10 | Pansey's coffin

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CLEO: Ahmose! AHMOSE: Yeah?

CLEO: You have to see this! AHMOSE: What have you found? [flapping] Whoa!

CLEO: It’s a coffin!

AHMOSE: Yeah! CLEO: I haven’t seen a real coffin before.

I thought it would be scary, but this one … it’s beautiful!

AHMOSE: It’s pretty special, isn’t it?

CLEO: Look at all the carvings … the writing … AHMOSE: And the face!

CLEO: With those painted eyes, it’s stunning!

AHMOSE: Ancient Egyptian coffins were often painted with spells,

symbols and images of gods,

so the person inside would be protected in their journey into the afterlife.

CLEO: I can’t stop looking at it, it’s mesmerising! Do you know whose coffin it is?

AHMOSE: I do! It was made for a singer called Panesy,

who used to be in a choir that sang special religious songs

to the god Amun in his temple.

CLEO: I wish I could sing. It just comes out screechy and hissy.

[screeches out of tune]

AHMOSE: You’re alright, Cleo.

But don’t do that again.

CLEO: What do all these symbols and pictures mean?

AHMOSE: We can see Panesy’s father’s name, Pa-di-mut,

and his mother’s name, Djed-mut-es-ankh.

CLEO: Oh wow! It helps me to imagine Panesy as a real person

living in ancient Egypt when I think about him singing and having a mum and a dad.

AHMOSE: I know, he was a real person.

That’s what’s amazing about all these ancient objects in this exhibition.

They were made by real people and used by real people, just like today.

CLEO: Amazing!

AHMOSE: If you get close you can see there are four figures carved into the wood.

These are the sons of the god Horus.

It was their job to protect Panesy’s internal organs, like his lungs or stomach.

There is also a carving of Nut inside the coffin.

CLEO: Nut is a sky goddess, right?

AHMOSE: Yeah, she gave birth to the rising sun and ate the setting sun each day.

This symbolises the idea that when people die, they were reborn.

CLEO: Sounds purrrfect for a coffin.

AHMOSE: Yeah, it does.

Did you know that one of the reasons coffins were made so beautifully

was because ancient Egyptians believed the spirits could return to the body to rest?

CLEO: I guess that’s why they made them so strong, out of wood,

to protect the mummified remains inside.

AHMOSE: That’s right.

CLEO:And it must have been hard to get wood in ancient Egypt, because Egypt is a desert.

AHMOSE: High-quality wood definitely was hard to find, so decorated coffins were expensive.

Local wood from a sycamore fig tree was a good choice, because it could produce long, straight planks.

But they also brought in trees from other parts of the world, like cedar from Lebanon.

CLEO: Does that mean if you couldn’t afford the good wood, your coffin might be made from bendy wood?

AHMOSE: Yeah.

CLEO: Wow.

I could look at this all day. AHMOSE: I know.

CLEO: But, I don’t want to get caught by the security guards.

AHMOSE: Probably not. CLEO: Okay, let’s go.

[flapping, padding footsteps]