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The funerary rites and rituals of Egypt are among
the most elaborate and celebrated burial
traditions in the ancient world. The foremost
concern was the preservation of the body, in
order that it might be reborn in the afterlife.
While the painstaking mummification process
achieved this goal of counteracting the effects of
physical decomposition, the Ancient Egyptians
were not satisfied with a wrapped body alone.
Gorgeously decorated mummy cases and
sarcophagi developed over the course of
thousands of years so that the body could be
properly presented to the audience of gods
awaiting the deceased’s arrival in the next world.
These cases were created from a variety of
materials, including stone, wood, and
cartonnage, that were utilized depending upon
the wealth and status of the deceased.
Preserved as a bust from about the level of the
middle of the chest to the crown of the head,
this remarkably well-preserved upper part of an
anthropoid sarcophagus depicts the deceased as
a stylized mummy. He is shown wearing a broad
collar consisting of over a half a dozen strands
of floral motifs and a plaited false beard, the tip
of which is curved in order to identify him more
closely with Osiris, god of the Hereafter. His face
is framed by a striated, tripartite wig and is
painted green, the color of the floral realm of
Osiris, which in association with the floral broad
collar symbolically assures his resurrection.
The features of the cordiform face are designed
in a time-honored idealizing manner so that the
deceased might be physically fit for eternity.
Consequently, the eyes, hieroglyphic in their
shape, are set into sockets framed by eyebrows
rendered as cosmetic stripes. The bridge of the
nose is thin and ends in well-proportioned
wings. The upper lip is less fleshy than the lower,
and these imbue the face with a contented, self-
assured countenance.
Stylistically, our bust from an anthropoid
sarcophagus corresponds to a well-documented
category, all of the examples of which share in
common a green-painted face as well as the
same design and decoration of the wig and false
beard. In these examples as well, the broad
collar is placed on the chest in such a way that
the area between the lappets of the wig, above
the broad collar, and beneath the false beard
appears to be devoid of any decoration
whatsoever. This detail is purposeful because it
was intended to represent the mummy itself over
which the broad collar was simply placed. All of
these examples are dated to Dynasty XXV, the
so-called Kushite Dynasty, whose pharaohs were
pre-occupied with the cult of Osiris. Such
devotion resulted in the pronounced, but
restrained Osirian symbolism exhibited by the
green faces, floral broad collars, and plaited,
curved false beards, all of which are
characteristic of these objects in general.
References:
For the type, see the inner coffin of Horankh in
Dallas, The Dallas Museum of Art (1994.184),
discussed and illustrated by John H. Taylor,
“Patterns of colouring on ancient Egyptian coffins
from the New Kingdom to the Twenty-sixth
Dynasty, an overview,” in W. V. Davis [editor],
Colour and Painting in Ancient Egypt (London
2001), page 175 and color plate 55, 2.
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