Coffin Fragment

Left hand from an anthropoid (human-shaped) coffin with fingers extended. The front is naturalistically formed with an applied layer of plaster which is painted glossy red. The back surface is a flat plane. There are two dowel holes cut into the palm. 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 blue (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): Incomplete, dry, loss of pigment, surface loss, splitting, surface dirt.