Times flies by – we worked in the Asasif from September 16 to October 14, 2021, closed the mission last Thursday and are now back in Germany and Austria.
As one of the highlights of the 2021 season, the transport of three fragmented coffins from TT 414 to the study magazine on the West Bank was realized on October 13. These are two early Ptolemaic coffins and one 26th Dynasty coffin, all of them lower parts of wooden anthropoid ones. All three were fully consolidated and documented during our mission.
Each of these coffins shows very special features – I especially like the base of Reg. No. 656, owned by the temple singer Aset-em-Akhbit III. The back pillar of her coffin is decorated with a Djed-pillar and a sun disc.
Although the composition as a whole is appealing, the individual strokes and proportions, especially of the ram horns below the feather crown, show signs of a very quick execution. Since several family members of Aset-em-Akhbit III were buried in TT 414 and are also attested by wooden coffins, we will compare the style of coffin painting on Reg. No. 656 with contemporaneous coffins. Tracing specific Ptolemaic coffin workshops based on the material from TT 414 is one of the future goals of the project.
Much material and many new data were collected in the last weeks and will keep us busy post-processing the very successful 2021 season!
The Ankh-Hor Project 