Coffin Fragment

Right hand from an anthropoid (human-shaped) coffin. The front is naturalistically formed with an applied layer of plaster which is painted glossy yellow with red and blue painted wedjat finger rings on four extended fingers. The back surface is a flat plane. Hands on anthropoid coffins were carved separately and would have been pegged in place on the coffin during the manufacture process. This construction technique is characteristic of coffins made in the late New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period and Late Period (about 1100 BC – 715 BC). Like similar coffin fragments from the Robert de Rustafjaell collection it has an annotation in red which seems to read Akhmim (place collected?). It was most probably purchased at Sotheby's, London, 19-21 December 1906 lot 411D "A large number of Masks, Hands, and other parts of wooden Mummy cases; mostly painted in colour". CONDITION NOTE (1998): Splitting wood, loss of surface decoration, fine surface cracks, some loose decoration, surface dirt.