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The coffin of Nedjemankh is a gilded ancient Egyptian coffin from the late Ptolemaic Period. It once encased the mummy of Nedjemankh, a priest of the ram-god Heryshaf. The coffin was purchased by the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art in July of 2017 to be the centerpiece of an exhibition entitled "Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin."[1] The Metropolitan Museum of Art repatriated Nedjemankh and his coffin to Egypt in 2019, before the scheduled closure of the exhibition.[2]

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Description

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Colour photograph of the coffin of Nedjemankh
The lid of the coffin

The coffin is 181 cm (72.25 in) long, 53 cm (20.875 in) wide, and 28 cm (11 in) deep.[3] It is made of a combination of cartonnage (linen, glue, and gesso), paint, gold, silver, resin, glass, wood, and leaded bronze.[3] The lid is covered with vignettes, or images, of funerary spells from the Book of the Dead. The weighing of the heart against the Ma'at and the embalming of the mummy are commonly seen in depictions in Egyptian ritual cermonies. There is an inscription invoking gold and silver. Inside is a figure of Nut, the goddess of the sky, partially covered with silver foil.[3]

On the base of the coffin there is a djed pillar[3] hieroglyph, which is used to represent stability, as well as the backbone of Osiris, the Eygptian God of the afterlife. The Book of the Dead references the Djed symbol and states that the presence of the symbol on/around a mummy will not only help the spirit regain their backbone in the afterlife, but will ensure their resurrection, just as Osiris was resurrected.[4]

On many ancient Egyptian coffins (more commonly called "sarcophagi"), there are inscriptions outside of those from the Book of the Dead that talk about who the person was, their titles, the great deeds that they did while they were alive, et cetera. Nedjemankh's coffin lists his many titles, which all revolved around being a priest, suggesting that he devoted his life to being a priest for Heryshef: "priest," "sameref-priest," "priest who adorns the divine image," and "priest of Heryshef-who-resides-in-Herakleopolis."[5] Ancient Egyptians viewed coffins/sarcophagi and tombs as a home for the dead, where they would spiritually live in the afterlife, hence all the decorations. Just as people make funeral arrangements today, (wealthier) Egyptians could commission the creation of their physical coffin and dictate what would be inscribed upon it. Nedjemankh ensured his coffin had the inscription of a hymn about silver and gold in relation to "the flesh of the gods," and that it would be decorated with these precious metals (gold on the outside and silver on the inside).[5] In doing this, Nedjemankh ensured that his physical body and spirit would be as divine as the gods' in the afterlife.[5]

Provenance

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The coffin is believed to have been looted from Egypt in 2011 at the beginning of the Egyptian Crisis (also referred to as "Arab Spring")[6] and was sold with forged provenance documents.[2] The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased this coffin in July of 2017 from a Parisian art dealer.[1] The Met purchased Nedjemankh's coffin from Parisian art dealer and Mediterranean archaeology expert (particularly "Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Near East antiquities")[7], Christophe Kunicki[8], for 3.5 million Euros (roughly 3.9 - 4 million USD).[2]

The false provenance for Nedjemankh's coffin states that it was exported in 1971, authorized by the Antiquities Organization, and that it once belonged to Habib Tawadrus, owner of Habib & Company in Cairo (accress from the Shepheard's Hotel) and art dealer since 1936, and that it was being exported by his heirs to Switzerland.[9] This was done by a representative of Tawadrus' heirs who procured a translation of the export license provided in February 1977 by the German embassy in Cairo.[9] Egypt allowed the export of some antiquities prior to the passage of the Antiquities Protection Law of 1983.[10] The Met was led to belive that the coffin had remained in the possession of the family up until it's purchase by the museum in 2017.

Following the announcement that the provenance papers for the coffin had been forged, an investigation was launched. The Met stated that they would “pursue claims against all parties… involved in deceiving the museum.”[11] The French police had some suspicions that Roben Dib, a German-Lebanese art dealer had conspired with Kunicki to create forged documents and craft false provenance to launder artifacts looted throughout the Middle East during the unrest caused by the Egyptian Crisis/Arab Spring, including Nedjemankh's cofffin.[12] The results of the investigation led to Christophe Kunicki and his husband, Richard Semper, being charged with participation in gang fraud and money laundering.[11]

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence in the art world. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, referred to as UNESCO, put out an estimate that the illegal smuggling and trading of antiquities is a $2.2 billion USD market (this number may even be made higher through the contribution of black market trade).[13]

Return to Egypt

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In February 2019, the Metropolitan Museum was approached by the New York County District Attorney's Office, which presented the museum with evidence provided by the Egyptian government that the dealer’s 1971 export license had been forged. Further evidence showed the coffin had been stolen in 2011 and its ownership history was fraudulent.[7][14] The museum then shuttered the then-ongoing exhibition Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin, previously scheduled to run through April 21, 2019,[7] and handed the coffin over to the Antiquities Repatriation Department of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.[14]I

See Also

References

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  1. ^ a b "Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2023-02-18.
  2. ^ a b c Macaulay-Lewis, Elizabeth (2021-04-01). "Making The Met, 1870–2020: A Universal Museum for the 21st Century". American Journal of Archaeology. 125 (2): 319–330. doi:10.3764/aja.125.2.0319. ISSN 0002-9114.
  3. ^ a b c d Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  4. ^ Foley, Kierra (February 15, 2023). "Ancient Egyptian Amulets: Djed-pillars". Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
  5. ^ a b c The MET (2017–2018). "New Acquisitions" (PDF). The Department of Egyptian Art Annals. 4: 1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
  6. ^ Korotayev, Andrey V.; Issaev, Leonid; Malkov, Sergey Yu.; Shishkina, Alisa R (Spring 2014). "The Arab Spring: A Quantitative Analysis". Arab Studies Quarterly. 36 (2): 150 – via JSTOR.
  7. ^ a b c Moynihan 2019.
  8. ^ Farmer, Jana S. (July 20, 2020). "Paris Dealer Who Sold Golden Sarcophagus to the Met Charged with Money Laundering & Other Stories". The National Law Review. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  9. ^ a b The Metropolitan Museum of Art (24 September 2017). "Base of a gilded coffin of the priest of Heryshef, Nedjemankh". Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2023. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 24 September 2017 suggested (help)
  10. ^ "Metropolitan Museum Repatriates Gilded Coffin to Egypt". Archaeology. Archaeological Institute of America. 19 February 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2019.
  11. ^ a b Noce, Vincent (27 June 2020). "Paris dealer who sold golden sarcophagus to New York's Metropolitan Museum charged with fraud and money laundering". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  12. ^ Wilson-Milne, Katie; Schindler, Steven (September 6, 2022). "Director of the Louvre Arrested and a Dive into French Criminal Law". The Art Law Podcast. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  13. ^ Campbell, Peter B. (2013). "The Illicit Antiquities Trade as a Transnational Criminal Network: Characterizing and Anticipating Trafficking of Cultural Heritage". International Journal of Cultural Property. 20: 113–114 – via ResearchGate.
  14. ^ a b "Metropolitan Museum Repatriates Gilded Coffin to Egypt". Archaeology. Archaeological Institute of America. 19 February 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2019.

Bibliography

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  1. ^ Brodie, Neil; Renfrew, Colin (2005-10-01). "LOOTING AND THE WORLD'S ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE: The Inadequate Response". Annual Review of Anthropology. 34 (1): 343–361. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.34.081804.120551. ISSN 0084-6570.
  2. ^ "Supreme Council of Antiquities - History". web.archive.org. 2019-09-22. Retrieved 2023-02-14.
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