The mummy of Masaharta

Masaharta’s mummy (CG 61092, coffins CG 61027)was unwrapped by Gaston Maspero on 30 June 1886. The mummy is notable for its unusually rotund appearance, which may have been exaggerated by the expansion of embalming materials such as sawdust, resin, and linen strips packed beneath the skin. G. Elliot Smith described Masaharta’s mummy as having a “grotesque, orangutan-like appearance.”

The face was painted with red ochre, similar to the colouring used for men in ancient Egyptian wall paintings. Smith also observed that, due to Masaharta’s corpulence, the hands, positioned to cover the pubic region, did not reach far enough, and noted that the embalming incision was made parallel to Poupart’s ligament rather than higher up the abdomen, apparently to accommodate the body’s size.

The mummy had been disturbed by the Abd el-Rassul family, who stole a papyrus from it, but otherwise appears intact. There are impressions of a pectoral ornament in the hardened resins on the chest. Reeves refers to the presence of a kind of “brace”, likely a stucco-covered pole inserted during mummification to aid support, distinct from ordinary linen strips used to secure the shroud. A single gold finger stall remains on the middle finger of Masaharta’s right hand.

Masaharta was found in his original set of coffins (CG 61027). The outer coffin was missing its gilded right hand, while both gilded hands and faces were missing from the inner coffin and coffin board. Remains of what might have been a leather shrine were also discovered with the burial.

Source Bibliography: DRN, 201, 207, 213, 267-n. 313; EM, 118; MiAE, 132, 162, 242, 329, ill. 186; MR, 571; RM, 106.

Abbreviations

Original Burial: Unknown.
Reburial: In DB 320 (in end chamber “F”). Reeves conjectures that Masaharta’s mummy was placed in DB 320 before year 11 of Shoshenq I., the time at which which the Inhapi group of mummies was transferred to this tomb. Since his mummy was plundered, unlike the mummies of the Pinudjem II group, Reeves thinks it unlikely that DB 320 was the original burial place of Masaharta, DRN, 256.

Source 2025-07: Edited from a now-defunct page of The Theban Royal Mummy Project via Wayback Machine
Source url: https://members.tripod.com/anubis4_2000/mummypages1/21A.htm

Mummy Masaharta
Mummification Museum, Luxor
Photo: VB 2017

Interior coffin and mummy Masaharta
Mummification Museum JE 26195, Luxor
Photo: VB 2017