PARIS – A rare ancient Egyptian burial cloth more than 3000 years old is to go under the hammer today in Paris, an exceptional sale of an artefact usually found only in museum collections.
The small square of vividly painted fabric is among roughly 20 known to exist in the world, the majority of which are on display at museums like the Louvre and the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
According to Piasa, the auction house hosting the sale, it is difficult to set a price estimate, given the unique nature of the item.
The 29-by-21 centimetre (11-by-8 inch) shroud, which would have been placed on the deceased’s sarcophagus, bears the likeness of a man named “Ta-nedjem” or “Gentle Land”, who died some 3400 years ago and who is unknown to researchers.
Its path to the auction block is remarkable, passing through the hands of an American billionaire, his unhappy wife and finally his mistress.
The final step toward auction came when Piasa’s director Henri-Pierre Teissedre found the cloth while doing an inventory of the home of respected French writer and publisher Jeanne Loviton, who died in 1996 after leading a life that could have been torn from a novel.
