An extremely rare Egyptian coffin, possibly belonging to the son of a king or queen, has been ‘discovered’ at Torquay Museum. The discovery was made by Dr Aidan Dodson, a senior research fellow at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Bristol, who is undertaking a long-term project to catalogue every single Egyptian coffin in English and Welsh provincial museums.
Cut from a single log of cedar wood the coffin is thought to have been made between 1525 and 1470 BC. Image copyright Torquay Museum
A special sarcophagus
Dr Dodson said: “When I walked into Torquay Museum for the first time I realised that the coffin was something really special. Not only was it of a design of which there is probably only one other example in the UK (in Bristol), but the quality was exceptional.
“Cut from a single log of cedar wood, it is exquisitely carved, inlaid and painted. For a child to have been given something like that, he must have had very important parents – perhaps even a king and queen. Unfortunately, the part of the inscription which named the boy and his parents is so badly damaged that we cannot be certain.
The inscription had been re-worked at some point for a new owner – a 2,500 year old mummified boy, named Psamtek
“The inscription had been re-worked at some point for a new owner – a 2,500 year old mummified boy, named Psamtek, that came to Torquay Museum with the coffin when in was donated in the 1950s. Psamtek is in fact nearly 1,000 years younger than the coffin itself.”
The secrets of the mummified boy Psamtek were probed by Torbay Hospital’s state-of-the-art CT scanner in 2006 in an attempt to determine his age and cause of death. It was discovered that he was three to four years old – around three years younger than previously thought – but there were no obvious signs of the cause of death.
Ever since he went on show as part of a major redevelopment at Torquay Museum in 2007, Psamtek, the only human mummy on public display in the county, has captured the imagination of thousands of curious visitors.
But now his own coffin has stolen the limelight, after it was discovered that it is nearly 1,000 years older than the body it contains. Further investigation reveals the coffin may have been made for a junior member of royalty more than a century before the time of the famous boy king Tutankhamun.
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Researcher discovers rare Egyptian coffin in Torquay Museum:
