Coffin of Petamenophis

In January 1820 a tomb was opened in the Theban hills in the presence of Antonio Lebolo, an Italian who worked for Bernardino Drovetti, the French consul and collector. Inside lay 14 coffins of one family, the relatives of Soter, archon of Thebes, a leading local official in the Roman province in the early 2nd century AD. They had been buried in a tomb cut more than 1,000 years earlier for an official named Djehutymose. Several of the coffins carry Greek inscriptions with names, family ties and sometimes exact ages, which is why the group can be dated so closely. The family did not stay together for long. Its coffins went to London, Paris, Leiden, Berlin, Florence and Turin, which bought Drovetti's collection in 1824.

This one was made for a boy named Petamenophis, perhaps a grandson of Soter, and the museum dates it to AD 123. It has the same form as Soter's own coffin in London, a rectangular wooden box with a post at each corner. Its floor board is shown with it in the same case, and on it is painted the sky goddess Nut.