The Burial Chamber. In the tomb of Ihe

The Nile: Egypt and NubiaSalto de línea

In Egypt, death was considered a transit point in the journey to the afterlife, where the deceased would become one with Osiris and continue to live for eternity if certain requirements were met: to preserve the corpse, to possess a tomb and to receive the customary funerary rituals. The Egyptians built the necropolis in the West, where the sun set every night. The tomb consisted of two rooms: a chapel open to the public, where the funeral rituals were carriedy out, and an underground chamber, inaccessible and separated from the previous one by a well, where the coffin with the mummy of the deceased was placed, surrounded by the objects that formed the trousseau.

The recreation of this burial chamber, made with original objects but of different period and origin, reproduces what could have been the chamber of a tomb of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties (1076 - 800 BC). The richly decorated coffin belongs to a singer in the house of Amun called Ihé. She is accompanied in her last dwelling by the canopic jars that would contain its mummified internal organs and whose lids show the Four Sons of Horus: Imsety, with human head; Duamutef, with jackal head; Qebehsenuef with hawk head and Hapy, with cinocephalic head. Numerous shabtis, figurines kept in a large box, which acted as substitutes for the deceased in the afterlife and were destined to work in the fields of Osiris, and various objects of everyday life such as jewels or perfumes, that Ihé might need in his new life surround the deceased.