Mummified Human Remains of a Woman Inside a Painted Cartonnage
Description
<p>Mummification preserved mortal remains in order to house the Ka, or life force of the individual, as it needed to return to the body to find sustenance. The human-shaped covering, called "cartonnage," is composed of layers of linen and plaster. Its painted decoration includes the floral wreath on the wig, a broad collar, and a winged scarab beetle. Five additional registers of decoration show the protective four sons of Horus, the sacred boat of the funerary-deity Sokar, a depiction of Osiris mummified on a funerary bed, a divine falcon god, and a short hieroglyphic text with an offering formula.See the additional media for a facial reconstruction of the deceased person, courtesy of Michael Brassell, as well as a color reconstruction of the cartonnage.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/79.1' rel='external'>Mummified Human Remains of a Woman Inside a Painted Cartonnage</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>
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.
The image shows a tall painted cartonnage-covered mummy or mummy fragment, with a stylized human head and extensive painted textiles-like bands and scenes.
A human head is rendered in painted cartonnage: a light-toned face with black eyebrows and kohl-lined eyes, a painted wig or head covering, and a painted collar and pleated/striped garments. Across the body are multiple horizontal registers with striped bands and depicted figures/objects in red, blue, and black. The lower portion is broken or heavily worn at the base. The overall presentation matches a mummified human figure enclosed in painted cartonnage (outer coffin-like wrapping). No clearly legible hieroglyphic text is visible at this resolution; the imagery appears dominated by figure registers rather than inscriptions. No cartouches or royal names are clearly identifiable. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible. The visible palette and painted surface indicate cartonnage with polychrome paint.
Inscriptions (1)
English description
Cross-references (2)
- Walters-AccNum 79.1 tier-2
- Walters-id 492 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (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.