Coffin and Cover of Princess Mayet
Description
Object Label: Excavated in 1921, Princess Mayet’s tomb was one of six subterranean shrines dedicated to women in king Montuhotep II’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, Thebes. Five of these women held the titles of king’s wife and priestess of Hathor, but Mayet’s objects did not include any titles. Mayet died as a child, and her relationship to Montuhotep II is uncertain. Her coffin—likely made for someone else—was reinscribed with her name, Mayet, meaning “female cat.” The inscriptions painted on the box include an offering formula that lists the one thousand each of bread, beer, meat, fowl, and linen she will need in the afterlife. Magical eyes painted on one long side allow Mayet to see her offerings. Caption: Coffin and Cover of Princess Mayet, ca. 2008–1957 B.C.E.. Wood (Mediterranean cypress - Cupressus sempervirens, Sycamore fig - ficus sycomorus, tamarisk - Tamarix sp.), pigment, 19 × 15 1/2 × 72 in. (48.3 × 39.4 × 182.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 52.127a-b. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06
Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
Rectangular wooden coffin featuring hieroglyphic inscriptions along the sides.
The artifact is a wooden coffin with a rectangular shape, typical of Middle Kingdom and later periods. It features a line of hieroglyphic inscriptions that likely express ritualistic or funerary text. The style of the coffin is simple, with inscriptions running horizontally. The composition suggests it was meant for a person of some status, indicated by the care of the inscription work. Notably, the depiction of eyes, known as the 'Udjat' or 'Wedjat,' symbolizes protection for the deceased in the afterlife.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 52.127a-b tier-2
- BKM-Object 3575 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.