Seshepenmehyt: Into the Afterlife

Dates: 15 September 2022 - 7 March 2023

This temporary display focuses on the inner coffin of an Ancient Egyptian Lady known as Seshepenmehyt, on loan from the British Museum.  

Seshepenmehyt lived during Ancient Egypt's Late Period (664-332 BC). The hieroglyphic inscriptions on the coffin give us her name and title: Lady of the House. 

They also tell us that Seshepenmehyt played a musical instrument called a sistrum in the temple of Amun-Ra at Thebes (modern Luxor).

This wonderfully preserved coffin provides a fascinating insight into Ancient Egyptian beliefs surrounding the afterlife and helps us explore some of the themes, gods and goddesses involved with Seshepenmehyt’s journey after her death.

Main image: Inner coffin of Seshepenmehyt, Late Period (around 600 BC), Thebes, Egypt. © 2022 The Trustees of the British Museum.

Baktenhor is on loan to the British Museum

Baktenhor is currently on loan to the British Museum’s exhibition Hieroglyphs: Unlocking Ancient Egypt, which celebrates 200 years since hieroglyphs were deciphered.

Baktenhor’s coffins and mummified remains arrived in Newcastle in 1821, but her identity remained unknown until 1823 when Jean-François Champollion successfully read her inscription.

Baktenhor will return to the Great North Museum: Hancock in spring 2023.

The British Museum's National Programmes

The loan of the inner coffin of Seshepenmehyt is supported by the British Museum’s National Programmes, which aim to highlight key objects in the collection. 

It is one of the many ways the Museum collaborates with organisations across the UK. Through this programme and other touring exhibitions and loans, in 2021/22 the British Museum lent 1,594 objects to 95 venues, reaching three million visitors – one million more than visited the British Museum in the same period.

The programme is supported by the Dorset Foundation in memory of Harry M Weinrebe.