EC284

EC284

 

Coffin fragment with wadjet eye and hieroglyphs painted thereon. 25th or 26th Dynasty? This probably shows a shrouded Sokar hawk, or, less likely, Mehet-weret. Mehet-weret is the cow goddess of the primeval flood who protects the Horus hawk. She often appears as a vignette in Chapter 71 of the Book of the Dead. 

A similar Sokar hawk can be seen on the chest of a mummy from Thebes (Aston 2009, fig. 10). Like ours, behind the hawk, the Eye of Re can be seen on a neb basket. 

As the script is going one way and the pictures the other this appears to be part of the footboard of a pedestal coffin. The Eye and Sokar hawk would be placed so as to be the correct way round when viewed from the head of the coffin. The coffin of Harsiese M (Berlin 8237) has a similar footboard (Ikram and Dodson 1998, 237). 

The text starts ‘Recitation by Geb first born/ancestor of the gods….’. 

References

Aston, D.A. 2009. Burial Assemblages of Dynasty 21-25. Chronology, Typology, Developments. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 

Ikram, S. and Dodson, A. 1998. The Mummy in Ancient Egypt. London: Thames and Hudson.