A museum thought this coffin was empty … but inside was a 2,500-year-old Egyptian mummy
Australian academics could help unlock mysteries around ancient Egypt after discovering that a 2,500-year old coffin might contain the remains of a prestigious mummy
For decades, the coffin was relegated to an acrylic display case in a classroom used for workshops and field trips at the Nicholson Museum in Sydney.
The outside the sarcophagus was intriguing enough: the face of a woman at rest was carved into the dark wood.
Hieroglyphs indicated its occupant was a high priestess from the temple of the goddess Sekhmet.
The coffin, from 600BC, had been bought by Sir Charles Nicholson from an Egyptian antiquities market in 1857 or 1858, records said.
It was among the hundreds of items Nicholson had bequeathed to the University of Sydney to launch the museum that would bear his name.
But according to museum records, the sarcophagus was empty – or contained debris, at best – and so, year after year, it remained out of public view, compared to the more prominently displayed Egyptian pieces in the rest of the Nicholson’s collection.
