Day 13 - Inner coffin with gold leaf

January 26, 2018

This gallery (112) contains relics excavated from the Middle Kingdom cemetery of Meir, south of Cairo. One of these is a large outer coffin, rather similar in size and general decoration to the one I wrote about earlier, except that one end depicts a goddess. She is dressed in a slinky white jumpsuit that leaves one breast, shown in profile, exposed; she also has wide bracelets and ankle bracelets resembling those I've seen in some display cases. On her head she balances a tray holding two cosmetic jars; the caption says that the rejuvenating properties of the unguents they contained were important for the idea of preserving the corpse for the afterlife. Makers and users of Olay (like me): take note!

There's also a model boat bearing a mummy under a canopy.  Long-haired female mourners dressed in white appear on either end of the mummy, along with two priests. What's particularly interesting is that a leopard skin, complete with the animal's head, is stretched out on the canopy above the mummy, and the priests ae also wearing leopard-skin garments. Did leopards roam ancient Egypt, or were they imported from places farther south? In any event, the Egyptians obviously recognized the beauty and specialness of these animals.

The object for today is a mummy-shaped inner  coffin, maybe 7 feet long, made of linen-wrapped wood. This inner coffin held the mummy, and when I step back, I can see the long opening on the coffin's side. This coffin was placed inside another large, rectangular wooden coffin and then that coffin was placed inside a still larger wooden outer coffin. 

Everything except the head and upper torso of the inner coffin is painted black; the face of the king depicted on the coffin, however, is covered with gold leaf.  Where did the gold come from, I wonder?  The face is serious, neither smiling nor frowning. The figure has a long beard that, according to the museum's description, was emblematic of kingship, and an elaborate royal headdress modeled from stucco or clay. The gold leaf showing through  makes the headdress somewhat reminiscent of the  tubular gold ornaments mounted on a wig that I saw earlier.  The figure wears a carved breastplate composed of 15 concentric semi-circles that have been painted the colors of carnelian and turquoise - hey, orange and blue, I realize. It's all coming together!

The king's eyes are inlays of alabaster for the  whites and what I take to be rock crystal for the pupils. (The descriptive text lists all the materials, but not what is where.) The eyes stare straight upward.  What did the Egyptians imagine that the deceased saw, I wonder? And when and where did the custom of closing the eyes of the dead originate? Was this something the ancient Hebrews did, and was this another way of differentiating themselves from other peoples?

It hasn't escaped my notice that this project initiating my retirement--presumably the last major phase of my life--has begun by examining the artifacts of a culture centered on death, although death as a prequel to eternal life.  It doesn't feel bad to me, though I wonder if I will feel differently 25 galleries from now.