Sarcophagus of Nes-shu-tefnut

The shape of the sarcophagus of Nes-shu-tefnut [Esshutfêne] is something of a compromise. Because it has no face, it does not qualify as mummy-shaped. Nevertheless, its outline tapers towards the foot end and its head end has been rounded. The lid, on the other hand, has a vaulted shape as if it were the lid of a rectangular coffin, but without the distinctive high boards at the ends or the corner posts. The sarcophagus of Nes-shu-tefnut was carved out of one piece of volcanic rock, found in one location in the First Cataract region near Aswan. The combination of pitch black and bright spots is the result of complex volcanic activity. It is interesting to observe how the irregularity in the stone at the foot end was simply ignored by the sculptor. The lid is made of a different material: granodiorite. Both the box and its lid have been fully smoothed inside and out and they have been carved with outstanding relief work and hieroglyphic inscriptions. The decoration and inscriptions are typical for sarcophagi from Saqqara, the necropolis of Memphis, in the Ptolemaic Period.
One of the principal themes of the decoration is the nocturnal course of the sun, the superb image of death and resurrection. The entire cosmos has been represented. The interior of the lid bears an image of the night sky, showing the goddess Nut swallowing the sun in the evening and giving birth to it again in the morning. She extends herself over the mummy with the stars of the firmament behind her, including the twelve stars of the nocturnal hours represented in human form. On the bottom of the sarcophagus is a representation of the goddess of the west, a personification of the necropolis. It is this goddess who accepts the body of the deceased. She is also a personification of the realm of the dead, the Netherworld. She is surrounded by the emblematic goddesses for Upper Egpyt and Lower Egypt, Nekhbet and Uto, who appear as winged cobras on either side of the head of the mummy. At the head end of the coffin's interior decoration is the goddess Nephthys, depicted as a woman whose vulture's wings are extended in a protective gesture around the head of the deceased. The inscription around this figure is an adaptation from the Book of Amduat, from the beginning of the seventh hour of the night. Nephthys has taken the place of Isis in her role as divine protectress against the annihilating powers of the hereafter. The remaining beings and symbols on the interior faces of the sarcophagus have the same protective purpose. There is the god Anubis in the shape of a crouching jackal, the Eye of Horus, the four Sons of Horus with the heads of a human, a baboon, a jackal, and a falcon (on both sides), and also the four protective goddesses Isis, Nephthys, Neith and Selkis (divided between the two sides). The goddesses are ranked higher than the sons of Horus, each being in charge of one of the four canopic jars. Finally, on the foot end of the decoration is the djed-pillar, hieroglyph for "duration" and symbol of the back of Osiris' body, together with two protective symbols of the blood of Isis.