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Pitt Rivers Museum

1889.27.84

Wooden face from a mummy casing. It is roughly carved and sub-rectangular, being rounded at the chin and square at the top of the head. Only the nose and brow are defined. [JC [OPS Move] 26/5/2017]


1889.27.84

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

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Collection type
Object
Description
Wooden face from a mummy casing. It is roughly carved and sub-rectangular, being rounded at the chin and square at the top of the head. Only the nose and brow are defined. [JC [OPS Move] 26/5/2017]
Geographical reference
Lahun [Kahun] [Illahun], Gurob
Date / Period
Date made: Circa 30-305 BC Archaeological period: Ancient Egyptian Late Period Archaeological period: Ptolemaic
Date collected
1889
Acquisition information
Donated: 1889
Materials and processes
Material Wood Plant, Process Carved
Dimensions
Height: max 257 mm, Width: max 158 mm, Depth: max 54 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1889.27.84
Research and responses

The labels attached to these objects state the masks are XXII Dynasty, but these are in fact Ptolemaic. [AS 26/04/2010]

Associated publications
Petrie, W.M.F. 1890. Kahun, Gurob and Hawara (London). [AS 06/07/2012] Referred to on page 136 of 'Greco-Roman Egypt', by Christina Riggs, in World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterization, edited by Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013), pp. 115-121. Riggs writes: ‘Accessioned in the same year and noted to also be from ‘Lahun, Gurob’ are a series of 11 crudely-carved wooden faces (1889.27.78–88), which would have been pegged/dowelled onto coffins or half-length covers for mummies. Very similar objects from the same excavation are now accessioned into the Petrie collection.5 Although often recorded to be of Ptolemaic date, an earlier Third Intermediate Period dating is also possible and there are similar flat examples from Thebes, taken from coffins dating to the Roman Period thus extending their possible date range.’. [MJD (Verve) 21/1/2016]

Search terms: Death, Figure, Religion, Mummy