Fragmentary coffin face of Sitdjehuti

This fragmentary face of Queen Sitdjehuti is the upper part of her coffin, which was made of gold-plated sycamore wood and stucco. Sitdjehuti was a princess and queen of Egypt 3,500 years ago.

Sitdjehuti was the daughter of King Senakhtenre Ahmose and Queen Tetisheri. She was the wife of her brother Seqenenre Tao and was the mother of Princess Ahmose.

Sitdjehuti’s titles include King’s Wife, King’s Sister, and King’s Daughter. Sitdjehuti’s mummy was discovered about 1820, along with its coffin, golden mask, a heart scarab, and linens donated by her niece, Queen Ahmose Nefertari.

The wings are examples of protective symbolism that, like the feather patterns on many anthropoid coffins of the 17th and early 18th Dynasties, evokes the guardianship of Isis and other deities.

In the language of the ancient Egyptians, a coffin is called “suhet,” which means “egg.” This is because they believed that within it, much like in an amniotic sac, the gestation of the deceased’s new immortal form is completed.

The linen is inscribed with the text:

“Given in the favor of the god’s wife, king’s wife and king’s mother Ahmose Nefertari may she live, so Sitdjehuti.”

Sitdjehuti’s coffin lid is now held at Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst in Munich (ÄS 7163) while her funerary mask is located in the British Museum, London. (EA 29770)

When her husband Seqenenre Tao ruled over the last of the local kingdoms of the Theban region of Egypt in the 17th Dynasty, he started the opening moves in a war against Hyksos incursions into Egypt.

In a reversal of territorial losses incurred previously, the country was liberated entirely during the reign of his son Ahmose I.