Coffin Assemblage of Taosiris (Includes Coffin, Mummy, Cartonnage Mask, and Trappings) , Early Ptolemaic Period, 332-275 BC

This coffin assemblage belongs to Taosiris who was a priestess of Osiris in Akhmim (ancient Egyptian name Ipu). She was the daughter of Nesmin and his wife Taamun. The assemblage consists of a coffin lid and base, cartonnage mummy trappings, and a wrapped mummy. The coffin group dates stylistically to the early Ptolemaic Period.


Taosiris’ coffin lid is decorated with a number of religious images. She wears a tripartite blue wig with rows of red, yellow, blue and green between. Below is a pectoral of disks, petals and lotus flowers ending with a row of drop beads and falcon-headed terminal fasteners. Also, around her neck, lying on top of the pectoral is a necklace with the gods Osiris, Ma’at and another god within a shrine. Below this, the kneeling figure of a winged goddess wearing a sun disk stretches out her arms, protecting the mummy. In her hands, she holds two Ma’at feathers, symbolizing truth. Above the goddess, two flanking udjat eyes, and below two sphinxes and a kneeling woman on one side before Qebhsenuef and on the other, Imsety, all facing outwards. The next scene, a djed-pillar with the crown of Osiris is flanked by two cobras wearing the atef-crowns. To either side are four sets of deities. Below these images are seven columns of offering text, framed by five vignettes to either side with three kneeling figures each. At the foot of the coffin are two images of jackal-god Anubis on his shrine, upside down, so Taosiris could view him. On the bottom of the coffin foot is a representation of the Apis bull carrying the mummy of the deceased. Above the join between the bottom of the coffin and the coffin lid are thirty-nine protective kneeling figures holding knives. The coffin interior is decorated with a full-length red outline of a goddess wearing a tripartite wig.



The face of the cartonnage mummy mask is gilded and framed by a tripartite blue wig, diadem, and broad collar. At the top of her head, the winged scarab beetle Khepri pushes a gilded sun disk. The mummy trappings include the chest covering with rows of protective winged gods, a multicolored bead collar and a winged goddess with arms outstretched holding the feathers of truth above an alternating frieze of hieroglyphs saying “all dominion and life.” The central panel shows Isis and Nepthys mourning over the mummy on a bier under a winged disk, which is framed by the Four Sons of Horus enclosed in shrines and two mourners below. The foot cover depicts sandals with straps and a buckle, with a frieze above of alternating djed-pillars and ankh signs between two representations of Anubis on his shrine. The mummy is wrapped in its original bandages.

In 1884, the coffin was given by Gaston Maspero to the French Commander Cazeneuve. In 1914, the coffin was in the collection of Gabriel Peytraud of Toulouse who wrote Charles Boreux, curator of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre, to ask for a translation of the coffin and the papyrus that was with it. In 1915, the coffin was acquired by the Marquis de Gestas in Tarbes. Georges Ricard acquired the coffin in May 1975.

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