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Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) · funerary_equipment

Coffin of Wenuhotep

Source of record: Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano

Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

Painted wooden Egyptian coffin (mummy-box style) with polychrome decoration and a human-head section at the left.

The image shows a long, low coffin with a distinct head-end on the left and the foot-end on the right. The surface is painted in multiple colors (predominantly red-brown, yellow/orange, blue/green tones, and black outlining) with bands of patterned ornament running along the length. Several rows of hieroglyph-like decorative signs and stripes frame rectangular compartments, though the individual signs are not clear enough to confidently transcribe. At the head-end, there are features consistent with a stylized face or headrest area, with a red-toned mask-like region and additional painted details. No clearly legible cartouche or royal name is visible at this resolution. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is present. The object is consistent in general form with the catalogue classification as a coffin and its stated materials (wood plus pigment; textile elements are not distinctly visible in the image).

funerary unknown good
Materials Wood (coffin body)Pigment/paint (polychrome decoration)Textile (not clearly visible; only implied by catalogue)
Signs hieroglyph-like decorative bands (illegible) ×25

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1

English description

The registers following represent: 1.) The deceased before Osiris and Isis. Columns of writing which separate the Horus-sons at the ends read, "Utterance by Osiris the august house-mistress Wenuhotep, deceased, daughter of the priest...Thothhirthaw. " 2.) The deceased on a lion bier (note the lion's head, tail, and legs). Above is the winged sun disk, emblem of Horus of Edfu, the hawk god who appears at each end of the band. Below are grouped the four canopic jars. The inscriptions which begin here are continued farther down, after skipping the next register. That at the mummy's left prays for a royal offering of Osiris, presided over the West, the great god, lord of Abydos; may he give an offering. As space gave out here, the text breaks off abruptly witout the usual detailed list of wants. At the right Wenuhotep's mother is named: Her mother, the house-mistress Bast [ ], deceased, revered in the presence of the great god, the lord of the sky. 3.) The sun god in his barque, worshiped at either side by an ape.

Cross-references (1)

  • ARTIC-id 135127 tier-2

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About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian).
  • AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
  • Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
  • Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.