Sennefer (Deir el-Medina)

Sennefer depicted receiving offerings in a painted scene found atop his shrouded coffin

Sennefer was an Ancient Egyptian official with the title "servant in the Place of Truth" at the end of the 18th Dynasty. He is mainly known due to his unlooted burial found in 1928 by excavations under Bernard Bruyère at Deir el-Medina.[1] The burial chamber of Sennefer was found within the tomb of the servant at the place of truth Hormes (tomb no. 1159a). The small chamber contained the inscribed coffins of Sennefer[2] and his wife Nefertiti. Both were found wrapped in linen. Sennefer was also adorned with a mummy mask. He had a heart scarab and was adorned with a pectoral.[3] On his coffin was placed a painted piece of cloth, showing Sennefer before an offering table.[4] Furthermore, the burial contained different types of furniture, including a bed, a box, a head rest and several pottery as well as stone vessels. The burial of a child in an undecorated box was found, too.[5] Two shabti figures are datable by style to the end of the 18th Dynasty.[6]

  1. ^ Bernard Bruyère, Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir El Médineh (1928), Cairo 1929, p. 42. online
  2. ^ The coffin of Sennefer is today in the Louvre E 14026, compareː Lisa Sartini: The black coffins with yellow decoration: a typological and chronological study, in Egitto e Vicino Oriente, XXXVIII (2015), p. 63, no. 33
  3. ^ Bruyère, Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir El Médineh (1928), 58-60, pls. V, VII.
  4. ^ Bruyère, Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir El Médineh (1928), 47-48, pl. III.
  5. ^ Bruyère, Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir El Médineh (1928), pl. X
  6. ^ Bruyère, Rapport sur les fouilles de Deir El Médineh (1928), 69-71, pls. IX-XII.