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.

[See additional images below]]]> Senusret Collection: Usage and Reproduction Rights]]> Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum, no. 868. In: Kaiser, Werner (ed.) 1967. Ägyptisches Museum Berlin: östlicher Stülerbau am Schloss Charlottenburg. Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Berlin: Staatliche Museen Berlin.

Memphis, Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology, University of Memphis, no. 1985.3.1a.

Brech, Ruth 2008. Spätägyptische Särge aus Achmim: eine typologische und chronologische Studie. Aegyptiaca Hamburgensia 3. Gladbeck: PeWe-Verlag, ‘Group-E.’]]> 30.5 cm x 183.5cm x 52 cm (coffin lid)
11.5 cm x 183.5cm x 52 cm (coffin base)
34 cm x 20 cm x 22 cm (mummy mask)
35.5 cm x 27 cm (pectoral trapping)
34 cm x 26.7 cm (abdominal trapping)
7.4 cm x 9.5 cm (lower leg trapping)
13 cm x 18 cm x 17 cm (foot cover)

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Representations of Mami Wata generally depict her as a woman with light skin and long dark hair, wreathed in snakes. Her luxuriant long hair refers to the dada locks worn by spiritually marked individuals, and the snakes are pythons sacred in West African belief. Mami Wata reveals herself to future devotees through recurring dreams, physical maladies, or unusual behavior. In consultation with a diviner a person many discover they are a chosen one of Mami Wata. Establishing a shrine to Mami Wata will please and honor her, thereby bringing to an end any maladies and problems previously experienced. The physical form that sculptures like this one take is derived from knowledge of her gained by both the client and the artist through their dreams of her.

The altar on which this shrine figure once stood would have been densely packed with offerings like alcohol, perfume, talcum powder, plastic jewelry, and other imported luxury goods, all spiritual magnets to attract Mami Wata so that her presence and support are assured. The shrines of Mami Wata devotees reflect their very personal relationships with the spirit. Through dreams and visions, devotees journey to Mami Wata's fabulous underwater realm. These aquatic excursions are evoked in the shrine through the use of white, blue and green colors and the inclusion of boats, canoes, fish, wavy lines, and aquatic plants. It is this inward, lived experience of the dream world where devotee and deity meet that is externalized and reified in the carved art work and shrine environment.]]> Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and the African Atlantic World (travelling show), Fowler Museum at UCLA, March 1 - July 2008; Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, October 18, 2008 - January 11, 2009; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, April - July 2009|
Divine Intervention: African Art and Religion, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 5 - December 4, 2011|
MCCM Permanent Collection Gallery, March 29, 2013 - December 1, 2014
MCCM Permanent Collection Gallery, August 6, 2016 - Present]]> Michael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 1996), 100.
Henry John Drewal, "Introduction: Sources and Currents," Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas, ed. Henry John Drewal (Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA, 2008).|
MCCM Newsletter, September - November 2009.|
Jessica Stephenson, "African Art: At the Intersection of Religion, Psychology, and Medicine," Emory in the World (Spring 2011): 39-41.|
MCCM Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2011.|
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 102.|
Henry J. Drewal, "Local Transformations, Global Inspirations: The Visual Histories And Cultures Of Mami Wata Arts In Africa," in A Companion to Modern African Art, ed. Gitti Salami et al. (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2013).]]>
Representations of Mami Wata generally depict her as a woman with light skin and long dark hair, wreathed in snakes. Her luxuriant long hair refers to the dada locks worn by spiritually marked individuals, and the snakes are pythons sacred in West African belief. Mami Wata reveals herself to future devotees through recurring dreams, physical maladies, or unusual behavior. In consultation with a diviner a person many discover they are a chosen one of Mami Wata. Establishing a shrine to Mami Wata will please and honor her, thereby bringing to an end any maladies and problems previously experienced. The physical form that sculptures like this one take is derived from knowledge of her gained by both the client and the artist through their dreams of her.

The altar on which this shrine figure once stood would have been densely packed with offerings like alcohol, perfume, talcum powder, plastic jewelry, and other imported luxury goods, all spiritual magnets to attract Mami Wata so that her presence and support are assured. The shrines of Mami Wata devotees reflect their very personal relationships with the spirit. Through dreams and visions, devotees journey to Mami Wata's fabulous underwater realm. These aquatic excursions are evoked in the shrine through the use of white, blue and green colors and the inclusion of boats, canoes, fish, wavy lines, and aquatic plants. It is this inward, lived experience of the dream world where devotee and deity meet that is externalized and reified in the carved art work and shrine environment.]]> Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and the African Atlantic World (travelling show), Fowler Museum at UCLA, March 1 - July 2008; Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, October 18, 2008 - January 11, 2009; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, April - July 2009|
Divine Intervention: African Art and Religion, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 5 - December 4, 2011|
MCCM Permanent Collection Gallery, March 29, 2013 - December 1, 2014
MCCM Permanent Collection Gallery, August 6, 2016 - Present]]> Michael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 1996), 100.
Henry John Drewal, "Introduction: Sources and Currents," Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas, ed. Henry John Drewal (Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA, 2008).|
MCCM Newsletter, September - November 2009.|
Jessica Stephenson, "African Art: At the Intersection of Religion, Psychology, and Medicine," Emory in the World (Spring 2011): 39-41.|
MCCM Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2011.|
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 102.|
Henry J. Drewal, "Local Transformations, Global Inspirations: The Visual Histories And Cultures Of Mami Wata Arts In Africa," in A Companion to Modern African Art, ed. Gitti Salami et al. (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2013).]]>
The bowl was purchased by Georges Ricard for the Senusret Collection on 7 July 1973 in Marseille, France at the Hotel des ventes du Prado: Vente aux enchères publiques, archeologie, objets de fouilles, monnaies anciennes, lot number 71.]]> Senusret Collection: Usage and Reproduction Rights]]> New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 32.1611
Muscarella, Oscar W. 1988. Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 206, no. 316.

Calmeyer, Peter. 1964. Altiranische Bronzen der Sammlung Bröckelschen. Berlin: Staatlichen Museen, p. 43, Taf. 57, no. 110. ]]> 4.5 cm High x 18 cm]]>