Coffin of Wenuhotep

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Arts of Africa

Third Intermediate–Late Period, late Dynasty 25–early Dynasty 26 (about 700–600 BCE)

Egyptian

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Africa

Artist: Ancient Egyptian
Title: Coffin of Wenuhotep
Place: Egypt (Object made in)
Date: 780 BCE
Medium: Wood, pigment
Inscriptions: The registers following represent: 1.) The deceased before Osiris and Isis. Columns of writing which separate the Horus-sons at the ends read, "Utterance by Osiris the august house-mistress Wenuhotep, deceased, daughter of the priest...Thothhirthaw. " 2.) The deceased on a lion bier (note the lion's head, tail, and legs). Above is the winged sun disk, emblem of Horus of Edfu, the hawk god who appears at each end of the band. Below are grouped the four canopic jars. The inscriptions which begin here are continued farther down, after skipping the next register. That at the mummy's left prays for a royal offering of Osiris, presided over the West, the great god, lord of Abydos; may he give an offering. As space gave out here, the text breaks off abruptly witout the usual detailed list of wants. At the right Wenuhotep's mother is named: Her mother, the house-mistress Bast [ ], deceased, revered in the presence of the great god, the lord of the sky. 3.) The sun god in his barque, worshiped at either side by an ape.
Dimensions: 44.1 × 181 × 51.4 cm (17 3/8 × 71 1/4 × 20 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson
Reference Number: 1893.14
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Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Paintings Sculpture and Other Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1913), n.p.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Paintings Sculpture and Other Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1914), p. 190.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), pp. 15-16, 130.
Robert B. Pickering, Dewey J. Conces, Jr., Ethan M. Braunstein, and Frank Yurco, “Three-dimensional computed tomography of the mummy Wenuhotep,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 83, 1 (September 1990), pp. 49-55.
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 21.
Heike C. Schmidt, “Die Rolle der Gebrüder Brugsch im ägyptischen Antikenhandel,” in Mosse im Museum: Die Stiftungstätigkeit des Berliner Verlegers Rudolf Mosse (1843-1920) für das ägyptische Museum Berlin, ed. Jana Helmbold-Doyé and Thomas L. Gertzen, exh. cat. (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Hentrich & Hentrich, 2017), pp. 49, 56n47.

Long term loan to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, 1959-2007.

Émile Brugsch (1842-1930), Bulaq Museum and Egyptian Antiquities Service, Cairo; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1893; price reimbursed by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson, 1893.

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