Royal Tombs of Tanis: Pierre Montet's Silver Coffin Treasures

The royal tombs of Tanis are a group of underground burials in the north-eastern Nile Delta, built for kings of Egypt’s 21st and 22nd dynasties between about 1047 and 800 BC. Found by the French archaeologist Pierre Montet in 1939 and 1940, several held intact royal burials with silver coffins, gold masks and jewellery. They are the richest royal burials found in Egypt apart from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Tanis, a new royal city

After the end of the New Kingdom around 1070 BC, Egypt was divided. High priests of Amun ruled the south from Thebes, while kings of the 21st dynasty ruled the north from Tanis, a city on a branch of the Nile near the coast. Tanis is the biblical Zoan, and its ruins are today at San el-Hagar.

The kings of Tanis built a large temple of Amun, enclosed by massive mud-brick walls. Much of their stone came from older sites, especially the abandoned Ramesside capital of Pi-Ramesses. Statues and obelisks of Ramesses II were moved and set up again at Tanis.

This reuse misled early archaeologists, including Montet, into thinking Tanis was Pi-Ramesses itself. Later excavations showed that Pi-Ramesses lay at Qantir, about 20 to 30 km to the south.

Instead of the Valley of the Kings, the kings of Tanis were buried inside the temple enclosure, close to the god. This was safer, as the royal tombs of Thebes had been widely robbed.

The discovery

Montet began excavating at Tanis in 1929. In early 1939 he found a group of stone-built tombs in the south-west corner of the temple enclosure. The first, belonging to Osorkon II of the 22nd dynasty, had been robbed in antiquity, though some objects survived.

In a neighbouring tomb, belonging to Psusennes I, Montet found an antechamber containing an untouched burial. It held a silver coffin with a falcon’s head, belonging to a little-known king, Heqakheperre Shoshenq, now called Shoshenq II. The coffin was opened in March 1939 in the presence of King Farouk of Egypt.

In February 1940 Montet broke into the sealed burial chamber of Psusennes I himself, who reigned c. 1047-1001 BC. The king lay in a nest of coffins: a granite sarcophagus reused from the burial of Merneptah, a black granite coffin, and an inner coffin of silver. On his face was a gold mask, and his body was covered with gold jewellery, finger and toe covers, and bracelets.

Other burials

Within the same tomb Montet found, in April 1940, the intact burial of King Amenemope with a gold mask. In 1946 he found a further intact chamber belonging to a general named Wendjebauendjed, who held high office under Psusennes I. His gold and silver cups and amulets are among the finest objects from the site.

Other tombs belonged to Shoshenq III and other rulers, and the tomb of Osorkon II also held the burial of Takelot II. In all, about seven tombs have been identified, but because the bodies lay in damp Delta soil, the mummies themselves were poorly preserved, mostly reduced to skeletons.

Why the finds were overlooked

The Tanis discoveries came at the start of the Second World War. In September 1939 war broke out in Europe, and Montet’s later finds received little attention outside specialist circles. Excavation stopped for several years, and Montet did not resume work until after the war.

The treasures were taken to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where they remain. Exhibitions abroad, including a touring exhibition of Tanis gold, later brought them a wider audience.

Key people

• Pierre Montet (1885-1966): French Egyptologist who excavated Tanis from 1929 and found the royal necropolis.
• Psusennes I: King of the 21st dynasty, c. 1047-1001 BC, who built the Tanis temple enclosure and its largest royal tomb.
• Amenemope: His successor, whose gold-masked burial was found in Psusennes I’s tomb.
• Shoshenq II: A little-known 22nd-dynasty king, buried in the falcon-headed silver coffin.

Myths and facts

Tanis is best known to many people from the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, which places the Ark of the Covenant in a “lost city” there. This is fiction. Tanis was never lost; it was well known to scholars since the 18th century, and no evidence links it to the Ark.

Timeline

• c. 1070 BC: The New Kingdom ends; the 21st dynasty rules from Tanis.
• c. 1047-1001 BC: Reign of Psusennes I, who builds his tomb at Tanis.
• c. 943 BC: The 22nd dynasty, of Libyan origin, takes power and continues to bury kings at Tanis.
• 1929: Pierre Montet begins excavating at Tanis.
• 1939, February-March: Montet finds the royal tombs and the silver coffin of Shoshenq II.
• 1940, February: The intact burial chamber of Psusennes I is opened.
• 1940, April: Montet finds the intact burial of Amenemope.
• 1946: The intact burial of the general Wendjebauendjed is found.

Why it matters

The royal tombs of Tanis show that the so-called Third Intermediate Period was not simply a time of decline. Its kings commanded skilled craftsmen and large amounts of silver and gold. Their intact burials give a rare, complete picture of royal funerary practice, and they remind us that not every great Egyptian discovery came from Thebes.