Coffin of Nesykhonsu (c. 976–889 BCE): Art, History and Details

Coffin of Nesykhonsu (c. 976–889 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Egyptian coffins told stories and illustrated spells to help the deceased transition safely to the afterlife. Inside Nesykhonsu's coffin there are two jackals, one facing right and the other left, near the top. Here, the jackal represents the powerful deity Anubis, the god of the afterlife and embalming.

Object facts

• Title: Coffin of Nesykhonsu
• Date: c. 976–889 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, Thebes, Third Intermediate (1069–715 BCE), Dynasties 21–22
• Type: Funerary Equipment
• Technique: gessoed and painted sycamore fig
• Dimensions: Overall: 70 cm (27 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - Third Intermediate
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1914.714

A detail from the museum

Two of Nesykhonsu's titles, "Lady of the House" and "Singer of the Choir of Mut the Great," are written on the outside of the coffin.

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of the Inaugural Exhibition, June 6-September 20, 1916. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1916.
• Williams, Caroline Ransom. "The Egyptian Collection in the Museum of Art at Cleveland, Ohio." The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (JEA) 5 (1918).
• Porter, Bertha, and Rosalind L. B. Moss. Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.