The mummy of Isetemkheb D

Owing to its remarkable state of preservation, the mummy (CG 61093, coffins CG 61031) of Isiemkheb D has never been unwrapped. Maspero erroneously reported that the mummy had been plundered in antiquity, an error repeated by Dewachter, likely because of the existence of a heart scarab incorrectly attributed to her and illustrated in G. Zoega’s eighteenth-century work De origine et usu obeliscorum. Daressy also wrongly ascribed this scarab to Isiemkheb-D, but it almost certainly belonged instead to another woman named Isiemkheb, who was the wife of Menkheperra A.

X-rays taken by Harris and Weeks have revealed a small number of items still in situ beneath Isiemkheb D’s Osiris shroud and bandages. Notably, Harris and Weeks mention a small amulet on her neck, another on her right arm, and one on her forehead (cf. the leather amulet thong found on Maatkare’s head). The X-rays also indicate that Isiemkheb D suffered from arthritis in her knees and from dental decay.

She was found within her original double coffin set (CG 61031). Although the outer coffin was intact, the inner coffin and the coffin board were missing their gilded hands and faces. Isiemkheb D was also discovered with a range of grave goods: a leather shrine, a stand with four copper vessels, various provisions, broken shabti boxes, shabtis, an Osiris figure, a papyrus, and canopic jars.

Source Bibliography: ASAE 20 [1920], 17f.; BSFE 74 [1975], 32, n. 31; CCR, 134ff.; DRN, 201, 207, 213, 257; JARCE 16 [1979], 49ff.; MiAE, 78, 91, 132, 175, 231, 242, 316, 330, ills. 138, 430; MR, 577, 584ff.; RM, 106 f., pl. 80; XRA, 3F13-3G8; XRP, 50, 51, 173.

Abbreviations

Original Burial:
Given the numerous grave goods found with Isiemkheb D, as well as the intact condition of her mummy, it is highly likely that DB 320 was her original place of burial. This interpretation is supported by the range of funerary objects discovered with her.

Post-Interment Activity:
Salima Ikram and Aidan Dodson have proposed that Isiemkheb D’s inner coffin and coffin board may have been pilfered by members of Pinedjem II’s burial party, who exploited the occasion of the high priest’s interment in DB 320 to appropriate funerary objects from one of his wives. If this hypothesis is correct, then the looting would have taken place on Year 10, 4 prt 20, the date of Pinedjem II’s funeral, as recorded in the wall docket at the base of DB 320’s shaft entrance.

The individuals who took credit for the burial of the high priest are named in the same inscription: Djedkhonsiufankh, a treasurer (likely linked to the Karnak temple complex); Nespakashuty, a military scribe and necropolis inspector; Pediamun, son of Ankhefenkhons, bearing the title “chief of secrets”; an Amun priest whose partly illegible name includes the three syllables “…enamun”; and a man named Wennefer. All were dignitaries holding the title “God’s father of Amun”. They were accompanied by Bakenmut, a royal scribe from “The Place of Truth” (the Valley of the Kings), and two chief necropolis workmen: Pediamun and Amenmose.

It remains open to question whether these named officials themselves participated in the pillaging, despite the precedent of corrupt or opportunistic necropolis personnel in the late Twentieth Dynasty, or whether the actual thefts were carried out by lower-ranking workers charged with the interment. Conversely, it is also possible that Isiemkheb D’s burial had not yet occurred at the time of Pinedjem II’s interment. Edward Loring suggests that she survived her husband, dating her death to no earlier than Year 13 of Siamun or possibly even under Psusennes I. If Loring’s chronology is correct, then the desecration of Isiemkheb-D’s coffins may have happened years later, potentially at the hands of her own burial party after Pinedjem II had already been laid to rest.

References: DRN, 257; MiAE, 330; TRC, 74.

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/mummypages1/21B.htm

Outer coffin lid Isetemkheb D
Photo: Denver Museum of Nature & Science