Coffin Lid of Nesshutefnut

In 1905, John Garstang, Harold Jones and a team of 80 others spent three months excavating the site of Hissaya, a burial place used in the Ptolemaic and Roman Period, mainly by priests of Horus from the temple city of Edfu, which is 20km to the north of the site. Most graves in the cemetery had been robbed, except for the intact burial of Nesshutefnut, a priest of the god Horus. Nesshutefnut’s mummy was adorned with brightly painted and gilded cartonnage and placed within a black painted coffin. Placed beside the coffin was a canopic chest, a stela and a Ptah-Sokar-Osiris statue. Nesshutefnut’s coffin is painted black with yellow decoration including a broad collar with falcon-head terminals, and three columns of hieroglyphs record the name of his parents, Iyhor and Teni. Below the chest is an image of the protective goddess Nut, with her wings outstretched. The eyes have been inlaid with white plaster to give a more lifelike appearance.