Outer Coffin of Butehamun

Butehamun lived at the turn of the 20th and 21st Dynasties, when Thebes was governed in practice by the high priests of Amun. He was a scribe of the necropolis, one of the officials in charge of the royal tombs on the west bank, and in those years that meant opening them. The kings' burials were being robbed, and on the priests' orders men like him gathered royal mummies from the Valley of the Kings and moved them to hidden caches, the best known a tomb at Deir el-Bahari.

Coffins were recycled too. Recent scientific study of this outer coffin, the museum says, has shown that Butehamun, for all his rank, had it built partly from pieces of earlier coffins. Its style is mixed as well. Some features still belong to the Ramesside age, while the crowded imagery is that of the new yellow coffins. On the lid a broad collar of lotus flowers sits above a pectoral with the scarab Khepri, the morning sun, and the sky goddess Nut spreads her wings across the body. Lower down, small framed panels show scenes of offering. The museum dates the set to the 21st Dynasty, between 1076 and 944 BC.