Focus on Sha-Amun-en-su and explain the History.
There is scarce information on the sarcophagus of Sha-Amun-en-su in the pre-nineteenth century period. There is no record of the date or exact archaeological site where the coffin was found (although it is known to come from the vast western Thebes complex), nor is there any information on the process of integrating the coffin into the Egyptian Khedivate collections.In 1876, during the second visit of Emperor Dom Pedro II to Egypt, the sarcophagus was offered as a gift to the Brazilian monarch by Ismail Pasha. In return, Pedro II offered a book to the Khedive. 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. The emperor kept him standing in his study in the Palace of São Cristóvão.During its passage through the collection of Pedro II, the sarcophagus was damaged in the event of a storm. Knocked down by the wind, the sarcophagus fell, crashing into one of the emperor's office windows and having its left side fragmented. It was later restored, but the intervention would remain visible ever since. Other restorations would be carried out in the following decades aiming at eliminating, above all, the threats of termites and wasps, attracted by the oldness of the wood.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. Since its integration into the museum collection, the sarcophagus has always been one of the most outstanding pieces of the collection, having served as the basis for a large number of scientific researches, theses and monographs, developed by researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and others Brazilian scientific institutions and academics from different parts of the world. In 2015, commenting on the importance and uniqueness of the sarcophagus and the mummy of Sha-Amun-en-su, the curator of the Egyptian National Museum's collection, Antonio Brancaglion Junior, stated:If you have a mummy, you have a mummy, if you have not, you won't get one anymore. If we lose it, we will never get anything else remotely similar. We have to keep it to the end.
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. In the fire, the other mummies and sarcophagi of the collection, along with most of the archaeological collection, were also lost. The fire caused great commotion in the academic, scientific and cultural circles of Brazil and the world.
Ismail Pasha Khedive Dom Pedro II Egyptian Khedivate Thebes sarcophagus Palace of São Cristóvão major fire Amun Rio de Janeiro National Museum Proclamation of the Republic Egyptian Antonio Brancaglion Junior left Federal University of Rio de Janeiro