, while predominantly red, makes extensive use of yellow and light blue. A large image of the sky goddess Nut fills the area directly below the broad collar. Her winged arms stretch across the width of the lid in a kind of protective embrace of the deceased. The goddess’s hands hold feathers symbolizing ma’at, the Egyptian concept of harmonious order.

Along the legs are inscriptions in seven columns.

1. Words spoken by Osiris, foremost of the west, great god, Lord of Abydos and Ptah-Sokar-Osiris [.…] great god [.…] in the midst of the shetayt-crypt

2. and Anubis, lord of the sacred land, and Anubis foremost of the god’s booth, and Isis the great, (divine mother); May they give

3. invocation-offerings of bread, beer, cattle, and fowl, wine, milk, incense, oil, alabaster and cloth, and everything good and pure (to) the ka-spirit of the Osiris

4. Taosiris, true-of-voice, daughter of Nesmin, true-of-voice, born of the mistress of the house Taamun, true-of-voice, [resume offering litany] (that) on which the god lives (it is) for me,

5. for the Hathor Taosiris, true-of-voice. An offering which the king gives (to) Osiris, foremost of the west, great god, lord of Abydos, and Sokar-Osiris,

6. who is in the midst of Ipw (Akhmim) and Aperet-iset of Ipw (Akhmim) and Anubis who-is-upon-(his)-hill, the one who is in the wt-fetish, lord of the sacred land, and Anubis, lord of Qerereti (the cavern of Asyut) and Anubis,

7. lord of the shrine-box; May he give a good burial upon the cutting? which is west of the wabet-sanctuary? (to) the Osiris Taosiris, true-of-voice, born of the house mistress.
Exhibition HistoryMichael C. Carlos Museum, Veneralia 2019 Senuseret Collection Preview, May 18, 2019
Life and the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Art from the Senusret Collection, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 4 - August 6, 2023
Published ReferencesRuth Brech, Spätägyptische Särge aus Achmim : eine typologische und chronologische Studie (Gladbeck: PeWe-Verlag, 2008), 209-10, Dok. E c 2.
Melinda K. Hartwig, ed., Life and The Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Art from the Senusret Collection (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2023), catalogue entry 59.

Terms

ProvenanceSaid to have been excavated by Gaston Maspero (1846-1916) at Akhmim, Egypt. Said to be ex coll. Marius Cazeneuve (1839-1913), received as a gift, 1884. With Gabriel Peytraud, Toulouse, France, 1914. Said to be ex coll. Marquis de Gestas, Tarbes, France, from 1915. Purchased by Georges Ricard (1921-2012) from Francois Antonovich, 1975. Ex coll. Musée de l'Égypte et le Monde Antique, Collection Sanousrit, Monaco, 1975-1982. Ex coll. Georges Ricard Foundation, Santa Barbara, California.

Status

Not on view

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