Outer Coffin of Merit

Ernesto Schiaparelli, who opened the tomb in 1906, summed up the difference in one sentence. Unlike her husband, who was given three coffins, Merit had only two, this shrine-shaped outer case of sycamore wood and a single coffin inside it.

The case is built like Kha's, in five parts that come apart, with a vaulted lid, and it too was covered with a linen sheet. Look closer and it is less finished. Dozens of small wooden plugs fill gaps in the boards, the dark Pistacia resin was spread unevenly, and there are no runners along the base imitating a funeral sledge, a detail Kha's case does have. It is also shorter, about two and a quarter metres against his three.

Schiaparelli himself wondered whether Merit had died unexpectedly, which would explain why parts of her burial equipment look unfinished or adapted, and the museum still presents this as his hypothesis. In the burial chamber Kha's sarcophagus stood against the far wall, and Merit's at a right angle to it, along the long wall.