Coffin of King Sekhemre-Wepmaat Intef
Unknown · Reign of Sekhemre-Wepmaat Intef, c. 1590-1580 BC (Seventeenth Dynasty)
A gilded king lies before you, two metres long, wrapped in the feathered mantle that gives coffins of this type their name: rishi, the Arabic word for feathers. The face wears the striped nemes headcloth with a cobra at the brow, a broad collar spreads across the chest, and the eyes are inlaid with pale stone and dark glass so that they catch the light. The chin once carried a false beard, now lost. Under the feet the vulture goddess Nekhbet spreads her wings, and two goddesses kneel on either side in adoration. The painted box beneath the lid carries an offering formula and the king's birth name.
Sekhemre-Wepmaat Intef ruled at Thebes around 1590 BC, during the troubled Seventeenth Dynasty, when the north of Egypt was held by the Hyksos. His tomb lay in the cliffs of Dra Abu el-Naga on the west bank of Thebes. Auguste Mariette bought the coffin from a dealer in 1853, and it entered the Louvre in December 1854. Beside it lies the coffin of another Intef of the same family, so the crypt reunites two brothers of the dynasty that would soon drive out the Hyksos.
Did You Know? The lid tells us who paid for it: an inscription says the coffin was made for the king by his brother, the next king, Nubkheperre Intef.
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