Nehmes Bastet or Nehemes-Bastet was an

Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

ian

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

ess who held the office of "chantress"; she was the daughter of the high priest of

Amun Amun was a major ancient Egyptian deity who appears as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. Amun was attested from the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amunet. His oracle in Siwa Oasis, located in Western Egypt near the Libyan Desert, r ...

. She lived during the Twenty-second Dynasty (approximately 945–712 BC) and was buried in tomb KV64 in the

Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings, also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings, is an area in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the Eighteenth Dynasty to the Twentieth Dynasty, rock-cut tombs were excavated for pharaohs and power ...

. It was excavated in 2012 and discovered to be a reuse of a tomb for the burial of a woman of an earlier dynasty, whose name, as yet, is unknown. According to an inscription on her coffin, she was the daughter of Nakhtefmut, the high priest of Amun who held the office of "the Opener of the Doors of Heaven" at

Karnak The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (), comprises a vast mix of temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Construction at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I (reigned 1971–1926 BC) in the ...

, an important temple during that dynasty. A wooden stela that accompanied her burial depicts Nehmes Bastet worshiping before a composite deity with attributes of both a sun-god and the god

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wikt:wsjr, wsjr'') was the ancient Egyptian deities, god of fertility, agriculture, the Ancient Egyptian religion#Afterlife, afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was ...

Burial

On 25 January 2011, the upper edge of the shaft of KV64 was discovered and the tomb was excavated and described in 2012 by Dr. Susanne Bickel and Dr. Elina Paulin-Grothe, a team from

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...

in Switzerland.Susanne Bickel, Princesses, Robbers, and Priests - The unknown side of the Kings' Valley, Presentation at a conference at the Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy, 14 October 2017
Online; KV 64 is discussed at 27:30 onward
/ref> Her funerary stele and intact coffin containing her wrapped mummy were found sitting on top of a layer of fill at the far end of the chamber. Her coffin is constructed from sycamore wood with acacia pegs and is covered with yellow decoration on a black background.

References

Ancient Egyptian mummies People of the Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt {{AncientEgypt-bio-stub

Burial

See also

References