This dazzling yellow and red coloured room contains one single, striking item: a vibrantly decorated wooden outer coffin. The walls and curved roof of the room (which is about the same size and appearance as the real tomb) are decorated in vivid yellow, white and terracotta panels covered in hieroglyphs and scenes from the Book of the Dead.
The outer coffin, encased within a glass cabinet, belonged to Egyptian artisan Sennedjem. It’s two and a half metres long and 90 centimetres wide; its lid is at eye level as you stand before it. The coffin’s exterior is covered with densely inscribed funerary texts, spells and illustrations with magical power. These are placed in hundreds of vertically gridded segments, a vast array of tiny black painted moons, bowls, eyes, ibis birds, snakes and geometric shapes. These exquisite and lively paintings tell the story of Sennedjem’s journey through the underworld in order to reach the afterlife and contain spells and information that will ensure his journey is successful.
Amongst the hundreds of small black painted hieroglyphs are 10 larger painted vignettes showing the pleasures of Sennedjem’s life. Vignettes depict Sennedjem praying to cattle, carrying a small cross and playing a board game called senet with his wife Lyneferti. An ever-present eye is incorporated in a lot of the vignettes. The ends of the coffin are also covered in small hieroglyphics which surround two gods standing facing outwards from each other, their height spanning almost the full height of the coffin.
The ornate decoration continues to the coffin’s upper edge, where it is finished with a fluted cornice. The whole coffin sits on timber sledge used to drag it across the sand to the artist’s tomb.
Sennedjem was an exceptional artist, and he knew about tomb decorations. He worked on the tombs of Ramses the Great and Seti I, Ramses’ father. If he did not paint his own coffin, he employed his most talented colleagues to do so.