Sha-Amun-en-su
Since its sealing, more than 2700 years ago, Sha-Amun-en-su's sarcophagus had never been opened, throughout its history, conserving inside the singer's mummy, a feature that gave it extreme rarity.
Sha-Amun-en-su belonged to the main group, called Heset, women who exercised ritualistic functions and sang hymns in honor of the god Amun at sacred ceremonies and festivals, either as soloists or accompanied by female choirs.
Preferably, they were to remain chaste, but regardless, they were considered pure to such extent as to perform their gifts in an important and symbolic edification as the temple of Amun.
This particularity indicates a concern of the mummifying priests to protect a zone seen as "vital" for a singer with ritualistic functions that, according to the Egyptian beliefs, would continue using her gift in the afterlife.
[5] The Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago preserves in its collection another mummy, also in a sealed sarcophagus, called Meresamun ("Amun's beloved", in Egyptian language).
Based on these common characteristics between the two mummies, Brancaglion hypothesized that there were specific standards of mummification for the women in charge of chanting hymns and songs in the Temple of Karnak.
The Sha-Amun-en-su mummy also underwent a three-dimensional laser scan coordinated by Jorge Lopes, from the Tri-dimensional Experimentation Nucleus of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.
That procedure allowed the generation of three-dimensional data files (called "orthogonal coordinates") that served as the basis for making a small-scale replica of the singer's skeleton.
[1] Computed tomography analysis, coordinated by radiologist Iugiro Kuroki, under the supervision of paleopathologist Sheila Mendonça of Fiocruz, identified several amulets with votive functions stored inside the coffin, including a heart-scarab, an artifact related to Egyptian belief in the resurrection of the dead.
Sha-Amun-en-su's heart-scarab consisted of a green stone of oval shape, set in a gold plaque and attached to a golden cord, with the name of the singer written in hieroglyphs.
In this way the priests sought to preserve the "integrity" of the deceased in the afterlife, as well as the functions, states, characteristics, and other attributes that ancient Egyptians attached to the heart, such as intelligence and feelings.
[3] At the back and outside of the sarcophagus was a representation of the great Djed pillar, a sign of stability associated with Osiris, the Egyptian god of the afterlife, who ruled the underworld and the dead.
The first band bore the inscription "An offering that the king makes [to] Osiris, Chief of the West, great God, Lord of Abydos - made for [?]
An amateur Egyptologist and enthusiast of Egyptian culture, Pedro II had a special affection for the sarcophagus, which soon became one of the most relevant pieces of his private collection.
[4][1][5] The sarcophagus remained in the Palace of São Cristóvão after the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889, and was later integrated into the collection of Egyptian archeology of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro.
[5]On 2 September 2018, a major fire destroyed the building of the National Museum and much of the collection on display, including the sarcophagus of Sha-Amun-en-su, with its mummy and all the votive artifacts conserved within it.
