Pièce Bonomi MSS 3.3 (recto) - Egypt. Thebes. Objects from Thebes. Coffins. Ir, wooden sarcophagus and two coffins, Dyn. XXVI, formerly in H. Salt, J. Lee and Lord Amherst collections and at Sotheby's in 1921, current location not known. Notes

1 item

Notes on the wooden sarcophagus and two coffins of Ir, Dyn. XXVI, from Thebes, formerly in H. Salt, J. Lee and Lord Amherst collections and at Sotheby's in 1921, current location not known (TopBib i2.835):

• ink text on paper
• loose
• 20.6 x 33.2 cm
• [text]:

'Harwell House October 21 1850
The great Sarcophagus in the Chapel
The Goddess Neith N Neith [X1*W24:N1] who is depicted in
full length on the inside of the upper half of the
third coffin is compounded of the hieroglyphic [V39]
in the same manner as the god [Q1\:D4\:A40], likewise depicted
full length, is corresponded of the hieroglyphic [R11].

In Sarcophagi from the necropolis of Thebes it is
usual to find the same Goddess in the likeness of a beautiful
woman, usually, with her arms streached over the deceased
as the heavens streached over the earth. That she represents
the heavens the determinative of her name [N1] is a
voucher, and her figure [C199] in this position over astronomi
cal signs. But if other proof were wanting there is a
stone sarcophagus in the British Museum where she
is sculptured streached out, as the heavens over the
earth, and giving birth to the Planets. In the lower half
of Sarcophagi from Thebes it is usual to find an other
Goddess female figure and not the figure of a man or one man or god in the
likeness of a man or compounded of the [R11] as in the Hartwell
Coffin; and this goddess [X1\:H8-Q1] is the goddess of the earth. as might be naturally suppose(?) This figure She extends her arms up each side of the coffin as if
embracing the deceased or receiving the deceased into her bosom

That the stone Sacrophagus here quoted came from Thebes
I my self can assert being present where the officers of the
Luxor brought it out of the pit

Whence then is the great Sarcophagus in the Chapel
of Hartwell house? The answer is, most probably from Lower Egypt. Most probably from the great necropolis
of Lower Egypt there namely the Necropolis desert of Sakkara of Memphis. First
because Pthah of to whom(underlined) the sign R11 is peculiar(underlined) had a celebrated
Temple at in the city of Memphis and secondly because the hierogly
phics are of the form or style of writing peculiar to
this region of Egypt and thirdly because the form of the outer
case is of the ancient form [Q6] most usual from in this nearby(?)
the most ancient times to the most recent in that
district of Egypt (See ancient inscription in the same
collection)'

Copyright Griffith Institute, University of Oxford

• See Bonomi, Joseph, Catalogue of the Egyptian antiquities in the museum of Hartwell House. [London]: W. M. Watts, 1858 (OEB 134902), p. 89-91 [no. 596].