The coffin of Nedjemankh is a gilded
ancient Egyptian coffin from the late
Ptolemaic Period. It once encased the
mummy of Nedjemankh, a priest of the ram-god
Heryshaf.
Description
The coffin is 181 cm (72.25 in) long, 53 cm (20.875 in) wide, and 28 cm (11 in) deep. It is made of a combination of
cartonnage (linen, glue, and
gesso), paint, gold, silver, resin, glass, wood, and leaded bronze. The lid is covered with vignettes illustrating funerary spells, and has an inscription invoking gold and silver; inside is a figure of
Nut
Nut often refers to:
* Nut (fruit), fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed, or a collective noun for dry and edible fruits or seeds
* Nut (hardware), fastener used with a bolt
Nut or Nuts may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Com ...
, the
goddess of the sky, partially covered with silver foil. On the base of the coffin is a
djed
The ''djed,'' also ''djt'' ( egy, ḏd 𓊽, Coptic ''jōt'' "pillar", anglicized /dʒɛd/) is one of the more ancient and commonly found symbols in ancient Egyptian religion. It is a pillar-like symbol in Egyptian hieroglyphs representing stab ...
pillar.
Provenance
The coffin is believed to have been looted from Egypt in 2011. Before its true history was known, it was purchased by
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
's
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in July 2017 for 3.5 million euros, or about 3.95 million dollars.
The museum purchased the coffin from Christophe Kunicki, a Paris-based art dealer who advertised as specialising in "Mediterranean Antiquities", particularly "Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Near East antiquities". According to the ownership history received by the Met at the time, the coffin had been exported from Egypt in 1971 with a licence granted by the "Antiquities Organization / Egyptian Museum, Cairo." It was said to have been among the stock of Habib Tawadrus, a dealer since at least 1936, who operated Habib & Company across from
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
's
Shepheard's Hotel
Shepheard's Hotel was the leading hotel in Cairo and one of the most celebrated hotels in the world from the middle of the 19th century until its destruction in 1952 during the Cairo Fire. Five years after the original hotel was destroyed, a new ...
; a representative for Tawadrus's heirs exported the coffin to
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, with a translation of the export license provided in February 1977 by the German embassy in Cairo, for use of the representative and new European owner. Egypt allowed the export of some antiquities prior to the passage of the Antiquities Protection Law of 1983.
The museum believed the coffin to have remained in the collection of that family until its 2017 purchase.
Return to Egypt
In February 2019, the Metropolitan Museum was approached by the
New York County District Attorney's Office, which presented the museum with evidence provided by the Egyptian government that the dealer’s 1971 export license had been forged. Further evidence showed the coffin had been stolen in 2011 and its ownership history was a fraud.
[ The museum then shuttered the then-ongoing exhibition ''Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin'', previously scheduled to run through April 21, 2019, and handed the coffin over to the Antiquities Repatriation Department of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.][
]
See also
* Art of ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian art refers to art produced in ancient Egypt between the 6th millennium BC and the 4th century AD, spanning from Prehistoric Egypt until the Christianization of Roman Egypt. It includes paintings, sculptu ...
References
Bibliography
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* {{closed access
Art of ancient Egypt
Sarcophagi
Archaeological theft
2nd-century BC works
1st-century BC works
Ancient Egyptian priests
Egypt–United States relations