Silver Coffin of King Psusennes I
21st Dynasty, Third Intermediate Period (1047–1001 B.C.)
From Tanis

King Psusennes I was buried in this magnificent silver coffin, discovered at Tanis by French archaeologist Pierre Montet on the eve of World War II. Although the find received little attention at the time due to global turmoil, it is considered one of the most significant discoveries in Egyptology—comparable in importance to the tomb of Tutankhamun.

In ancient Egyptian belief, gold was thought to represent the flesh of the gods, while silver symbolized their bones. Although gold was more common in Egypt, silver held greater value since it had to be imported from Western Asia and the Mediterranean.

The lid of this silver anthropoid coffin depicts King Psusennes I as a mummy, with his arms crossed over his chest holding the flail and scepter. A solid gold uraeus, the royal cobra, adorns his forehead as protection. His face is further embellished with a gold band across the brow, and his eyes are inlaid with colored glass paste.

On the chest and abdomen are three winged birds clutching Shen signs, symbols of eternity. The remainder of the lid is decorated with long feathers, while images of the goddesses Isis and Nephthys appear near the feet.

Psusennes’ silver coffin was discovered inside a pink granite coffin, itself enclosed within another massive granite sarcophagus. Remarkably, this outer sarcophagus originally belonged to Pharaoh Merenptah of the 19th Dynasty, the successor of Ramesses II.