THE JOURNAL OF

Egyptian
Archaeology
VOLUME 94
2008
PUBLISHED BY
THE EgYPT ExPLORATION SOcIETY
3 DOUgHTY MEwS, LONDON wc1N 2Pg
ISSN 03075133
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The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 94 (2008), 10738
ISSN 0307-5133
THE COFFINS OF IYHAT AND TAIRY:
A TALE OF TWO CITIES *
By AidAn dodson
The publication of two cofns presently in the City Museum and Art Gallery in Plymouth, England.
Dating to the Twenty-ffth Dynasty, they are interesting examples of inner cofns of their period,
that of Tairy having an unusual arm arrangement. They also have an intriguing modern history, and
an attempt is made to trace them from their frst appearance at the Bristol Institution (ancestor of
the modern City Museum & Art Gallery) in 1834, through the Bristolian private collection of mid-
nineteenth century collector and traveller Thomas Pease (18161884), to their arrival in Plymouth
in 1919.
The origins of what is now Bristols Museums, Galleries & Archives
1
lie in the
foundation, in 1823, of the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science and
Art, sharing brand-new premises at the bottom of Park Street (fg. 1) with the slightly
older Bristol Literary and Philosophical Society. The building was designed by Sir
Charles Cockerell (17881863), who was later to complete the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, and to build St Georges Hall, Liverpool.
In April 1871, the Institution merged with the Bristol Library Society, and in
1872 moved to a new building at the top of Park Street, which was extended in 1877
(fg. 2). In 1894, the Museum and Library, struggling fnancially, were transferred
to Bristol Corporation. In 1906, the Library moved to its current home on College
Green, while in 1899 the tobacco baron Sir William Henry Wills (18301911, later
Lord Winterstoke) ofered to fund a new City Art Gallery & Museum of Antiquities,
which was built adjacent to the 1872 Museum building, and opened in February
1905. The Egyptian collection was moved into the new structure, and has remained
there ever since.
*
For their invaluable assistance in the preparation of this paper, I am particularly indebted to Sue Giles,
Curator of Ethnography and Foreign Archaeology, Bristols City Museum and Art Gallery (BCMAG), Rachel
Smith, Assistant Keeper of Human History at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, and John Taylor of the
British Museum. In particular, Ms Giles and Dr Taylor have facilitated access to earlier research material relat-
ing to the topic, including investigations by Nick Dixon of BCMAG on behalf of Dr Taylor in 1985. Thanks
are also due to Sally-Ann Ashton of the Fitzwilliam Museum; Amber Druce and Samantha Hallett of BCMAG;
Christopher Denman of the Society of Friends Redland Meeting; Dyan Hilton; Christine Hughes of the Sisters
of Nazareth General Archive; Margaret McGregor, Archivist at Bristol Record Ofce; Brenda Moon; Chris
Naunton of the Egypt Exploration Society; Gurney Pease; James Russell and Gwynne Stock of the Bristol &
Avon Archaeological Society; Alex Thompson of Harts House, Almondsbury; and Wendy Cawthorne, Assistant
Librarian, Geological Society of London, for their help.
1
For an overview of the history of the Bristol Egyptian collection, see A. Dodson and S. Giles, The Egyp-
tian Collection of Bristol City Museum, in V. Solkin (ed.), , II: 150-
B /Ancient Egypt, II: On the Occasion of the 150th Birthday Anniversary of
Vladimir S. Golenischev (Moscow, 2006), 1120, and id., Ancient Egypt in the City and County of Bristol, Kmt
18/4 (20078), 2032. Much useful detail on the later years of the City Museum and Art Gallery as a whole is
contained in K.-M. Walton, 75 years of Bristol Art Gallery (Bristol, 1980).
108 AIDAN DODSON JEA 94
Fig. 1. Freemasons Hall on Park Street, Bristol, originally completed in
1823 to house the Bristol Literary and Philosophical Society and
Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science and Art (author).
Fig. 2. The building erected in 1872 as the new Bristol Museum and Library,
after its 1877 rearward extension (from Bristol in 18989 (Brighton, 1898), 36).
The main focus of the original Institution was the natural sciences, but from the
very beginning it was collecting Egyptian material, albeit in small quantities: during
the frst ten years, only twelve out of about 1,250 donations were Egyptological items,
and three of those were books. The tenth item received was a fne Mummy (later
2008 THE COFFINS OF IYHAT AND TAIRY 109
Bristol Museums H540 and still later Ha7385),
2
presented by John Webb, a Bristolian
resident of Livorno, Italy, on 29 March 1823, and on 6 March the following year a
further mummy was given to the Institution by the City Chamberlain of Bristol,
Thomas Garrard (17871859).
3
Curiously, the accompanying Eighteenth Dynasty
white cofn of a certain Tay (H630) was not mentioned in the Institutions Donations
Book although at some stage the cofn itself received a painted inscription recording
its donation by Garrard. This failure to note the cofn(s) enclosing a mummy is a
phenomenon that is repeated later. This mummy was unwrapped before an audience
on 9 December that year.
4
This was carried out by a team led by Dr James Cowles
Prichard (17861848), a surgeon, psychiatrist, and physical anthropologist who had
also written on Egyptian mythology.
5
Webb presented a further mummy, that of a
child, on 6 April 1826, together with part of another juvenile body.
6

On 22 March 1834 the ofer by a Member to allow one of the fne Mummies
sent to him from abroad to be opened was reported.
7
The Member in question
was Garrard, and on 31 March, a series of lectures by Dr Prichard began with the
unwrapping of the new mummy. An extremely detailed contemporary account of
this event runs as follows:
8

The Mummy, which from the face of the case was believed to be that of a female, was
enclosed in two sarcophagi of sycamore wood each of which was formed of a back and
a front portion, dovetailed, mortised and dowelled together. The outside of each case
was covered with paintings and hieroglyphics. On the inside of the external case was
a female fgure in profle; and the inside of the internal case was covered with hiero-
glyphic writing.
These cases having been removed the mummy was exposed to view enveloped in
its bandages. Of these the external ones were narrow, turned in at their edges, and
cruciform. Beneath these was a large wrapper of dark red cloth, which enveloped the
2
As with many museums, the Bristol collection has used several numbering systems over the years. The Bristol
Institution numbered its donations in their order of acquisition, but these numbers were never marked on the
objects, nor apparently used to refer to them. Then, in the late nineteenth century, a system of numbers was
adopted that is now referred to as False Accession Numbers; these were still not marked on the objects. In
parallel, since 1898 individual departments had started their own registers (each with their own letter-prefxes),
and from 1 December 1913 Antiquities also did so, prefxing its numbers with the letter H. The frst object
so numbered (H1) was a shabti given by a Mr F. P. Browne, followed by newly arrived objects from the Egypt
Exploration Fund and British School of Archaeology in Egypt, taking numbers up to H63. Older material was
added to the H-Register as and when time was available, so that some of the very earliest Bristol gyptiaca
were at length given numbers in the H500 and H600 series in 1917 (cf. below, p. 114 and n. 25), while the Mapp
Collection, received in 1956, was only registered during 197377, documentation continuing into the current
decade. Certain items were inadvertently numbered twice, which seems to have been the case with H540/Ha7385.
The H register was closed and the Ha register inaugurated in February 1971; this continued the serials used in
H, H5230 being followed by Ha5231 (although strictly speaking, to follow Museum procedures, it should have
begun at Ha1).
3
He was then City Treasurer from 1836 to 1856, following the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835; see
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter ODNB), XXI, 516.
4
An account appeared in the four principal Bristol local newspapers; cf. A. B. Granville, An Essay on Egyp-
tian Mummies, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 115 (1825), 291.
5
An Analysis of the Egyptian Mythology (London, 1819); its third edition was incorporated into Prichards
Analysis of the Historical Records of Ancient Egypt (London, 1838); see W. R. Dawson, E. P. Uphill, and M. L.
Bierbrier, Who Was Who in Egyptology, 3rd rev. edn (London, 1995), 343; ODNB, XLV, 32932.
6
Neither body can be identifed today, unless the former mummy is H5597, cf. D. P. Dawson, S. Giles, and M.
W. Ponsford (eds), Horemkenesi, May He Live Forever: The Bristol Mummy Project (Bristol, 2002), 25.
7
Felix Farleys Bristol Journal, 22 March 1834.
8
Bristol Institution Opening of the Mummy, Bristol Mirror, Saturday 5 April 1834.
110 AIDAN DODSON JEA 94
whole front of the body, and which was laced behind with shreds of linen. Under it
were found a few beads of semivitreous substance which might have been originally on
a string but no vestige of it was left. Layers of bandages of a lighter colour then pre-
sented themselves, wound transversely round the body, alternating with others passing
longitudinally which generally formed a cross over the chest. After fve of these alter-
nations the head bandages were separate; and there was a series of folded compresses
over the whole body, beneath which a very remarkable cross was seen. The bandages
then became adherent showing dark patches of bituminous matter ...
The wax fgures which were found were probably those of two children, and a
representation of a jackal-headed deity [(fg. 3)
9
]. They all bear marks of the thumb
and were evidently prepared in a hurry. On a fragment found with them is an eye, with
a line under it ... Beneath these was found a wax plate, representing a wing, and a basil-
isk. Which form together half the emblem of the Agathodaemon.[
10
]
The length of the body itself was fve feet and half an inch. The cuticle appears to
have been removed; the hair is rather long and of a dark auburn colour, but matted
together by asphaltum. The ears are not bored: the nose is tolerably preserved but
somewhat compressed; its internal structure was broken down for the removal of the
brain; the sockets of the eyes were flled up with resinous matter, probably in part
myrrh. The mouth is slightly open and the teeth are in good preservation ...
The collar bones are prominent, and the shoulders unnaturally brought forward. On
the left side on a level with the last dorsal and frst lumbar vertebrae is a large circular
incision through which the viscera of that cavity were extracted: the cavity being flled
up with resin mixed with earth ... The foot was small and well-proportioned, with a
high instep, like those of the Greek statues ...
At the conclusion of the lecture last evening [i.e. 4 April], Dr. Riley[
11
] suggested
that it was very desirable that the skeleton of the mummy should be preserved, in order
that comparisons might be drawn from it with those of other races in the present day.
To this proposition its liberal possessor immediately assented.
9
Now BCMAG H1111, noted as Taken from the abdominal investments of an Egyptian Mummy opened at
the Institution in 1834; for another four such fgures, see p. 114, below.
10
Presumably actually an embalmers plate incorporating a winged uraeus; this cannot now be identifed in the
Museum collection.
11
Henry Riley, MD (17971848), was physician to the Bristol Infrmary between 1834 and 1847, and was also a
lecturer at Bristol Medical School from 1833 to 1846. He gave popular lectures on various subjects at the Institution,
including comparative anatomy, zoology, reptiles, and palosaurians, donating the proceeds to the Institution.
Fig. 3. The three wax fgures of sons of Horus recovered from the mummy unwrapped in 1834
(BCMAG H1111: Amber Druce, courtesy Bristols Museums, Galleries & Archives).
2008 THE COFFINS OF IYHAT AND TAIRY 111
There survives a painting by the local watercolorist John Skinner Prout (18061874)
entitled The Theatre of the Bristol Institution, Park Street, during the Delivery of
Dr Prichards Lectures on Egyptian Antiquities (fg. 4).
12
A considerable number of
Egyptian antiquities had been assembled to provide a backdrop for Prichards presen-
tations. Those visible include three mummies, one unwrapped, and fve cofns.
13
The cofn atop the pedestal at the rear of the display (1) is the aforementioned
example belonging to Tay. At the front of the display is the newly unwrapped mummy
(2); the three wax images found during the unwrapping are to be seen on the table
behind (11), with another item that may be the closure of the embalming wound.
14
The mummy lying in the cofn trough at the right (3), adorned with a mask and
cartonnage panels, is Webbs 1823 gift, H540 = Ha7385. Today, the mummy lies in an
old zinc-lined box in which it has been assumed to have been brought from Egypt: it
may have been temporarily placed in this trough for display purposes only. To judge
from its size, and the podium under the feet of the trough, it may be that it is from
the cofn whose lid is on the far left of the painting (8).
The wrapped mummy on the left (4) closely matches the description given above
of the external appearance of the mummy unwrapped on 31 March, and must be a
second specimen donated by Garrard. This is listed along with the unwrapped body
in an entry made during May 1834 in the Institutions Donations Book under the
number 1280: Two Egyptian Mummies. One male and the other female; the former
in its original bandaging, the latter as opened at a lecture there on March 31st 1834 &
intended for a skeleton.
Although no cofns are mentioned as accompanying these two mummies, the
contemporary account quoted above describes the mummy to be unwrapped as being
enclosed in two sarcophagi. These clearly must be two of the four remaining cofns
shown in the watercolour (58), which are without doubt two outer and two inner
cofns of typical late Third Intermediate Period type.
15
That on the far right of the
painting (5) can be recognised by virtue of its very unusual arm arrangement as the
inner case of the Lady of the House Tairy, daughter of Ashery and Denitenbastet,
now in Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery (Appendix 2b). Its outer cofn
is presumably that standing next to it. The inner lid standing on the far left (8) is
12
Given to the Museum and Art Gallery by Mr F. Newcombe in 1918. The following analysis of the objects
shown difers somewhat from that set out in Dodson and Giles, II, 1214.
13
Of the other material visible, the stela below Tays cofn seems to be a drawing. The corniced stela in front
of the unwrapped mummy (10) is identifable as that of Iytyia, datable to the reign of Thutmose IV or Amen-
hotep III, and now H637: this could be the Egyptian Monument of 1825. Of the group on the table (12), could
the canopic jar (not now identifable in the Bristol collection) be amongst the Morris Idols? The adjacent stelae on
the table are difcult to assess in view of a total lack of detail, but one (possibly the one in the centre) is likely to be
that of the Hm-nTr n Wrt-HkAw Penamun, registered in 1917 as H514, and without any history. There are no other
complete stelae in Bristol that could be candidates for the remaining pair, although it is possible that an accident
later befell one of them, and that it could be partly represented by H2734, the middle section of a broken New
Kingdom stela of an Overseer of Cattle. There are no potential candidates for the third stela: perhaps it and the
canopic jar were simply lent for the occasion? Alternatively, they may have been part of the Institutions holdings,
but subsequently left the collection in circumstances that are now wholly obscure (cf. n. 81).
14
Their presence shows clearly that the mummy is the newly unwrapped one, rather than the body from the
cofn of Tay, unwrapped a decade earlier, as is suggested in Dawson, Giles, and Ponsford (eds), Horemkenesi, 19.
It is possible that the latter mummy is hidden from view inside its cofn, which may explain why this piece is lying
on its back, rather than placed upright like the rest of the cofns present, but cf. n. 22 below.
15
Cf. further below.
112 AIDAN DODSON JEA 94
6
9
1
7
4
12
11
3
8
5
2
10
Fig. 4. Watercolour by J. S. Prout, made at the Bristol Institution between
31 March and 4 April 1834, during a series of Egyptological lectures by
James Prichard (BCMAG M3984, courtesy Bristols Museums, Galleries & Archives).
Objects that may be identifed are as follows:
1. BCMAG H630;
2. Mummy unwrapped on 31 March 1834;
3. H540=Ha7385, in Plymouth, Pease
Loan C2(?);
4. Mummy presented with 2.;
5. Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery
Pease Loan C3;
6. H631;
7. H629;
8. Plymouth Pease Loan C1;
9. Ha5588;
10. H637;
11. H1111;
12. Stelae not fully identifable, but that in
centre is probably H514; the canopic jar
is not identifable.
2008 THE COFFINS OF IYHAT AND TAIRY 113
less distinctive, but is consistent with being that of a cofn which accompanied that
of Tairy when it arrived in Plymouth, that of the wab-priest of Amun, Iyhat, son
of a Gods Father of Amun Pawerma and a nbt-pr Henttawy (Appendix 1b). The
decorative elements indicated on the watercolour are all consistent with those to be
seen in Plymouth, while the shape of the nose shown suggests the damage to be seen
today on the face of Iyhats cofn. Although the lid in the watercolour bears a beard,
in contrast with the current state of Iyhats cover, the broken remains of just such a
beard still exist under that cofns chin.
This identifcation of the inner cofns shown in the 1834 painting raises two
particular issues. The frst arises from a perusal of the published account of the
unwrapping. Here, we read that the inside of the internal case was covered with
hieroglyphic writing. This is true of Iyhats cofn, but not that of Tairy. There are a
number of options here: frst, that the sex of the cofn and/or mummy was mistaken
in 1834; second, that the correspondent was mistaken; third, that the mummies had
been switched at some point; or fourth, that the cofn shown is not after all that of
Tairy in Plymouth.
Unfortunately, the sex of the corpse cannot today be verifed. In January 1835,
it was noted
16
that on display [i]n the Lobby, Hall, and upon the Stair-case [of the
Institution] are models, casts, bas reliefs, and busts, together with several mummies
and mummy cases, and the skeleton of a mummy doubtless the victim of the
previous years unwrapping. However, against the 1834 mummies aforementioned
entry in the Institutions Donations Book is a later note stating Destroyed 1906.
17

The destruction of the unwrapped mummy is confrmed in the later General Register
of the Museum and Art Gallery, where 278 Female mummy without Binding,
is followed by a note that repeats the wording of the Donation Book concerning
its unwrapping and intended employment as a skeleton, plus Destroyed 1906.
Nevertheless, the mummy had been closely examined, and one would have expected
any sexing error to have been spotted by the time of the May entry in the Donations
Book, especially as it was being skeletonised at the time. The bodys stature would
also be in keeping with its being that of a female.
18

A correspondents error is possible, but given the care taken with detail in the rest
of his account this seems unlikely. On the other hand, the fact that Ha7385 seems to
have been placed in the trough of Iyhats internally-inscribed cofn for the purpose
of the display might suggest a source of error. Indeed, most probable would seem to
be a switch of mummies, either in Egypt, in transit, or at the Institution: there are
many examples of such a situation in the literature. That the cofn in the watercolour
might not be the Plymouth example of Tairy after all is made improbable not only
by the latters apparently unique design (cf. Appendix 2b), but also by what we know
of the fate of her outer cofn.
16
In an account preserved in BCMAG.
17
This is initialled by H[erbert] B[olton], then the Senior Museum Curator. This destruction probably occurred
in conjunction with the transfer of the antiquities collection from the old Museum to the new Art Gallery that
had been opened the previous year. Such a piece is unlikely to have been felt appropriate to an institution dedi-
cated to the fne arts. On the mummy, and the identifcation of the cofn, see now Addendum, pp. 1378 below.
18
As for the sex of the cofn, this was a subjective view; on the other hand, the visage of Tairys case is cer-
tainly more female in appearance than that of Iyhats.
114 AIDAN DODSON JEA 94
The wrapped (male) mummy appears to have been unwrapped a decade or so
later. Although no contemporary record has yet been identifed, a piece of mummy-
cloth owned by Wandsworth Museum, London,
19
is accompanied by a label reading
Piece of the bandage of an Egyptian Mummie supposed to be 3000 years old. There
was 800 yards of this cloth bound round it. It was opened in Bristol in 1842 at the
Museum.
20
In addition, Bristol Museum holds four wax fgures from the interior of
a mummy, characterised in the H-Register as at the Institute 1852 (H1112). They
are very similar to those from the mummy unwrapped in 1834, and it seems thus
likely that they came from this later unwrapping.
21
The ultimate fate of the body is
wholly obscure, as in the General Register 277 Male mummy in Original Binding
does not share 278s statement of doom, yet does not appear in any later registers of
the Museum, and is certainly not in the current collection.
22

In 1917, the Bristol Art Gallery and Museum of Antiquities, to which the
Institutions collection of Egyptian antiquities had passed in 1906,
23
at last
24
registered the Egyptian cofns by then in its possession.
25
Amongst them were two
19
It is that institutions sole Egyptian item, and is one of a small group of items to survive from a museum
that was set up by Battersea Council in 1906 in the Plough Road Institute, alongside a library, a gymnasium, and
slipper baths. That museum ceased to exist during the First World War. While there exists some documentation
about some of the items in the museum, including an accessions register, this linen appears nowhere in any of
this documentation. It was simply amongst a group of items discovered in a cupboard at Battersea Library by the
frst curator of Wandsworth Museum, in 1986, and some of which were traceable to the old Battersea Museum.
The Wandsworth Museum closed at the end of 2007, with the intention that it should reopen in 2008 in a new
location under the auspices of the Hintze Family Charitable Foundation, see Wandsworth Museum Newsletter
November 2007 < http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/ezroiyo7tqpvvt3bbqr4wbvo3my33imnbrwl4m-
skikculruibhag4f25ye3zh24pjv4h3k6y4qfrnypnqabm6eceib/musnewsautumn07.pdf >.
20
I am indebted to John Taylor for the provision of this information, supplied to Marcel Mare of the British
Museum by Sue Barber, Assistant Curator of Wandsworth Museum in January 2006.
21
One does wonder whether one of the dates might be an error, and that the unwrapping might actually have
been in 1852. Cf. L. V. Grinsell, Guide Catalogue to the Collections from Ancient Egypt (Bristol, 1972), 67.
22
Neither is the 1824 mummy. The need for a formal proposal in 1834 that the skeleton of the mummy
should be preserved (above, p. 110), might suggest that both other sets of remains were discarded soon after
their unwrapping. Cf. Addendum, pp. 1378, below.
23
For the various moves and reorganizations of Bristols museums, see the sources listed in n. 1, above.
24
Cf. n. 2, above.
25
Apart from the two outer cofns discussed in this paper, these comprised:
H630 Tay, early Eighteenth Dynasty, from Salt Collection, via Thos. Garrard; unpublished.
H632 Isetweret, daughter of Nimenkhetamun and Nesmut, early/mid seventh century; unpub-
lished.
H633 (ex-H558) Pedihorpakhered, son of Nesmaat and Tamiu, late eighth/early seventh century: given
by C. Helyar in 1917; unpublished.
H634 No name, cartonnage, Twenty-second Dynasty; unpublished and now destroyed (cf. n. 27).
H638 No name, early Twenty-second Dynasty, from Dra Abu el-Naga: given by the British
School of Archaeology in Egypt; PM I2, 606.
H641 Horemkeniset, early Twenty-frst Dynasty, from Deir el-Bahari: given by the Egypt
Exploration Fund in 1905; PM I2, 657; Dawson, Giles, and Ponsford (eds), Horemkenesi.
While nothing is known of how Isetwerets H632 was acquired by the Museum, it is conceivable that it might
be the cofn (then with a mummy) displayed at 18 Milsom Street in Bath in October 1822. Keenes Bath Journal
and General Advertiser, 7 October 1822, describes the mummy as the most Perfect ever seen in this Country,
lately brought from Bombay, purchased by the present Proprietors, at the Custom-House, Plymouth, for
a considerable sum. It further states that the Cover of the Inside Cofn is remarkably curious, it being carved
and elegantly painted in the Oriental style, exactly agreeable to the features of the Person when Living, and in
the highest state of preservation. The mummy itself is described as being entirely unwrapped, although a great
2008 THE COFFINS OF IYHAT AND TAIRY 115
owned, respectively, by a man named Iyhat (given the registration number H629 and
false accession number 4231) and by a woman named Tairy (H631; 4233). Nothing
was stated as to their origins,
26
but the owners names, titles, and fliations make it
crystal clear that they were the same individuals as the Plymouth pair. Sadly, it is not
possible to provide further verifcation by checking whether either outer cofn trough
contains a female fgure in profle, as stated by the 1834 correspondent, as both
H629 and H631 were destroyed in 1957 without ever having been photographed.
27
All that certainly survives in Bristol are manuscript copies of the owners names
and titles made by Ernest Sibree (18541927)
28
in 1899, and manuscript descriptions
of the cofns by G. R. Stanton,
29
written in September 1935 (see Appendices 1a
and 2a).
30
Nevertheless, it is now impossible to doubt that H629, H631, and the
Plymouth cofns represent together the two cofn sets seen in the 1834 watercolour,
and came to Bristol with Garrards two mummies. Further confrmation comes from
the fact that a small board shown displayed at the foot of the cofn of Tay in the 1834
painting (fg. 4.9), and still in Bristol as Ha5588, turns out to be a missing piece of the
foot-end of the Plymouth cofn of Iyhat.
31

This leads us to the second issue surrounding the identifcation of the 1834 inner
cofns with those now in Plymouth: when and why were these two cofns separated
from their outer shells and one of their footboards which remained in Bristol?
* * *
Over eight decades separate the 1834 depiction of the inner cofns of Iyhat and
Tairy from their next documented appearance. Then, sometime in 1918, a pair of
Egyptian cofns which turned out to be the inner cases of Iyhat and Tairy were
ofered on loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge by one Thomas Henry
Ormston Pease (18531937) generally known by his last forename. This ofer was
turned down by the museum, apparently on the grounds of it being a loan, rather
than an outright donation.
32

quantity of the cloth in which the body was frst wound was now presented to public view. The exhibition
charged one shilling (0.05) entrance.
This piece must be distinguished from the two other cofns on display in Bath at the same time, at 10 New
Bond Street, which derived, along with other material, from Belzonis collection (Bath Journal, 7, 14, 21 and 28
October 1822). The New Bond Street objects all seem to have later passed to the Bath Royal Literary and Sci-
entifc Institution, the Egyptian collection of which was loaned to Bristol in February 1966; the cofns, of the
nbt-pr Nesikhonsu and one Djedkhonsuankh (sic), son of Nihordebha, are now H5062 and H5074/5: I owe this
identifcation to John Taylor. It is intended that all Bristol cofns will be published, along with those in Exeter,
Plymouth, Truro and Swansea, in a monograph by the present writer.
26
Likewise the cofn of Tay (H630) was left without provenance, although in that case a note T. Garrard
[1824?] was later added, probably by G. R. Stanton, for whom see below.
27
Destroyed Oct. 1957 as in very poor condition, riddled with woodworm (note in Museum register). For the
possible survival of one fragment, see below, p. 125. Also burned at the same time were the lid of H630 and the
Twenty-second Dynasty cartonnage, H634, registered in 1917. See now further Addendum, pp. 1378, below.
28
Since 1896 Lecturer in Oriental Languages at University College Bristol. For Sibrees career, see A. Dodson,
Ernest Sibree: A Forgotten Pioneer and his Milieu, JEA 93 (2007), 24753.
29
The Museums Assistant Curator (later Curator) of Antiquities and Anthropology from 1926 to 1951.
30
A fragment of H629 may still survive: see p. 125, below; see also further Addendum, pp. 1378.
31
The join was frst recognized by John Taylor in 1985. The piece has now been loaned, along with wax fgures
H1111, to Plymouth for display in the new Egyptian gallery which opened at the end of 2008.
32
BCMAG Historical File (HF) 506; there are no records of the approach in the papers of the Fitzwilliam
Museum Syndicate, nor those of the department of Antiquities (personal communications Sally-Ann Ashton, 19
and 26 June 2007).
116 AIDAN DODSON JEA 94
In September, Herbert Bolton, Director of the Bristol Museum and the Art Gallery
from 1912 to 1930,
33
was invited by Peases half-sister, Marian Fry Pease (18591954:
for the Pease family, see fg. 8),
34
the Bristol educationalist,
35
to inspect the same pair of
mummy cases at Cote Bank, a large house in Westbury-on-Trym, 4.25 kilometres
north of Bristol city centre (fg. 5).
36
On 18 September, once Bolton had actually
seen the cofns, Ormston Pease ofered them on loan to the Museum, and to donate
the glass case in which they were displayed outright. Boltons view was that this was
unlikely to be acceptable, although this would be subject to the views of his Museum
Committee. At no point did Bolton apparently have any inkling that the objects he
was dealing with had once been part of the collection of the Bristol Institution, and
that their corresponding outer cofns still lay in his own museum.
Put to the Museum Committee on 21 November, the ofer was refused on grounds
of limited space. In response, Pease queried whether a gift would meet with a more
33
Formerly the Senior Museum Curator responsible for the destruction of the skeleton from the 1834
unwrapping, and then Director of the Art Gallery alone from 1930 to 1953.
34
Then living at Harts now Harts House, Almondsbury, on the northern margin of Bristol, cf. n. 43.
35
For Miss Peases career, see ODNB, XLIII, 357. I am indebted to Gurney Pease for much useful infor-
mation on the Pease family, supplemented by a range of census and public birth, marriage and death records,
accessed with the invaluable assistance of my wife.
36
BCMAG HF 506; the fle is incomplete, a note indicating that the earlier letters were retained by the Pease
family.
Fig. 5. Cote Bank early in the twentieth century (courtesy Reece Winstone Archive).
2008 THE COFFINS OF IYHAT AND TAIRY 117
positive reaction, but Boltons reply condemned the glass case (fg. 6) as unsuitable
for a museum, and once more highlighted the lack of space in the museum. In his
last surviving letter to Bolton, Pease stated that he now intended to ofer the cofns
elsewhere on loan, and on 19 February 1919 the cofns (and their case) arrived in
Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery on indefnite loan along with other antiquities that
comprised the Ormston Pease Collection;
37
they have remained there ever since.
37
The collection contained over 500 items, of which over 400 were scarabs and amulets, plus various small
antiquities, including a complete canopic jar, a canopic lid, and some animal mummies. A manuscript Catalogue
of Egyptian Antiquities belonging to O. T. H. (sic) Pease, Esq., Skaigh, Okehampton, is held by Plymouth City
Museum & Art Gallery. This would appear to have been prepared by the Museum, as the handwriting appears
identical to that in another MS catalogue of material received from the British School of Archaeology in Egypt
in 1924. It has not yet proved possible to confrm the identity of the author.
Fig. 6. The cofns of Iyhat and Tairy, apparently in the case that housed them
at Cote Bank (author).
118 AIDAN DODSON JEA 94
Ormston Pease was a solicitor, resident at Skaigh in Okehampton, Devon, which
may have infuenced his approach to Plymouth, which at that time had minimal
Egyptian holdings.
38
However, up until the late 1890s
39
he had previously lived at the
family home of Cote Bank, and at his own establishments in and around Bristol.
40
Educated at University College London, he had been admitted as a solicitor in 1877,
and practiced in Bristol for the next two decades.
41

Peases desire to deposit the cofns with a museum was clearly linked with the fact
that his stepmother, Susanna Ann Fry (18291917, a scion of the Bristol chocolate
dynasty: fg. 7) had died on 21 September the previous year
42
and that Cote Bank
was now to be disposed of.
43
Ultimately, in May 1920, the house and its 27 acres of
land were sold for 11,900 to the Roman Catholic order of Poor Sisters of Nazareth.
Fig. 7. Susanna Ann Fry Pease (18291917)
(Annual Monitor 1078 (191920), 220).
38
The Museum had been established in 1887 and reopened in its present building in 1910. Material (later
transferred to Plymouth Museum) from Garstangs work at Beni Hasan had been given to the nearby Devonport
Museum, but apart from the Pease collection the frst signifcant acquisitions by Plymouth Museum would be
donations from W. L. S. Loat (18711932: WWWE 3, 258) in 1920, A. L. Lewis in 1921, and the British School
of Archaeology in Egypt (Qau and Badari) in 1923/4. The collection is currently being catalogued by the present
writer.
39
His last listing in J. Wright & Co.s Bristol and Commercial Directory is in the 1897 edition.
40
On his marriage to Mary Elizabeth Ellis Cave (18671946) on 6 December 1888 in Kensington, he moved
into 8 Sion Hill, Clifton, and subsequently acquired Failand Lawn, at Long Ashton, just across the Avon Gorge
from Bristol in Somerset.
41
At frst at 2 Lion Court, Broad Street, Bristol. In 1885 he became a partner in Jacques, Pease and Jacques at
28 Corn Street, moving around 1891 to number 41. Pease struck out on his own again the following year, with his
ofce frst at 13 Clare Street and fnally at Brighton Court, 6 St Stephens Avenue. All these locations were within
200 metres of each other, within what is now Bristols Old Town (Wrights Directory, various editions).
42
Only a few months after her youngest son, Oswald who had emigrated to Canada in the 1890s had been
killed in action at Vimy Ridge, France, on 31 March/1 April 1917. Mrs Pease was cremated on 25 September and
her ashes interred at Kingsweston Quaker Burial Ground, north-east Bristol, alongside the body of her husband:
see n. 73 below and fg. 9. I am indebted to Gwynne Stock (personal communication 18 October 2007) for infor-
mation on the interments of the Pease family, and for relocating their gravestones on 10 November 2007; on the
Kinsgsweston cemetery, see G. Stock, A Survey of the Quaker Burial Grounds in Bristol and Frenchay Monthly
Meeting, Bristol and Avon Archaeology 13 (1996), 45.
43
Her companions during her last years at Cote Bank had been her daughters Marion and Rosa Elizabeth
Pease (18581951); on 16 April 1918 they together purchased Harts at Almondsbury, 15 kilometres from Cote
Bank. That property had been built as a cottage in the sixteenth century as part of the Tockingon Manor estate,
and gradually expanded until auctioned of by the Rev. James Legard Peach in September 1890 to Robert Todd.
The Peases bought the house from his widow, Fanny Todd.
2008 THE COFFINS OF IYHAT AND TAIRY 119
It opened as the Nazareth Orphanage Home for Boys in September 1921, but closed
in 1929;
44
the site is now occupied by houses built in 19345.
45

A curious footnote came twenty years after the cofns had been moved to Plymouth
when, two years after Ormston Peases death, his son, Thomas Ormston Cave Pease
(18901974)
46
wrote to Bristol Museum asking if it had two mummy cases formerly
at Cote Bank, Westbury-on-Trym, which the correspondent thought were presented
to the museum many years ago.
47
The Director, Herbert Maxwell, could only reply
that they had been ofered on loan in 1918, but that it been decided not to accept
owing to lack of space. This approach may be linked with the fact that Ormston
Peases will failed to mention the Egyptian collection,
48
although his sons ignorance
of the failure of the 1918 approach is odd, since the younger Pease had been involved
in the earlier stages of that episode, while staying with his aunts at Almondsbury.
* * *
Ormston Pease was not, however, the originator of the collection that now bears
his name. He was one of the ffteen children of Thomas Pease (18161884), in
Ormstons case by his second wife, Martha Lucy Aggs (18251853), who had died on
8 November 1853, only fve weeks after Ormstons birth.
49
The elder Pease had been
born in Park Place, Leeds, on 31 January 1816, the only surviving son of Thomas
Benson Pease (17821846), a wealthy Quaker stuf (i.e. woollen textile) merchant
50
and Martha Whitelock (c.17871828).
Thomas was educated at Darlington School, County Durham, and then joined the
family frm to learn his trade. He married Lucy Fryer in 1842,
51
and settled in the
house in South Parade, Leeds, where he had been resident for a while prior to his
44
In 1929 Bristol Corporation had decided to exercise its right to build a road (now Falcondale Road) through
the grounds, and as a result the orphanage was moved 2 kilometres away, to Sneed Park House, in Stoke Bishop,
in the summer of that year, where it fnally closed in 1970. The former Cote Bank was sold for 15,000 in early
1930 and was demolished soon afterwards. Details of the buildings history as the Bristol Nazareth House are
contained in Sisters of Nazareth General Archive DE/1/1/2, 121, DC/1/3, 31920, and FGG/1/4/1, 141.
45
Number 30 Downs Cote Park well to the west of the site of the old house was given the name Cote
Bank. The site of the house itself is now occupied by 214 Downs Cote Park, BS9, with the eastern part of the
garden covered by 138150 Westbury Road, and the remainder under Falcondale Road and the streets directly
south of it.
46
By then of Rusland House, Butcombe, Blagdon, Somerset.
47
Letter of 15 August 1939 to the Director of the Museum and Art Gallery.
48
Data supplied to Nick Dixon in 1985 by W. H. Scutt, then Assistant Keeper of Archaeology and Local
History at Plymouth Museum.
49
Martha Lucy Pease, in Annual Monitor, or Obituary of the Members of the Society of Friends In Great Britain
and Ireland NS 13 (1854), 11631; S. A. Fry Pease, Account of the Life of Thomas Pease who died in January 1884.
Written by His Widow for their Children (produced for private circulation, copy now in Leeds University Library,
MS.369), 10. This latter booklet is a source of a number of the family details in the present paper; further data
has been derived from decennial English census data. For the Peases, see also J. Foster, Pease of Darlington, with
Notices of the Families of Robson, Backhouse, Dixon and Others, the Descendants of J. Pease (London, 1891), esp.
1925, and E. H. Milligan, Biographical Dictionary of British Quakers in Commerce and Industry 17751920 (York,
2007), 3312.
50
A cousin of Edward Pease (17671858), the railway promoter and patron of Robert Stephenson (ODNB,
XLIII, 3501), Thomas Benson Pease was a native of Darlington, who had come to Leeds in 1802, becoming
the principal of the Leeds frm Aldam, Pease & Co. (later Aldam, Pease, Heaton & Co. and then Pease, Heaton &
Co.). First elected to the town council in 1836, he became an alderman in 1841 and owned property at Sheepscar,
north of the centre of Leeds.
51
Having previously been turned down by Jane Backhouse, cf. R. L. Brett (ed.), Barclay Foxs Journal (London,
1979), 382.
120 AIDAN DODSON JEA 94
52
Lucy Pease, Annual Monitor NS 3 (1844), 93101.
53
Ibid., 978.
54
Pease, Account, 8.
55
On the corner of King George Avenue and Gledhow Lane, Chapel Allerton.
56
It had earlier been the residence of the botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury (17611829).
57
Pease, Account, 8.
marriage; their elder daughter Katharine was born on 3 April 1843. However, later
that year Lucy started to show signs of poor health, and although Lucy Ann was
born on 15 May 1844, her mother died on 2 September.
52

Jlonas Eenson Iease
(+,8z+86)
`artla Vlitelock
(+,86+8zg)
+8+
=
Hannal
(+8++886)
Thomas Pease
(+8+6+88)
Jucy Jryer
(+8zc+8)
+8z
=
+8c
= Susanna Ann Fry
(+8zg+g+,)
Jouisa Ann (l. +8zc)
|oln Fuvaru (+8z++8zz)
|ane (l. +8zz)
Jatlarine Aluan(l. +8)
Jucy Anne (l. +8)
+86
= `artla Jucy Aggs
(+8z+8)
`ary Certruue (l. +8+)
`argaret (l. +8z)
Thomas Henry Ormston Pease
(+8+g,)
+888
= `ary Fllis Ca\e
(+868+g6)
Fleanor `ary
(l. +88g)
Thomas Ormston Cave
(l. +8gc)
Earlara `argaret
(l. +8g+)
Susan (+8+,+8,)
1salella (+8+8+88,)
Fuvaru Feynolus (+8,+g)
Marian Fry (+8g+g)
Villian Eenson (l. +86z)
|osepl Ceralu (l. +86)
Folert Aluan (l. +86)
Anna Iorotlea (l. +86)
Caroline Susan (+866+gc8)
Cyril Artlington (l. +868)
Osvalu Allen (+8,++g+,)
Having himself sufered from hemorrhage from the lungs whilst in Ireland six
months prior to Lucys death, Pease and his family had spent much of the intervening
period in the south of England, and had been planning some time in Madeira when
Lucy was struck down by her fnal illness.
53
After her death, he spent the winter of
18456 in Egypt, described by his third wife, and widow, Susanna, as quite an era in
his life exciting a vivid interest in Egyptology and all that relates to that wonderful
land which continued unabated through life.
54
She continues: The climate suited
him perfectly, he went up the Nile as far as the second cataract receiving impressions
which were indelibly fxed in his memory and making the beginning of his valuable
collection of antiquities. While in Egypt, he turned down invitation to accompany
George John Browne, 3rd Marquess of Sligo (18201896) on a trip to Palestine.
Pease was in Germany on his way home when he received word of the sudden death
of his father in Bradford on 24 May 1846. Thomas frst visit to Egypt was over a
decade after the Iyhat and Tairy cofns had arrived in Bristol: there can thus be
no possibility of his having had any involvement with Garrards acquisition of the
cofns in 1834 at which time he was in any case still resident in Yorkshire.
Following his return, Pease removed to Chapel Allerton Hall, Leeds,
55
which had
been his fathers principal residence since 1826.
56
He continued to prefer to winter
either in the south of England or abroad, revisiting Lower Egypt (only)
57
in the winter
of 18467, accompanied this time by two of his younger sisters, Susan and Louisa.
Fig. 8. Summary family tree of the family of Thomas Pease.
The more signifcant fgures for the present paper are shown in bold.
2008 THE COFFINS OF IYHAT AND TAIRY 121
The familys defnitive move to the south and Bristol came in the summer of
1852, when Thomas, who had in any case never felt particularly suited to the world
of business,
58
and his new wife, Martha, whom he had married in March 1850 at
Winchmore Hill, London,
59
took up residence in a rented Georgian mansion named
Henbury Hill, in Westbury-on-Trym;
60
they brought with them a young daughter,
Mary Gertrude (b. 1851). Martha had been very ill during the months following the
birth, and the move had been prompted by Peases view that the climate of Yorkshire
was not favourable to either of them.
61
That Thomas had connections with the city
is shown by the fact that his daughter Lucy had been born at Clifton, in the west of
the city. Two further children, Margaret (b. 1852) and Ormston, were born after the
move to Bristol.
Following Martha Peases premature death, Thomas remarried again in April
1856;
62
with Susanna Fry,
63
he had a further ten children between 1857 and 1872:
Edward Reynolds,
64
Marian, Rosa, William Benson, Joseph Gerald, Robert, Anna,
Caroline, Cyril, and Oswald. The family moved half a kilometre south to a new home,
Cote Bank, in 1866, this time purchased by Thomas and enjoying magnifcent views
to the northwest over the Blaise Castle estate.
65
Over a year was spent carrying out
alterations and additions to the house,
66
where the family was attended by a governess
and eight servants.
Thomas Pease was heavily involved in various committees and groups in north
Bristol, in particular those associated with the Quakers, including Sunday School
teaching. He also served on his local Poor Law Board of Guardians, becoming Vice-
Chairman, and funding a British School
67
in Westbury for some two decades. His
wider interests in botany, geology, architecture, and archaeology found various outlets.
A founder member of the Bristol Naturalists Society in 1862 (Vice-President 1864
71), he had been elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of London on 1 February
1860,
68
his supporters (proposers) being the renowned geologist Sir Charles Lyell
58
Thomas Pease, Annual Monitor NS 43 (1884), 128.
59
Martha had been born in Bruce Grove, Tottenham, London.
60
Demolished in the 1930s, its site is now occupied by housing on and adjoining Northover and Westover
Roads: see Winstone, Bristols Suburbs in the 20/30s (Bristol, 1977), fgs 534.
61
Pease, Account, 10. Chapel Allerton Hall was later owned by Sir John Barran, Bart. (18211905) and his
heirs; the house still stands, divided into fats.
62
At the Quaker meeting house in what is now Quakers Friars, in the Broadmead area of central Bristol. This
building, incorporating parts of the remains of a thirteenth century friary, was used as the City Register Ofce
from 1962 to 2006.
63
For whom, see Susan. Ann Pease, Annual Monitor 1078 (191920), 2219.
64
Co-founder of the socialist Fabian Society in 1883, and its Secretary, then Honorary Secretary, 18901938; he
was also involved in setting up the London School of Economics and the Labour Party (ODNB, XLIII, 3524).
65
Originally built for the apothecary William Broderip (c.17471826) around 1800, who had sold it in 1815.
The owner directly prior to Pease was Thomas Hill, a Corn Street-based merchant trading with Russia (where
he had been born, in St Petersburg, in 1794) and his family; they had been there since before 1841, by which year
the house had been renamed Cote Hill. It became Cote Bank again before 1851. For the houses history and
development prior to Peases purchase, see J. Russell, Repton & the Rich Apothecary: New Light on Cote Bank,
Avon Gardens Trust Journal 1 (2006), 1523; for a series of views of the house and its grounds in the early years
of the twentieth century, see R. Winstone, Bristols Suburbs Long Ago (Bristol, 1985), fgs 6974.
66
For which see Russell, Avon Gardens Trust Journal 1, 19, 20.
67
A school founded under the auspices of the British and Foreign Schools Society, which promoted the
establishment of a system of non-sectarian schools for the poor. These institutions were efectively superseded
with the arrival of state education in 1870.
68
As Fellow number 1927.
122 AIDAN DODSON JEA 94
(17971875),
69
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (18071889), sculptor of the Crystal
Palace dinosaurs,
70
and the palaeontologist John William Salter (18201869)
71
a list
that indicates his standing in scholarly circles. He joined the Bristol Institution in the
same year and became Joint Secretary of Finance of the Bristol Museum & Library
Association in 1871, i.e. at the time of the move of the collections from the bottom to
the top of Park Street.
72

Following this move, the displays in the museum building had concentrated on
geology and natural history, the antiquities collection being relegated, owing to a lack
of space, to the attics, with the exception of at least some of the Egyptian material.
This is known to have been displayed on the landing of the back staircase, but nothing
is known as to exactly which objects were then exposed to view, nor when more space
was made available for the antiquities in an 1877 extension. It is thus not possible to
say whether or nor the inner cofns of Iyhat and Tairy were ever present in the new
Museum building.
Thomas is recorded as a shareholder of Museum and Library Association (with 22
shares) through the 1870s. After his sudden death at the Quaker Meeting House the
place of his marriage on 15 January 1884,
73
his shares appear to have transferred
69
ODNB, XXXIV, 8526.
70
ODNB, XXV, 9078.
71
ODNB, XLVIII, 7634.
72
Plans and papers relating to the construction of the new building were still in the hands of Thomass daughter
Marian as late as 1949 (BCMAG HF 506).
73
He collapsed while actually speaking during a meeting: Annual Monitor NS 43, 1345; he was buried at
Kingsweston Quaker Burial Ground on 19 January, where his widows ashes would be interred alongside him
over three decades later (see n. 42).
Fig. 9. Kingsweston Quaker Burial Ground with, inset,
the grave-markers of Thomas and Susanna Pease (author).
2008 THE COFFINS OF IYHAT AND TAIRY 123
to his widow, Susanna.
74
Five shares were also held by his son Ormston, presumably
purchased at the same time, since their numbers follow on directly from those held
by Thomas. Other members of the family were also involved with the Museum over
the years, making a number of donations.
75

The Peases home at Cote Bank was little more than half a kilometre from The
Larches, Amelia Edwards house in Eastfeld, also part of Westbury-on-Trym.
Thomass widow remarks that [h]is friendship with Miss Amelia B. Edwards was a
great source of pleasure to him in the last few years of his life.
76
Unfortunately, no
mention of him seems to survive amongst the Edwards papers,
77
nor were any of the
family apparently subscribers to the Egypt Exploration Fund.
78
While there is thus a clear connection between the Pease family and the Bristol
Museum going back to 1860, this is still twenty-fve years on from the crucial 1834
Bristol Institution display, and does nothing to explain how the cofns found their
way to Cote Bank. Given his deep interest in Egyptology
79
and his existing Egyptian
collection, it is clearly Thomas Pease who is the crucial fgure, rather than his son, on
whom the collection ultimately devolved.
80
In particular, in view of his 1871 position
in the Museum and Library Association (presumably covering the Museum side
of its afairs), he must have been deeply involved in the move of objects the 300
metres up Park Street between the old and new buildings. Might it be that during
this work the two cofns
81
were transferred to Cote Bank, perhaps to temporarily
74
Thomas Pease is replaced in the lists by Mrs Pease from 1 January 1885 onwards. Curiously, Thomas
continued to be listed in Wrights Directory of Bristol as resident at Cote Bank for two decades after his death,
his widow only replacing him in 1905!
75
For example, Marian attempted (unsuccessfully) to donate a work by the Serbian sculptor Ivan Metrovi
(18831962) in 1919. In December 1949, as she and her sister Rosa were moving from Almondsbury to Wraxhill
Cottage, Street, Somerset (Harts was sold to Cyril Quantick in January 1950, who retained it until 1965; the
house still exists), they donated a pair of buddhas to the Museum. A number of other items from their former
home also went to the citys Blaise Castle folk museum. Edward lent a collection of British Bronze Age and
Roman material in 1893 (the year that the Museum was transferred to Bristol Corporation), which became a gift
in 1921 (BCMAG HF 506 and 3189M).
76
Pease, Account, 17.
77
Personal communication from Brenda Moon, 29 May 2006; she is the author of the latest biography of
Miss Edwards: More Usefully Employed: Amelia B. Edwards, Writer, Traveller and Campaigner for Ancient Egypt
(London, 2006). On the other hand, that the Pease and Fry families were not unknown in Miss Edwards circle is
shown by a record made on 6 December 1889 by her friend Kate Bradbury (WWWE 3, 181) during their visit to
the USA. Speaking of their host, a nice Quaker lady in Plainfeld, New Jersey, Bradbury notes: Foxes, Peases,
Frys, &c. she knows them all! (Moon, personal communication 2 June 2006).
78
Personal communication, Chris Naunton, 17 May 2006.
79
Susanna Pease remarks to his children: He was much interested in archaeology and the mythologies of
various nations which gave him the taste for collecting idols and none of you will forget his knowledge of
Egyptology (Account, 17).
80
Thomass will (dated 26 February 1883) does not mention his Egyptian material at all, which was presumably
amongst the household goods, chattels, furniture and efects whether for ornament or use (except Plate and Plated
articles money and securities for money) as shall be in and about my residence for the time being at my decease
bequeathed to Susanna, who also received Cote Bank itself for life. Susannas will (dated 13 March 1914) is
also unspecifc, merely directing that her furniture books pictures collections ornaments china silver and plated
objects be distributed by her executors (Ormston, Edward, Marian, and Rosa) at their discretion among and
to all the surviving children of [her] late husband and the husband or wife or eldest child of such children . It
would thus appear that Ormston may have only acquired the collection on his mothers death, although it is not
impossible that it could have been given over at some point during Susannas lifetime. On the other hand, the fact
that the principal items (at least) remained at Cote Bank until 1919 would argue against this.
81
Although one might be tempted to wonder whether that the now-missing items from the 1834 Bristol Insti-
tution display (see n. 13) could have left at the same time, there is no trace of them in the Pease Collection. It has
no stelae whatsoever, while the canopic material does not include a jar or lid resembling that recorded in 1834.
124 AIDAN DODSON JEA 94
ease the aforementioned space problems? Thomass unexpected death may then
have obscured their true status, leaving both the family and the Museum authorities
ignorant of the history of the cofns.
Unfortunately, no material seems to survive with any further bearing on the
problem,
82
although one wonders as to what may have lain behind Ormstons
insistence that the cofns should only be lent, rather than donated. Thus one can but
present the facts as they are currently known, and hope that some data may yet come
to light that will complete the tale of the cofns of Iyhat and Tairy.
Appendix 1: the cofns of Iyhat
Owner:

"

s !
son of
p
s
f/

(var.

/
d
) and
Is
`

; Iyhats paternal
grandparents were

= p s
and
s

.
Provenance: Thomas Garrard, 1834.
1a: the outer cofn of Iyhat
Number:
Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery H629 (destroyed in 1957); face and front of
headdress are probably now Ha5594.1 (q.v.).
Dimensions and Description:
83
Heavy wooden outer cofn 7 ft high [213 cm] 27 inches [185 cm] wide.
There are no fgures on the cofn or lid. The head portion of the lid is covered with canvas
and plaster, and painted with the usual striped headdress and deep collar. The remainder
of the lid & cofn has been painted, perhaps in yellow. The inscription on the lid is in
three columns down the middle of the front, in blue hieroglyphs, with red or blue border
lines. The total width of the 3 columns is 8 inches [20 cm], the middle one being about 3
in [9 cm].
The face is 8 inches [20.3 cm] long. There was a beard. The inscription on the body of
the cofn is a band from head to foot, along the middle of each side, from 3 to 4 inches [7.5
to 10 cm] wide; in blue hieroglyphs & red lines.
Either this cofn, or the outer cofn of Tairy, contained on the foor of its trough
a female fgure in profle.
84
This will presumably have been an image of either Nut
or the Goddess of the West, which is common inside outer cofns of the Twenty-
ffth/Twenty-sixth Dynasty.
85

82
Nothing apparently survives at the Museum, while Susanna Peases Account, while fairly detailed about
Thomass life before they married, is frustratingly vague about the events after it. While referring to his many
interests, nothing is mentioned of his related activities, other than a few of those concerning religion and charity,
and oblique mentions of a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Aberdeen in
1857 and a Conference at the Hague soon before his death.
83
The italicized text is taken directly from Stantons 1935 record of the cofn (see p. 115 above), reproduced courtesy
Bristols City Museums & Archives, with the present writers interpolations in square brackets and Roman.
84
See p. 109 above, and Addendum, pp. 1378 below.
85
J. H. Taylor, Theban Cofns from the Twenty-second to the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, in N. Strudwick and
J. H. Taylor (eds), The Theban Necropolis: Past, Present and Future (London, 2003), 117.