Volume 5 (2022)

First page of the paper.

Papers presented at the third international conference of the Hellenic Institute of Egyptology

The Burial Assemblage of Nesimūt (Bāb ᾿el-Gusūs, Set A.48): Usurpation or Adaptation?

Tarasenko, Mykola

Abstract:

The funerary assemblage of Nesimūt, an Egyptian priestess of the 21st Dynasty is discussed in this paper. The burial of Nesimūt was discovered in 1891 in the so–called «Second Cache» at Deir ᾽el-Bahri, also known as Bāb ᾽el-Gusūs (Set A.48, after G. DARESSY). The analysis of the funerary goods shows that accordingly, there were two Nesimūts, whose objects were discovered in Bāb ᾽el-Gusūs. The burial of Nesimūt II corresponds to the Set of A.48 by Daressy and is linked to a coffin case from the Odesa Archaeological Museum of the NAS in Ukraine (OAM: Inv. No. 71695). Separate objects from Nesimūt I’s grave goods were adapted for later buri¬als: the lid of her inner coffin was used for the Odesa coffin of Nesimūt II (OAM 71695), and the lid of the outer co-ffin might have been adapted for an anonymous burial from Bāb ᾽el-Gusūs Set A.54 (Swiss Lot IX, Neuchâtel, Musée d’Ethnographie: Inv. № EG. 184), on which the name «Nesimūt» was preserved in one segment of the lid. The burial of Nesimūt was also equipped with two different types of shabtis. It is possible that, like the lid of the coffin, part of the shabtis was «usurped» by Nesimūt II but previously belonged to the burial of her namesake and probably relative, Nesimūt I. It is quite possible, that they were reused and adopted for the burial of a new owner, together with the shabti‒box, since both of them were found in the Set A.48. This may prove that during the 21st Dynasty, not only large objects, but also small items of grave goods could be reused.

Citation:

Tarasenko, M. 2022. «The Burial Assemblage of Nesimūt (Bāb ᾿el-Gusūs, Set A.48): Usurpation or Adaptation?», JHIE 5: 155–162

DOI:

10.5281/zenodo.7755338

Language: en

Submitted on 2022-07-20; accepted on 2022-12-20

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