Coffin Box of Ankhesenaset

Box of a wooden mummiform outer coffin, painted black, the colour of silt rich soil symbolic of fertility and resurrection. Details are painted in yellow that is now very faint. Within the interior is a now indistinct central image of a deity and columns of text. Painted decoration appears to be applied on a fragile linen surface which has not survived completely. Thickness of the wood at the shoulder is 67 mm. The coffin contained the mummy of Ankh-es-en-aset sealed within a cartonnage mummy case (M14000). The 1852 catalogue of Mayer's collection describes the mummy as being of a "frequent way of embalming, first enwrapping the body with bandages, and afterwards covering the whole with bitumen". In 1877 the British Museum's first Egyptologist, Dr Samuel Birch, visited the collection to provide advice for the curator, Charles Gatty. Dr Birch said the coffin (M13999) and cartonnage case (M14000) did not belong together. Mr Gatty also noted that Dr Birch “thought very highly of this coffin”. From then until 2008 the mummy of Padiamunnebnesuttauwy (M14050) was, by error, kept inside coffin M13999.