Item X 83758 Human remains, mummified. Sheikh Farag, South, Egypt. c.1956 to 1870 BC

Summary

Mummy and sarcophagus of Tjeby the Elder who lived from around 1956 BC to 1870 BC. The body is wrapped in linen and the sarcophagus is coated with mud and plaster. It arrived in Melbourne in 1925 after having been donated by Alan Rowe in 1923. Tjeby was discovered in the cemetery of Sheikh Farag in southern Egypt in a small undecorated tomb. The body was wrapped in linen, his chest covered with plaster painted with a floral collar, and his head covered with mud modelled to show his facial features and the wig he would have worn during life. Tjeby lived during the second part of the twentieth century BC to the early part of the nineteenth century BC. He is the oldest ancient Egyptian in Australia.

Physical Description

A mummified body wrapped in linen and wearing a cartonnage chest covering which carries polychrome, floral decoration inside a wooden sarcophagus. The wooden lid is separate. Coffin is made of acacia, it is covered with a thin layer of gesso plaster and coloured yellow. There is a single band of inscription on each side and down the centre of the lid; the latter is now barely legible. The hieroglyphic inscription is in polychrome.