Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (42.2001)

cartonnage, dated to the 22nd Dynasty,
could have come from that site:
according to the excavation reports of
Bernard Bruyere, the director of the
French mission between 1922 and
1951, no objects from this period
were found, and certainly no cartonnage
of this type.

Where did the exhibit come from if
not from Deir el-Medina? Was there any
lost cartonnage in the Warsaw collection
that could be connected with object inv.
no. 141987?

Following a detailed examination of
the pre-war irwentones, one possibility
has appeared:

“No. 21885: Portrait case of an Egyp-
tian mummy, of a very late period,
probably Roman. Portrays the wife of
a scribe from the tempie of Horus and
Isis named Baste Iret. Length: 165,5
cm.” The datę of the entry was the 25th
October 1919; the origin was specified
as the Łohojsk collection of Michał
Tyszkiewicz.

This object was regarded as “lost during
the war” and forgotten long ago.

It was difficult to determine if the above-
mentioned short description matched
the existing cartonnage, as it had suf-
fered badly during the war: it was crum-
pled and cracked as if somebody had
trampled on it, and to make things
worse, huge amounts of dirt stuck to the
wax used in attempt to protect the sur-
face. The texts were illegible and the
name of the dead woman couldn't be
recognised (the yellow colour of the face pointed to the woman as the owner
of the cartonnage). Was she Baste Iret? A pre-war photograph of the cartonnage
(ill. 2) showed a beautiful face framed by a wig adorned with a vulture head-
dress and a lotus flower. This madę us feel all the morę sorrow at the destruc-
tion which afflicted this object after nearly two thousand years of existence. All
the morę we were keen on rescuing it, and restoring - if perhaps not to a State
so ideał as that portrayed on the photo - this was impossible - but to a morę or

1. Damoged cartonnage
inv. no. 141987
(new inv. no. 238435)
The National Museum
Warsaw

(photo Z. Doliński)

27