Fig 19. CofFn (above) and detail of head (right) of Neskashuti. 25th Dynasty, c. 767-656 EC. Painted wood, gesso and linen. H. 189 cm. MCCM 1999.001.009 a-b. This coffin had been smashed into fragments during the many moves made by the Niagara Falls Museum in the last century. It was painstakingly conserved at the Carlos Museum with the help of Egyptian conservator Abdel Rahman elberogy, who was kindly supplied to the Museum' through a grant from the American Research Center in Egypt, now headquartered at Emory. The coffin was made for a man named Neskashuti, a priest and overseer of singers in the temple of Min at Thebes.

Fig 20. Bead-net face. Faience. Late Period, 664-332 BC. H. 18.2 cm. MCCM 2000.13.1. A feature of Late Period burials is the covering of the mummy with a network composed of faience beads. This Brst appears in the Third Intermediate Period, although beadwork garments are known for burials of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. The bead-networks of the Late Period are thought to derive from the costumes worn by goddesses, although they are found on mummies of both sexes. When they initially appeared, they were a simple covering over the body with winged scarabs and images of the Four Sons of Horus worked in. By the Late Period they had incorporated occasional bands of text and a face mask, all executed in painstaking patterns of tiny coloured faience beads.

Fig 25 (right). Mummy with cartonnage trappings. Late Ftolemaic period, 167-30 BC. Human remains, linen, cartonnage, pigment,
silt. H. 170 cm. MCCM 1921.6. The start of the Ptolemaic period witnessed a change in both the form and decoration of funerary
equipment. Production of decorated anthropoid coffins declined even as the wrapping and embellishment of mummies became
increasingly elaborate. Over the wrappings were placed appliques or trappings made of cartonnage, consisting of layers of linen
soaked with an adhesive and thinly coated with plaster. Cartonnage was an inexpensive, easily manufactured alternative to wood. The mummy shown here, that of a middle-aged man, wears a mask with gilded face, identifying him with the sun god. The chest is covered by one panel in the shape of a broad collar and another depicting a winged scarab and Nut, thegoddess of the sky, who spreads her wings protectively across the body. The plaque atop the legs shows the mummy resting on a lion bed, with thegoddesses Isis and Nephthys mourning at either end, just as they did for their brother, Osiris, god of the dead. The foot case is adored with figures of Anubis, the patron of embalming, in the form of a reclining jackel. Rows of uraei crowned with solar disks appear in place of the toes.