In the "Swiss Coffin Project Publications" series, some of the coffin sets will be presented individually in a volume of their own, such as the ensemble of the priest's daughter Shepeniset in the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen (Abbey Library of St. Gallen) and the burial equipment of the priest Nesshu in the Musée d'Yverdon et région. The cartonnage coffin of Tasheritenimen with its complex biography will also be given a separate volume.

Some unresolved issues regarding the decoration

The extremely fragile coffin was photographed in detail for the first time in 2005 by the Swiss Coffin Project for the publication “Unter dem Schutz der Himmelsgöttin” ("Under the Protection of the Sky Goddess", 2007). Even then, numerous questions arose regarding its dating, which were addressed in the chapter “Eine rätselhafte Bestattung” ("A mysterious burial") by my colleague Renate Siegmann. The lower part of the cartonnage coffin can be dated to the early 25th Dynasty (2nd half of the 8th century BC) on the basis of stylistic and iconographic features; the head end, however, points to the Roman Period (1st century AD).

The coffin was acquired together with a mummified person around 1887 by the Italian hotelier Zaccaria Zanoli, presumably in Cairo. In 1912, Zanoli had the cartonnage cut open in the garden of his villa above Lago Maggiore so that his guests could see the "mummy". The coffin and mummified person were later exhibited in a small museum in the Palazzo Municipale in Brissago and then stored in the attic of the town hall. Since 2022, they have been part of the collection of the "Kulturama – Museum des Menschen” (Kulturama – Museum of Human Evolution”) in Zurich.

The cartonnage coffin of Tasheritenimen is currently being examined and studied in the interdisciplinary research project "DoA – Daughter of Amun" under the direction of the Haute-école de conservation-restauration Neuchâtel and with the collaboration of the Swiss Coffin Project (the conservation of the bandages of the mummified person were completed in 2022).

Traces of a modern makeover

I recently met with Marine Roux at the Haute-école Neuchâtel, who is working on the conservation of the coffin as part of her master's thesis, and we discussed the latest findings on the cartonnage. Scans carried out in spring 2024 confirm the assumption that the upper part of the coffin was reassembled in modern times and combined with the lower, older part from the 25th Dynasty. This was probably done in the 1880s with the intention of giving the coffin an intact appearance and thus making it easier to sell. Fragments of other cartonnages were also reused. For example, the face part dating to the Roman Period (with traces of gilding and the earring and necklace worked in stucco relief) seems to have been inserted.

Preliminary examinations of colour pigments also revealed that Egyptian blue, a pigment artificially produced in antiquity, was used in the lower, oldest part of the cartonnage. Berlin blue, on the other hand, was found on the wig. Although the results available so far do not allow a final conclusion to be drawn, they suggest that the head end was - at least partially – repainted in modern times. The decoration on the middle part of the coffin, which is painted with awkward and bizarre-looking figures, is also likely to be of modern origin.

The examination of the various cartonnage layers and the results of systematic pigment analyses will provide further information on the history of the coffin. Together with research into the provenance and circumstances of acquisition, the mysteries surrounding the coffin of Tasheritenimen will gradually be unravelled.