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The Brooklyn Museum

Collections: Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art




Coffin of Mayet

Coffin of Mayet. Egypt, from Deir el Bahri in Thebes, excavated in the Funerary Temple of Mentuhotep II by the Egyptian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 11, early in the reign of Mentuhotep II, circa 2008–1957 B.C. Wood, painted, 16 15/16 x 15 1/2 x 71 3/4 in. (43 x 39.4 x 182.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 52.127a-b

This rectangular coffin contained the mummy of a young girl named Mayet ("Kitty"), who died at the age of five or six. She was one of six wives of King Mentuhotep II buried in his funerary temple. A single line of text is painted on all four sides of the coffin and down the center of the lid. Each line asks a deity to provide sustenance and other essentials in the afterlife. Mayet was buried lying on her left side, facing east, so that she could observe the rising sun through the two wedjat-eyes painted on the exterior of the coffin.

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