Tahai's secret: a closer look at the coffin ensemble of Lady Tahai from the "Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig" in Switzerland

The museum of antiquities in Basel, Switzerland (Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig) houses a coffin ensemble containing a cartonnage case (BSE III 129a; Fig. 1) and an anthropoid wooden coffin (BSE III 129b/c) dating from the 22nd dynasty (c. 940-720 BCE). On the coffin, the name of its owner, Tahai, is inscribed. The intact cartonnage case was x-rayed in the 1970s. This investigation revealed the severely damaged mummy of a woman in her mid- thirties: her hands and feet were cut off and her head is completely missing. But not enough with this mystery - a closer look at the decoration of the cartonnage case inspires more questions about the person it was manufactured for. There are indications that the ensemble was originally manufactured for a different person than it was eventually used for. The brown painted face of the cartonnage case and the representation of the deceased in a kilt rather than a typical female dress suggest that the cartonnage case was either originally manufactured for a male owner or that the distinction between female and male decoration schemes was not considered important anymore. In the present paper, besides looking at the circumstances of other mutilated mummies, the iconographical details of Tahai's cartonnage case that may answer some of the questions raised above are investigated more thoroughly.