Detail from the underside of the trough of the plaster-coated and painted wooden anthropoid coffin that belonged to a man named Padiashaikhet. He lived in Thebes during the time of the 25th Dynasty (circa 712-664 BCE) of the Late Period.

Detail from the underside of the trough of the plaster-coated and painted wooden anthropoid coffin that belonged to a man named Padiashaikhet. He lived in Thebes during the time of the 25th Dynasty (circa 712-664 BCE) of the Late Period.

We see a beautifully painted depiction of Imentet (or Amentet), Goddess of the West, the personification of the necropolises west of the Nile, which are the realm of the dead. She wears a halter gown and a distinctive headdress, a variant of the Emblem of the West.

Imentet is surrounded by text from Spell 89 of the Book of the Dead. The purpose of this spell was to ensure the reunion of the deceased with his/her 'ba', or spiritual essence, every night in the 'Duat' (Underworld).

This coffin (NMR.28.1-3) is now in the Chau Chak Wing Museum, the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.