Coffin Fragment

Modelled face sculptured from a single piece of wood. The front surface has been applied with a thin layer of plaster then painted yellow with large eyes and brows in black, and a band of red colour running along the forehead above the black painted eyebrows.The front is naturalistically formed but the back surface is a flat plane. The face, or “mask”, was carved separately and would have been pegged in place on the coffin during the manufacture process. A sculptured wooden wig would have been affixed to the head by pegs. This construction technique was widely used during the Third Intermediate Period and Late Period (1069 BC – 332 BC). Professor John Garstang excavated about 250 tombs at "Beni Hasan South" near the mouth of the gorge of the Speos Artemidos in 1904, but this work is less well recorded than that of the earlier shaft tombs he excavated at Beni Hasan. Marked on the back in pencil 1147 and in ink 1147, a find context number for John Garstang's excavations at Speos Artemidos; or Institute of Archaeology collection number.