Sculpture of Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris

Mummiform sculpture of Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris in a tight black tunic with two feathers, a solar disc and ram’s horns on his head. He is wearing a tripartite wig and a large, rich usekh collar round his neck, trimmed with falcon heads on each shoulder. He stands on a rectangular pedestal decorated with geometric motifs reminiscent of false doors. In the middle of the stand is hole for storing bandages or papyri inscribed with texts from the Book of Coming Forth by Day, also called the Book of the Dead, covered by a falcon with a solar disc above its head. The image has two vertical hieroglyphic inscriptions, one on the front and the other on the back. The first refers to the deity Osiris, the god of the West and the lord of Abydos, while the second mentions Osiris and the name of the dead woman, Tchaihathorrimu.
This figure, which personifies the resurrection of Osiris, was increasingly venerated in Egypt’s Late and Ptolemaic periods and regularly appeared among the grave goods of the deceased. The union of these three gods embodies funerary, creative and fertility functions.
The piece was in the collection of Eduardo Toda i Güell, who acquired it while serving as vice-consul of Spain in Cairo from 1884 to 1886 and sold it to the Spanish government in 1887, when it was delivered to the museum.