By Jacqueline Engel
Ankhet’s sarcophagus is decorated with images and texts that will allow her to breathe again in the afterlife.
The human headed bird across her chest is Ankhet’s ba, or soul, which travels between the worlds of the living and the dead.
It grasps symbols of eternal life, such as masts and sails representing wind and air, and the ankh-sign representing life.
Book of the Dead spell 191, inscribed in hieroglyphs, describes bringing the ba removing the shades.
Below, the four winds are depicted as ram-headed creatures bringing life-giving air from all directions. Underneath, the god of the afterlife, Osiris, reclines on a bed and the sun god Ra is barn from a lotus flower, flanked by three gods holding a mast.
Ptolemaic, 150-100 BC,
Saqqara,
Limestone, JE 4739
Text and location Egyptian Museum Cairo
LA CIVILTA' EGIZIA 