Another Queen or a Goddess of magic Egypt!
The name of the Satdjehuti occurs once on the Turin shroud of the “king’s daughter” Ahmose (Turin 63001) from her tomb QV47 in the Valley of the Queens and once with the nickname “Satibu” on her coffin mask (ÄS 7163). On the coffin mask, she is titled as “king’s daughter” and “king’s sister” and on the shroud additionally as “king’s wife”. Both are very likely the same person. (Alfred Grimm, Sylvia Schoske: Im Zeichen des Mondes, 1999, S. 41) de. Wikipedia. org

Sitdjehuti (or Satdjehuti; “Daughter of Thoth“) was a princess and Queen of the late Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt. She was one of the daughters of Pharaoh Senakhtenre Ahmose and Queen Tetisheri. She was the wife of her brother Seqenenre Tao and was the mother of Princess Ahmose. Ahmose is called the King’s Daughter and Queen’s Sister. 

Sitdjehuti’s mummy was discovered around 1820, along with its coffin, golden mask, a heart scarab, and linens donated by her niece Queen Ahmose-Nefertari. The linen is inscribed with the text:

Given in favour of the god’s wife, king’s wife and king’s mother Ahmose Nefertari may she live, so Satdjehuty.

Satdjehuti’s coffin lid is now held in Munich, while her funerary mask is located in the British Museum (EA 29770).

As humans, it is always challenging to illustrate divine beauty. However, the artisans in old Egypt tried to make it possible. Here is another brilliant description by the adorable Dame and friend of mine, Marie Grillot. 🙏💖

The mask of Satdjehuty, a “relative” of Ahmes-Nefertari …

via Egyptophile

This magnificent mummy mask is in the image of Satdjehuty, a lady – or young girl – who lived in Thebes at the beginning of the 18th dynasty. She was from high society, and it could be that she evolved at court, in the close entourage of Queen Ahmes-Nefertari… This would tend to justify the delicate craftsmanship and the richness of this mask which was placed on her mummy…

33 cm high, it is made of cardboard, and its upper part is mainly covered with gold leaf.

The face is perfectly symmetrical with beautiful almond eyes. Surrounded by black, they are extended by a fine make-up line and surmounted by delicate eyebrows that respond to them… The enigmatic and mysterious gaze seems fascinated by the eternity to come…

The nose is nicely shaped, and the mouth with closed lips shows slight dimples at the corners.

The lady wears a heavy wig painted in lapis lazuli blue and streaked with fine vertical gold-coloured lines… A headdress, which resembles a vulture’s skin worn by queens, covers her in an imposing and dazzling decoration of feathers…

The vast and rich usekh necklace that adorns his neck, with its succession of rows of pearls rendered by fine incisions, is also made of gold…

In ancient Egypt, gold was charged with powers: unalterable, it was likened to the flesh of the gods, and it also had to ensure the protection of the deceased.

The lapis lazuli (Khesebedj) to which the wig’s colour is assimilated was reputed to be the stone in which the hair of the gods was made: as a result, it too was adorned with virtues. As for the golden headdress which covers it, it is thus analysed by Edna R. Russmann: “The wings are examples of protective symbolism which, like the feather motifs on many anthropoid coffins of the XVII and early Eighteenth Dynasty, evoke the tutelage of Isis and other deities”. For Nigel Strudwick: “The feather effect of the winged headdress of this mask is perhaps associated with the so-called rishi-type coffin popular in Thebes at the very end of the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the New Kingdom”.

Under the last drop-shaped row of the necklace, the mask panel is rounded and light in colour. In the centre, two columns of hieroglyphs stand out, inscribed in black, mentioning “funerary offerings to Osiris and Anubis”. The name of the deceased, which should have been mentioned below, is unfortunately lost… How then could this mask have been attributed to Satdjehuty? Here is John Taylor’s answer: “The owner’s identity was established from several large pieces of fine linen buried with her. These bear inscriptions in ink, giving her name and the indication that she was ‘a praised’ of Queen Ahmose Nefertari, the wife of King Ahmose I. Satdjehuty may have been a privileged member of the Queen’s entourage and, through this association, may have received the privilege of an exceptionally well-laid-out burial”.

The mask arrived at the British Museum in 1880 by acquisition from Morten & Son along with other pieces of the exact origin. It came from the collection of Samuel Hull of Uxbridge. “The mask, along with other objects, had probably been obtained by Samuel Hull’s brother, John Fowler Hull (1801-1825) when he visited Egypt in 1824 (as noted by fellow traveller John Madox )” specifies the museum where the mask is exhibited under the reference EA29770.

Marie Grillot

sources:

Mummy mask of Satdjehuty https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA29770

Taylor 2010 / Journey through the afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (no. 3) https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BcuOoz_1l5wC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0&fbclid=IwAR3f2tvbs9zHd4ESYP9bpmaVX1qtmp7CwEidSI9gX6DaeEIlQgwyTRQc9gM#v=onepage&q=Satdjehuty%3A&f=false

Russmann, Eternal Egypt (2001): 204-207 No 106`

N. Strudwick, Masterpieces of Ancient Egypt, London 2006, p. 122-3.

N. Strudwick, Pocket Dictionary Ancient Egyptian Mummies, British Museum Press, 2004

Shaw & Nicholson 1995 / British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (p61) https://archive.org/details/THEBRITISHMUSEUMDICTIONARYOFANCIENTEGYPTBYIANSHAWPAULNICHOLSON/page/n59/mode/2up