In 1831 a French ship off Egypt in order to carry over to Paris from Luxor obelisk of Ramses II, who was selected for France, Champollion, and formally presented to the French government Pasha. While the team waited at the Luxor, the Nile floods, which would allow to transfer the obelisk on the ship, they decided to explore the neighborhood. Exactly 28 February 1832 at the bottom of a deep shaft to the north of Deir el-Medine was found a magnificent sarcophagus belonged to the last priestess of Amun at Karnak - the "great god's wife" Anhnesneferibra II.
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Together with sarcophagus, obelisk was transported to Paris, where he was in command of the ship ... refused to buy the French government. After a long search, the buyer, in February 1835, the new owners are interested in the sarcophagus of trustees of the British Museum. The decision to purchase was accepted, but postponed at the last moment because of the price, which to many seemed very high. Negotiations were resumed, and rife again and again until April 1836, one of the most active members of the Board of Trustees, Alexander, Duke of Hamilton, was not in Paris and saw firsthand the sarcophagus. In urgent letters sent to London, said of the monument of the greatest artistic value, which was exhibited at the French bid.
Soon after the check from the British Museum went to Paris. A huge box of sarcophagus great priest arrived at the museum in September 1836 and was closed. Inside, was ... completely different, luxurious female anthropomorphic sarcophagus richly covered with ritual texts and images. But it was not Anhnesneferibra II. However, the Duke of Hamilton noted that in the letter, describing what he saw the sarcophagus, he said a word about its original owner. It just struck this monument.
Angered by the board of trustees demanded compensation for the costs or any ways to bring that sarcophagus, referred to in the museum. Hamilton readily compensated for expenses and took it rejected the sarcophagus. Another envoy of the museum in 1837 went to Paris and brought the same one long-awaited sarcophagus "great wife of the god. Since then, he is one of the masterpieces of the Egyptian collection of the museum.
Fate of the first sarcophagus was more than bizarre. According to the will, the Duke of Hamilton, who died in 1852, was ... embalmed in the Egyptian sample and placed in the sarcophagus they had purchased, which was later found in the basement of the mausoleum generic Hamiltonian.
Last refuge of the body was unknown priestess ... enough for the body tall Briton. First, the inner space of an ancient sarcophagus "expanded", and then, after the official funeral ceremony, simply pull up the legs with an ax embalmed Duke, so it will fit inside ...
Alas, the 20-ies of XX century, when the main mausoleum crypt, decorated in the ancient Egyptian force was to sink deep into because of search operations carried out nearby, and was in critical condition, the sarcophagus was dragged along with its new inhabitants, and at the insistence of the local Christian community ... simply buried in the local cemetery. Sarcophagus disappeared, and buckling mausoleum Hamiltonian ... survived ...
On the rare old photographs depicting acquired sarcophagus remained barely perceptible smile on the face of the unknown and the silhouette of the magnificent anthropomorphic sarcophagus, which imitates the body, covered in linen clothes, covered with hundreds of images of spirits of the night and the solar boat, overcoming the space of another world ... Her name is still unknown.
(c) text - Victor Solkin
In pictures: the sarcophagus of an unknown, shot from the archives of the family of Hamilton, a fragment of the sarcophagus lid Anhnesneferibry II, London, British Museum, mausoleum Hamilton Chatelerhaut, Scotland.