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Cartonnage Mask
Cartonnage mask of a man called Tjay with painted facial details including broad eyebrows, eyes, beard and moustache. The mask is made from a layer of white calcite paste covered with scraps of linen impregnated with plant gum. A final paste layer was applied over this, and the ears were modelled in paste. The yellow flesh is painted with an arsenic pigment, probably orpiment. The corners of the eyes are painted with red earth and the cosmetic lines with Egyptian blue.
This mask was lying over the face of Tjay’s mummy, found undisturbed in his coffin in tomb 275 at Beni Hasan. By the end of the First Intermediate Period (about 2010 BC), the ideal form of the dead, known as ‘sah’ in ancient Egyptian, was a mummy wrapped in white linen with a mask covering his face.
Height: 27.5 cm
Width: 19 cm
Method of acquisition: Given (1903) by The Beni Hasan Excavation Committee
Eleventh Dynasty
Middle Kingdom
-2055
BCE
-
-1985
BCE
Cartonnage : Painted
Accession number: E.198.1903
Primary reference Number: 50810
Oldadmincategory: Misc
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Antiquities
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
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IIIF Manifest
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Cartonnage Mask" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/50810 Accessed: 2024-11-21 23:16:59
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/50810
|title=Cartonnage Mask
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-21 23:16:59|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/ant/ant48/E_198_1903_1_201507_adn21_dc2.jpg"
alt="Cartonnage Mask"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Cartonnage Mask</figcaption>
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</div>
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