40. One of the gallery tombs found near the pyramid of Amenemhat II. They belonged to Itaweret and Sathathormeryt, as published by de Morgan. From de Morgan 1903, fig. 118.
Each princess was placed in a set of three coffins. There was an outer stone sarcophagus and within it a wooden rectangular coffin, partly covered with gold foil. This wooden coffin was simply decorated on the outside with two eyes and gold foil, but without any inscriptions. Only on the inside of the coffin were there long religious texts, some already known from the pyramids of the Old Kingdom and therefore labeled “Pyramid Texts” by Egyptologists. Within this wooden rectangular coffin there must once have been an anthropoid coffin. All traces of any of the anthropoid coffins had already been lost when the burials were excavated, only the gold foil once covering their outsides and the inlaid eyes being preserved. De Morgan failed to recognize these anthropoid coffins, but their presence can be assumed from better preserved parallels and from the description given by de Morgan in the excavation report. Next to each anthropoid coffin was a set of royal symbols and weapons also often connected with royalty.
THE BURIAL OF THE KING’S DAUGHTER ITA
The first gallery excavated by de Morgan’s team was found on 12 February 1895 and belonged to the king’s daughters Ita and Khenmet.
The gallery consisted of a long corridor with the tombs of the women cut underneath. When found, the corridor was completely filled and blocked with stones. The tomb of Ita109 consisted of two chambers, each just over 2 m long and 1 m wide and high. One chamber was fully occupied by the sarcophagus, while the other contained the burial goods. A small entrance, more a hole in the ground than a door, gave access from the corridor to the chamber for the burial goods, which is exactly under the corridor. The chamber for the sarcophagus was next to it and was entered via the roof, where there were the big blocks used to close it. The sarcophagus was most likely already in place when the whole complex was built; perhaps even the middle wooden coffin was placed here before the burial, leaving only Ita’s mummy in her anthropoid coffin to be interred.
As already indicated, Ita’s body was laid to rest in a set of three containers. The first was an outer sarcophagus in the form of a simple rectangular box with a vaulted lid with two raised ends. Then there was a partly gilded middle coffin (Fig. 41) inscribed only on the inside, and finally an innermost anthropoid coffin. The middle coffin was decorated on the outside with wedjat eyes and on the inside with religious texts written only in hieroglyphs in different colors.110 Several of them are spells spoken by Nut and Geb.111 The inner coffin was most likely made of thin wood with a fine plaster skin and overlaid with a substance described as bitumen.112 The head had eyes inlaid with silver and a headdress in blue with golden bands. The breast was decorated with a broad collar, to judge from the beads of the collar described by de Morgan.113
The body of Ita was adorned with an array of jewelry and other objects. She had a richly decorated dagger, which stands as one of the masterpieces of Egyptian metalwork (Fig. 42). Its handle consists of three parts. The pommel (the end of the handle) is crescent-shaped and made of lapis lazuli. The handle proper is covered with thirty rosettes. The lower end of the handle is made of gold and frames the upper end of the blade. The sheath of the dagger was made of some organic material, with only the mouth and lower end made of gold. It was most likely made specifically for the burial. The lower end of the handle was made of gold, a material too weak to support the pressure of the blade when used.114 The dagger was found near a girdle with a silver fastener.115 Daggers with a crescent-shaped pommel are of a type known from the Near East.116
41. The middle coffin of Ita. From de Morgan 1903, fig. 109.
42. The dagger of Ita. From de Morgan 1903, pl. VII.
Around Ita’s neck was a broad collar with round terminals in silver and many beads of semiprecious stones, such as lapis lazuli, carnelian, and turquoise.117 The terminals were simple and undecorated. Ita’s body was adorned with several armlets and bracelets. There was a small figure of a swallow, perhaps once belonging to a girdle and not uncommon in this type of burial. From depictions it is known that such figures were attached to an apron. They also appear in the friezes of early Middle Kingdom coffins and are called zait.118 Under the head of the mummy was a small disk of black earth of unknown function.119 Ita was perhaps also adorned with a royal apron, but the short excavation report is not really conclusive on this point.120 Placed on the left side of Ita were several weapons and royal insignia, including a flail, a mace, and scepters. Again, these objects were only briefly mentioned in the publication.
In the second chamber of the burial further burial goods were found. Under a big plate there was a set of bronze tools (Fig. 43). In the southeastern corner of the chamber was an uninscribed canopic box containing a set of four canopic jars, also uninscribed. The jars have human heads; three are shown with a beard, the fourth without. From the Middle Kingdom onward, canopic jars were placed under the protection of the four children of Horus: Amset, Qebehsenuef, Hapy, and Duamutef. In the Middle Kingdom Amset was a female deity, and therefore the canopic jar under her protection had a head without a beard, while the other three—all male deities—are shown with a short beard.
43. Tools of Ita. From de Morgan 1903, fig. 106.
The burial goods also included a box containing vessels for the “seven sacred oils.”121 In fact, it contained eight vessels, seven for the oils and a further one as some kind of placeholder. The lids of the vessels are inscribed with the names of the oils. The names are “best of ash-oil,”122 “nekhenem-oil,”123 “hekenu-oil,”124 “iber-oil,”125 “best of Tjehenu-oil” (perhaps best translated as “best of Libyan oil”),126 “tuaut-oil,”127 “sefetj-oil,”128 “setji-hab” (“smell of the festival”).129 Only iber-oil does not belong to the classical list of the seven sacred oils. For most of the oils we just know the names and have only vague ideas about the plants or animals they were made from. The ash-oil came from the ash tree, not yet identified with certainty but often identified with the cedar tree. The sefetj-oil also comes from the same ash tree and was often imported from Syria. Hekenu-oil was perhaps made of peppermint and imported into Egypt.130
The seven sacred oils often appear in religious texts such as the Pyramid and the Coffin Texts.131 This does not mean, however, that these texts appear on all coffins. The Coffin Text spell 934 mentioning all oils is attested on only two coffins of the early Middle Kingdom.132 Nevertheless, the seven sacred oils are depicted on a high percentage of Middle Kingdom coffins with an inner decoration, quite often at the head end of the coffin, demonstrating the importance