NEW YORK.- The leading lot in Christie’s sale of Antiquities, to take place on December 7, is an Egyptian painted wood sarcophagus and mummy for Neskhons, Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty XXI, circa 990 – 940 B.C. (estimate on request). Sarcophagi of this quality rarely appear on the market and Christie’s is delighted to offer this exquisite consignment. The last time a mummy with sarcophagus was sold at auction was in May 2003, when Christie’s South Kensington sold the sarcophagus and mummy of a priest of Amun for $1.4 million which still stands as the world auction record for a sarcophagus and mummy.

“This is the finest quality sarcophagus to have come to the market in the past two decades,” says G. Max Bernheimer, International Head of the Antiquities department. “The fact that it still contains its mummy and that it comes with an impeccable provenance having been in the United States since the turn of the last century, makes it all the more exceptional.”

The death of many high-ranking or aristocratic Egyptians would have been lost to history but for the fact that they occurred in a time and a place where extensive efforts were made to assure a continuation of life for all eternity. The present mummy and superbly decorated sarcophagus are those of Neskhons, a Stolist – one who performs a ritual for anointing, clothing and otherwise potentiating the cult-image of the god in his Temple – who passed away due to unknown causes while in his twenties. His body was embalmed and the separately embalmed internal organs were replaced inside the body in wrapped bundles together with amulets. The body was expertly wrapped in good quality linen with amulets and placed inside a coffin of sycamore fig wood. The sarcophagus had been gessoed and extensively inscribed in hieroglyphs revealing the mummy’s identity. Neskhons’ burial took place during the Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty XXI, circa 990 – 940 B.C.

In the winter of 1900 when Liberty E. Holden of Cleveland, Ohio, publisher of The Plain Dealer, was on the obligatory trip up the Nile, he learned that the dealer Sheik Mahmud Hassan had discovered a cache of four mummies. He purchased the sarcophagus and mummy for Neskhons and sent the still-sealed coffin to Cairo for export clearance by the Egyptian Museum officials. From Cairo it was shipped to Cleveland, where it was donated to the Western Reserve Historical Society. With his name still known and uttered, even 3000 years after his death, Neskhons seems to have achieved his ultimate quest for immortality.

Auction: Antiquities December 7 at 10 AM and 2 PM. Viewing: Christie’s Galleries at Rockefeller Center December 2 – 6.