Kárpáti Zoltán - Liptay Éva - Varga Ágota szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 101. (Budapest, 2004)

HEDVIG GYŐRY: On the Collars of the Gamhud Coffins

ON THE COLLARS OF THE GAMHUD COFFINS INTRODUCTION The Egyptian Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest possesses thirty anthropoid wooden coffins - in one case only the lid, in another case only the lower part has remained - and several fragmentary panels from the same cemetery.

1 One of the coffins is classical mummiform, the others are rhomboid or 180-200 cm high bulked coffins. The outside of their cases and lids are all painted and their wigs and faces were carved separately. Although uniform in colour code, execution, and iconography, they differ from other contemporary Ptolemaic coffins' pattern of decoration. In all likelihood, they were designed according to the same models, perhaps at the same place, in workshop(s) neighbouring the Gamhud cemetery. The structure of the lid is standard:

2 it starts with the tripartite wig with a neck-band between its lappets, and a broad collar with hawk heads (wsh n bjk) below it. It is followed by the kneeling goddess Nut, spreading her winged arms over the scene of mummification. Further down, a vertical band of inscription can be seen, flanked by the sons of Horus. The coffins' feet-boards display the figures of two Anubis lying on their naoi, facing each other.

3 1 For the excavation and the history of the finds, consult A. Kamal, "Fouilles à Gamhoud," Annales du service des antiquités de l'Egypte 9 (1908), 8-30; G. Mérei and J. Nemeskéri, Bericht über eine bei einer Mumie verwendete Nasenprothesc, Zeitschrift fur Ägyptische Sprache und Altertums 84 (1959), 76-78; V. Wessctzky, "Archivarbeit in der ägyptologischen Forschung," in Akten der Ersten Àgyptologen-Kongresses, Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients, vol. 14, Berlin 1974, 679-82; FL Győry, "Egy múmiakoporsó Gamhudból [A Mummiform Coffin from Gamhud]," Múzeumi Újság, Budapest 1990; V. Wessetzky, "Back Fülöp és az első egyiptomi magyar ásatás [Fülöp Back and the First Hungarian Excavation in Egypt]," Múzeumi Újság, Budapest 1991; H. Győry, "Két újonnan restaurált egyiptomi koporsó Gamhudból [Two Newly Restored Egyptian Coffins from Gamhud]," Múzeumi Újság, Budapest 1991 ; ead., "Romboid Gamhud Coffins and Late Egyptian Funeral Rites, Museum of Fine Arts - Egyptian Collection," Múzeumi Újság, Budapest 1996; ead., Az első magyar ásatás Egyiptomban. Válogatás a gamhudi ásatás leleteiből 1997 [The first Hungarian Excavation in Egypt. Select Pieces from Gamhud 1997]," Budapest 1997; P. Gaboda, "Gamhudi ásatás 1907 [Excavation at Gamhud 1907]," in Múzsák kertje. A magyar múzeumok születése, Budapest 2002, 46-47; J. Sliwa, "Tadeusz Smolenski und die österreichisch-ungarischen Ausgrabungen in Scharuna und Gamhud (1907-1908)," in Studio Aegyptiaca, Budapest 2003, 435^12; H. Győry, in Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Egyptologists, Grenoble 2004, in press. 2 Exceptions are extremely rare: only one coffin in Budapest differs from the rest in having the faint outlines of a boat on the frontal side of the plinth. 3 It seems that Maspero offered only coffins with modest decoration to the excavator, Fülöp Back, as other more complex and elaborated examples are deposited in the Cairo Museum. See also the publication of Kamal 1908 (n. 1). 12-26.