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Date : approx. between 380 and 300 B.C.
Material : Diorite
Acquisition : Gift of Edwards S. Harkness (1914)
| Item 9 on 18
Ancient Egypt
Sculpture
Area related
Saqqara (Egypte)
Site related :
Saqqarah
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| Description |  |
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The lid of this sarcophagus represents the day sky. At its foot, the boat that carries the sun through the night meets the day boat. Between them rises the newborn sun. The scene on the head shows the day boat floating on the waters of the sky, with the sun elevated by the god Shu (the atmosphere). To either side are four pairs of male (frog-headed) and female (snake-headed) deities representing the four qualities of the primeval waters : inert, negative, infinite and inaccessible.
The sides are inscribed with the Litany of Re, addressed to the seventy-four forms of the sun god. The left side shows Wereshnefer, at the head end, worshiping the first thirty-seven of these forms plus the ancestral kings of Upper Egypt. On the right side, Wereshnefer faces the last thirty-seven forms plus the ancestral kings of Lower Egypt. The top of the lid has two scenes. The foot and the center depict the sun's rays resurrecting the mummy of Osiris, lying in its shrine in the depths of the neterworld, just as Wereshnefer hoped they would revive his body. At the head end, oriented in the opposite direction, the goddess Nut (the day sky) bends over a depiction of the world.
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