Iny's funerary chapel rebuilt after 20 year search locates missing pieces

Twenty years of intense work have been necessary to re-build a funerary chapel dedicated to Iny, the 'priest-reader' and aid to three pharaohs, which had been divided up in pieces scattered around the world like an ancient puzzle dating back to 4.000 years ago.

Iny's funerary chapel [Credit: Ansa]

It took all this time for the director of Barcelona's Museum Egipci-Fundaciò Arqueologica, Jordi Clos, with the help of about 20 international institutions, to build it and finally add the missing piece to the funenrary monument currently on display at the museum.

The adventure to re-build the chapel, Clos said, started in 1991, when a false Egyptian door was bought at a Sotheby's auction in London. The door provided information on Iny, who was not known to historians until then. Shortly afterwards Close discovered in an antiques' shop in Paris fragments of the tomb with hieroglyphics talking about Iny.

''It was exceptional, almost a miracle'', said Clos, who then started looking for the missing pieces, raising the interest of institutions and museums in Japan - the Middle Eastern Cultural Centre and Ancient Egyptian Museum, which had original fragments - the necropolis of Saqqara, as well as Sotheby's and Christie's which helped him find the missing tassels scattered across Japan, France, Great Britain and Egypt.

The chapel which can now be admired at the museum in Barcelona is one of four which made up Iny's funerary monument originally located in Saqqara. Incisions on the chapel reveal that, 4.300 years ago, Iny was a close aid to Pepi I, Merenre I and Pepi II. He led a number of commercial expeditions to get silver, lapis lazuli, lead and other construction materials. He was a 'lecturer priest' and had administrative roles like 'products supervisor' at the funerary complex of Pepi I. Among the titles he was attributed are 'bearer of God's seal in the two boats', meaning he headed expeditions; 'conductor of explorers' and 'only friend' of the king. Now a piece of his memory lives on at the Egipci museum in Barcelona. 

Source: ANSA [July 12, 2013]