id: 93984 accession number: 1914.561 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1914.561 updated: 2020-05-07 09:00:10.882000 Coffin of Bakenmut, c. 1000-900 BC. Egypt, Thebes, Third Intermediate Period, late Dynasty 21 (1069-945 BC) to early Dynasty 22 (945-924 BC). Gessoed and painted sycamore fig; overall: 208 x 68 cm (81 7/8 x 26 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 1914.561 title: Coffin of Bakenmut title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1000-900 BC creation date earliest: 1000 creation date latest: 900 current location: 107 Egyptian creditline: Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust copyright: --- culture: Egypt, Thebes, Third Intermediate Period, late Dynasty 21 (1069-945 BC) to early Dynasty 22 (945-924 BC) technique: gessoed and painted sycamore fig department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art collection: Egypt - Third Intermediate type: Funerary Equipment find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 208 x 68 cm (81 7/8 x 26 3/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Inaugural Exhibition opening date: 1916-06-06T05:00:00 Inaugural Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 6-September 20, 1916). title: Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum opening date: 1991-06-07T04:00:00 Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 7-September 8, 1991). title: Pharaoh: King of Ancient Egypt opening date: 2016-03-13T05:00:00 Pharaoh: King of Ancient Egypt. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 13-June 12, 2016). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Thebes, probably Deir el-Bahri date: footnotes: citations: Purchased from Joseph Hassan Ahmed, Luxor, by Lucy Olcott Perkins through Henry W. Kent date: ?-1914 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1914- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Originally another smaller coffin was placed inside this outer coffin and in that the deceased with a mummy board would have rested. digital description: wall description: The coffin of Bakenmut is one of the finest examples of painted wooden coffins made for the priests of Amen and their families at Thebes during Dynasty 21 and early Dynasty 22. The pharaohs of this time were no longer buried in the Valley of the Kings, but instead built tombs in the Delta, far to the north, where they resided. Security was lax in the Theban necropolis. The coffins and funerary goods of the wealthy citizens of Thebes were placed in unmarked and undecorated family tombs cut into the cliffs on the west bank of the Nile. All the care and detail that in more prosperous times were devoted to the decoration of the tomb chapel were now lavished on the elaborately painted coffins. Every available surface is crowded with religious scenes, images of funerary gods and goddesses, protective spells, and magical symbols. The deceased appears mummiform. An elaborate floral collar entirely covers the upper body, exposing only the separately attached hands (now lost). A pair of red "mummy braces" are crossed over the chest, their point of intersection marked by a winged sun disk. The lower body is covered with tiny figures modeled in gesso against a yellow background, which gives the effect of gold inlaid with glass or semiprecious stone. The decoration on the interior features two deified dead kings of Dynasty 18. Although these rulers had lived centuries before, memory of their greatness was still very much alive. The main scene near the top depicts Tuthmosis III, the great military pharaoh, who lived 500 years before Bakenmut. Posed as a mummy, the ruler wears a brilliant feathered garment enfolding him with falcon’s wings. The scene below features back-to-back seated images of Amenhotep I, regarded as the patron of the Theban cemetery and worshiped as a local god there. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Williams, Caroline Ransom. "The Egyptian Collection in the Museum of Art at Cleveland, Ohio," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 5 (1918). page number: pp.177-8, No. 15, pl. XXXI url: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/030751331800500123 Porter, Bertha, and Rosalind L. B. Moss. Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960. page number: Part 2, p. 637 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, and Martha L. Carter. Egyptian Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: The Museum, 1963. page number: pp. 12-13, pls. 15-16 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. page number: Reproduced (detail): p. 4 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n28 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. page number: Reproduced (detail): p. 4 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n26 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced (detail): p. 15 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n34 Johnson, Mark M. "An Introduction to the Art of Egypt," Arts and Activities 83, no. 2 (March 1978). page number: pp. 34-6, figs. 2-4 url: Kozloff, Arielle P. "Guessing the Unseen from the Seen." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 9 (1979). page number: p. 334, fig 20 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25159651 Cleveland Museum of Art, and Arielle P. Kozloff. An Introduction to the Art of Egypt in the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: [The Museum], 1983. page number: p. 13 url: Armstrong, A. H. Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman. New York: Crossroad, 1986. page number: pl. 2 url: Myśliwiec, Karol. Royal portraiture of the dynasties XXI-XXX. Mainz am Rhein: Ph. von Zabern, 1988. page number: pls. I, II url: Niwinski, Andrzej. 21st Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies. Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, 1988. page number: p. 134, no. 160 url: Walsem, Reijer van. The Coffin of Djedmonthuiufankh in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden. Leiden: [Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden], 1988. page number: pp. 55n.31, 57n.44, 59n.57, 61-62, 64-65, 68-69, 84, 90-91, 93-94, 96, 101, 103, 108 (erroneously for Cl 2 [255]), 109, 112-14 and n. 141, 115 nn. 146 and 147, 118-19, 124, 130n.204, 135, 138, 142n.265, 148-49, 151, 155, 159n.326, 167n.364, 169, 173, 175, 177n.375, 187, 194-95, 197n.452, 210, 256, 259, 262, 264, 270n.820, 271, 273, 287, 289, 290, 292, 293nn.903, 905, and 911, 294nn.921-23, 297, 304-6 and n. 982, 309-10, 314n.1034, 315 and nn. 1035, 1036, and 1040, 317- 18, 320 and n. 1087, 338, 346 n. 1286, 360n.1437, figs. 43, 45, 46, 60, 153, 173, 205, 209, 211, 434, 477, 484 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. page number: Reproduced: p. 4 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1991/page/n20 Berman, Lawrence M. "La Collection Egyptienne du Cleveland Museum of Art," Bulletin de la Société française d'égyptologie (BSFE) 134 (October 1995). page number: p. 17, fig. 2 url: Berman, Lawrence M. "Royal Allegory," Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 36, no. 3 (March 1996). page number: p. 8 url: Berman, Lawrence M., and Kenneth J. Bohač. Catalogue of Egyptian Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999 page number: Mentioned: p. 314-324; Reproduced: p. 315-23, Color p. 58,59 url: Gleisser, Benjamin, " Mystery of the Nile," Northern Ohio Live (September 1999). page number: p. 22 url: Myśliwiec, Karol. The twilight of ancient Egypt: first millennium B.C.E. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. page number: p. 5, fig. 3 url: May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. page number: No. 8, pp. 12-13, cover url: Málek, Jaromír. Egypt: 4000 Years of Art. 2003. page number: p. 116 & 227 url: Vandenbeusch, Marie, Aude Semat, and Margaret Maitland. Pharaoh: King of Ancient Egypt. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art ; London : The British Museum, 2016. page number: Mentioned: p.86, p. 160; Reproduced: p. 87, fig.50 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1914.561/1914.561_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1914.561/1914.561_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1914.561/1914.561_full.tif