Sarcophagus

This larger than life-sized sarcophagus was meant to house the mummified body of Wahibreemakhet. It is made of basalt, and is thus entirely black. Because of the fertile black soil on the banks of the river Nile, the color black was associated with fertility and rebirth. G. Pinch, Egyptian mythology : a guide to the gods, goddesses, and traditions of ancient Egypt, (Oxford, 2004), 2.

From the beginning of the late prehistoric period onwards (3200 BCE), ancient Egyptians have tried to preserve the bodies of the dead. This was very important because they believed that the body had to remain intact for the deceased’s soul to continue existing in the afterlife. The use of stone sarcophagi was one of the ways they tried to achieve this. Stone being an expensive material, sarcophagi were reserved for the wealthy. E. Brovarski, ‘Sarkophag’ in W. Helck, E. Otto, W. Westendorf (eds), Lexikon der Ägyptologie, Band 5: Pyramidenbau - Steingefässe (Wiesbaden, 1984), 478-479.

Originally, this sarcophagus likely would have contained a smaller wooden coffin. The mummy would have been placed within the smaller coffin. The sarcophagus was placed in the tomb of Wahibreemakhet, accompanied by objects meant to help him on his journey to the Netherworld.

This particular sarcophagus is very typical for the Late Period (664 – 332 BCE). Such sarcophagi are easily recognizable by their size, the broad collar, the presence of the winged goddess Nut underneath the collar, and the divine fake beard (see figs. 1 and 2 for similar examples). M. Buhl, The late Egyptian anthropoid stone sarcophagi (Copenhagen, 1959), 16. The sarcophagus of Wahibreemakhet fits seamlessly into the tradition of large mummiform sarcophagi.

The exact location of the tomb of Wahibreemakhet is not known. However, his Greek ethnicity and the acquisition history of this object point to a probable location. During the 26th Dynasty, people with a non-Egyptian background in Egypt were often buried at the burial site Saqqara. A. Villing, ‘Wahibreemakhet at Saqqara: The Tomb of a Greek in Egypt’, Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 145-2 (2018), 177.

The acquisition history of this object also points to Saqqara: the sarcophagus has been in the collection of the Dutch Rijksmuseum van Oudheden since 1828. It was part of a group of objects sold to the museum by the merchant Giovanni d’Anastasi. d’Anastasi was very active in Saqqara and acquired a lot of antiquities from this site that he later sold to museums. That is another reason why Saqqara seems like a probable place of origin for this sarcophagus.

This sarcophagus is not the only item from Wahibreemakhet’s tomb that was sold by d’Anastasi. Other objects ended up in Leiden too, and elsewhere. Want to read more about them? Then click below. Or continue to the next step, to learn more about the sarcophagus.