Coffin of the Noble Lady, Shep

Inscribed for the Lady of the House and Noblewoman Shep, daughter of Rer and the Lady of the House and Noblewoman Takererut, this coffin takes the form of a sah, an "illuminated" mummy transformed by embalming and funerary rituals. Like a statue, it stands on a low pedestal and has a shallow pillar carved on the back.

The head and shoulders appear typically Theban (see the coffins of Ankhshepenwepet andWedjarenes): Shep wears a "vulture" headdress, originally used to identify goddesses and queens, but now used by elite women as well, over an elaborately braided wig that falls over the shoulders. Her full face is painted pink, with her close-set eyes and thin eyebrows elaborated in white and black. Draped around her shoulders is a broad "festival" collar.

The decoration of lower part of the lid is unusually spare for this type of . Down the center is an offering prayer invoking Osiris on behalf of the deceased. Just below the collar is a pair of vignettes that show Shep being led to Osiris, ruler of the dead, by the ibis-headed god of wisdom and writing, Thoth, and the goddes Maat. She is shown here as "true of voice," meaning that she has been judged worthy of entering the company of the transfigured dead. Flanking the inscription are eight deities, including the four sons of Horus who embodied the viscera. These gods would have protected Shep, especially during the dangerous hours preceding her burial. Inside the base of the coffin is a figure of the goddess Nut, her arms outstretched to evoke the sky and embrace the deceased.

Brought from Egypt by Elbert Farman, Consul General of the United States in the late 1800s, Shep's coffin contained the body of a young man mummified in Roman fashion when it arrived at the Museum.