DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55202#0136
I l6 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM IN THEBES
Naga led them to a little tomb which they said had but one cham-
ber—a contradiction of the Mariette description which, perhaps,
should be taken more seriously than I have done. In the centre of
this chamber, the living rock had been left to form a sarcophagus,
free-standing from the walls but not detached from the floor, within
which lay the wooden coffin. Prisse, who claimed that information
had been furnished him at Thebes by an associate of Yanni, tried
to find the site but without success. In spite of the fact that he may
have made enquiries in Kurneh, nevertheless his published account
is nothing more nor less than a complete plagiarization of Leemans
and of a letter from the latter published by Tomlinson. The story
has been quoted from one or another of these sources by all those
who have described the articles found.
The coffin was bought by Athanasi for a song, and was sold to the
British Museum in the summer of 1835. There the cover was cleaned
of its tarnish and the name of its owner was discovered. In the midst
of the feathers of the rishi decoration which covers the lid was a
vertical line of inscription including the cartouche of the King of
Upper and Lower Egypt In-yotef (Pl. 17).
That this was the coffin of Nub-kheper-Ref In-yotef there is no
direct and incontrovertible proof since it does not give the prenomen
of the king, any more than does nearly every other object from the
burial chambers of the kings of this period. We shall find that two
other Kings In-yotef were buried in the cemetery of the Sixteenth
Dynasty, and that the prenomen of only one was inscribed on his
coffin. When the coffin of Nub-kheper-Re< came to be cleaned in
London some eight bits of bandages were found sticking in the
bitumen with which the inside was lined. They were covered with
texts in a strong hand and one ends with the name of the King In-
[yotef], but they also supply us with no further information. The
mummy itself having been destroyed, or probably having been so
badly prepared that it fell to pieces as most mummies of this date
do, a later one was substituted by the Arabs who sold the coffin. We
are thus left in some uncertainty as to which In-yotef this was, but
for me Nub-kheper-Ref is the most satisfactory.
The Arabs who opened the coffin claimed to have found the
mummy of the king resting within, wearing a diadem upon his head
outside the bandages; beside him lay two bows and six flint-tipped
arrows, and they said that among his wrappings they found a heart
scarab mounted in gold, “and also many other objects of interest,”
Naga led them to a little tomb which they said had but one cham-
ber—a contradiction of the Mariette description which, perhaps,
should be taken more seriously than I have done. In the centre of
this chamber, the living rock had been left to form a sarcophagus,
free-standing from the walls but not detached from the floor, within
which lay the wooden coffin. Prisse, who claimed that information
had been furnished him at Thebes by an associate of Yanni, tried
to find the site but without success. In spite of the fact that he may
have made enquiries in Kurneh, nevertheless his published account
is nothing more nor less than a complete plagiarization of Leemans
and of a letter from the latter published by Tomlinson. The story
has been quoted from one or another of these sources by all those
who have described the articles found.
The coffin was bought by Athanasi for a song, and was sold to the
British Museum in the summer of 1835. There the cover was cleaned
of its tarnish and the name of its owner was discovered. In the midst
of the feathers of the rishi decoration which covers the lid was a
vertical line of inscription including the cartouche of the King of
Upper and Lower Egypt In-yotef (Pl. 17).
That this was the coffin of Nub-kheper-Ref In-yotef there is no
direct and incontrovertible proof since it does not give the prenomen
of the king, any more than does nearly every other object from the
burial chambers of the kings of this period. We shall find that two
other Kings In-yotef were buried in the cemetery of the Sixteenth
Dynasty, and that the prenomen of only one was inscribed on his
coffin. When the coffin of Nub-kheper-Re< came to be cleaned in
London some eight bits of bandages were found sticking in the
bitumen with which the inside was lined. They were covered with
texts in a strong hand and one ends with the name of the King In-
[yotef], but they also supply us with no further information. The
mummy itself having been destroyed, or probably having been so
badly prepared that it fell to pieces as most mummies of this date
do, a later one was substituted by the Arabs who sold the coffin. We
are thus left in some uncertainty as to which In-yotef this was, but
for me Nub-kheper-Ref is the most satisfactory.
The Arabs who opened the coffin claimed to have found the
mummy of the king resting within, wearing a diadem upon his head
outside the bandages; beside him lay two bows and six flint-tipped
arrows, and they said that among his wrappings they found a heart
scarab mounted in gold, “and also many other objects of interest,”