Coffin and Mummy of Paankhaenamun
Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 22, reign of Osorkon I (about 924–889 BCE)
- Medium
- Cartonnage, gold leaf, pigment, and mummified human remains
- Classification
- Funerary Object
- Dimensions
- 170.2 × 43.2 × 31.7 cm (67 × 17 × 12 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Thebes
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Africa
- Credit line
- W. Moses Willner Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Adult profiles and older: its museum's description or title mentions violence, death or gore. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Mummification is the ancient Egyptian funerary practice of drying out a corpse for preservation. Anointed with oils and spices and protected with amulets, this linen-wrapped body was placed in a series of nesting coffins; the vividly painted cartonnage was the innermost shell. Across the surface of the mummy case, inscriptions and painted scenes and symbols identify the deceased—Paankhaenamun—and proclaim his wish to live well in the afterlife. Another inscription records that he was the doorkeeper of the temple of Amun. The names and titles on the coffin suggest that he lived at Thebes. The central scene depicts the presentation of the deceased by the falcon-headed deity Horus to Osiris, the ruler of eternity (shown, as was common, as a mummy). Other divinities help the deceased in his journey to the afterlife. Despite the youthful features of the gilt face, X-rays reveal that Paankhaenamun was middle-aged.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
