The objects in this case are from the family tomb of a man named Sennedjem. The tomb was located near a nineteenth-dynasty village that housed the artists and laborers who carved and decorated the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Sennedjem may have been a carpenter or stone mason. The burial outfit in front of you belonged to his wife, Iineferty.

On the right of the coffins is the mask that was fitted on her face. The mummy was then placed in a coffin, and covered by the inner lid, which shows Iineferty in a white dress. The coffin was covered in turn by the lid on the left. On both of the lids, Iineferty appears as a beautiful young woman. No one would ever guess that the autopsy performed on her mummy showed that she was at least 75 years old when she died.

On the inner cover she wears a fringed garment of fine white linen, a huge collar around her neck, studs in her ears, and bracelets and strings of beads on her arms. We can imagine her looking like this in life. On the outer coffin lid, she wears similar rich jewelry. But her lower body has the form of a wrapped mummy, and it’s covered with a multitude of small images. These vignettes are like a picture book of Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife.

On the front you see the winged sky goddess Nut. Down the middle of the lid, there are bands of inscriptions containing prayers for protection addressed to Nut. On both sides of the winged goddess are images that refer to the sun god Re’s role in the afterlife. An especially detailed image on the side of the lid to your left—just under the elbow—shows him as a scarab in the boat that carries him across the sky. Egyptians believed that the deceased would accompany the god in his boat, and be reborn with him in the morning. Above the scarab, there’s an orange disk representing the sun. It is held by a pair of green hands. They look like they are reaching down to the sun, but in fact we are seeing the image upside down. The green arms and breasts, with the ankh signs coming out of their nipples, are another representation of Nut. The ochre-colored area around her torso depicts the desert mountains. So what we see here is the sky goddess lifting the sun off the horizon, towards the solar deity in his boat.

Other scenes depict the deceased adoring the stars, receiving cool water and the enlivening rituals that were performed by the members of Iineferty’s family. All these are central themes in the ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife. A special touch here is the introduction of Iineferty’s husband Sennedjem into her funeral rites: in the second vignette from the top on the right, it is Sennedjem who receives his son Ramose’s libation.