The Secrets of Tomb 10A
Egypt 2000 BC Published by MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Text by Rita E. Freed, Lawrence M. Berman, Denise M. Doxey, Nicholas Picardo. In 1915, a team of American archaeologists in Bersha, Egypt, blasted through solid rock to reach a tomb later to be designated as "10A." Inside this tomb they found a mummy, an exquisitely-painted coffin and arguably the largest assemblage of burial artifacts ever discovered from the Middle Kingdom. Because of the delicate power balance between the king and local bureaucrats, the Middle Kingdom (the least known of the three ancient Egyptian kingdoms) was a time of unprecedented splendor, as regional potentates were lavished with rewards and buried in a style normally reserved for royalty. Tomb 10A was prepared for one such potentate, Governor Djehutynakht, and its treasures--which survived World War I, a ship's fire and nearly a century of basement storage--include jewelry, walking sticks, a phenomenally large collection of model boats, architectural miniatures and even the severed (but nicely painted) head of Djehutynakht himself. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Secrets of Tomb 10A tells the story and introduces the full breadth and meaning of these treasures for the first time. With more than 160 illustrations, it discusses the history, political intrigue and development of fine works of art for both royalty and commoners at a time characterized by widespread prosperity and intense artistic flourishing.
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