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Rare Egyptian coffin is discovered in English museum

Rare Egyptian coffin is discovered in English museum

A RARE Egyptian coffin has been found on display at a museum in England.

The coffin, which contains the mummified remains a young boy, is the centrepiece of an Egyptian exhibition at Torquay Museum.

The sarcophagus had been donated to the museum in the 1950s and had been kept in storage for many years until the Egyptian exhibition was established in 2007.

But its rarity was not recognised until an expert visited the museum as part of his work in cataloguing Egyptian artefacts across the country.

As soon as Dr. Aidan Dodson saw the coffin he realised it was special.

He soon established that it was a rare 3,500-year-old sarcophagus.

Dr. Dodson said: “It’s very significant as very few coffins of that period survive.”

Officials at the museum had until then believed the artefact was around 200-years-old.

The coffin, which is highly decorated and is made from a single log of cedar, is thought to pre-date the remains it contains by 1,000 years.

But this finding is not that unusual as it was not uncommon in ancient Egypt for coffins to be reused.

The coffin had been donated to the museum by Lady Winnaretta Leeds, the daughter of sewing machine heir Paris Singer. She had purchased the artefact during visit to Egypt in the 1920s.

 

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