Jewelry of the Child Myt
Middle Kingdom
About twenty royal ladies were buried in and around the temple of King Mentuhotep II at Deir el-Bahri. For six of these above-ground shrines were constructed that opened on to the colonnade surrounding the temple's massive core structure. In the burial shaft east of the northernmost of these shrines Museum excavator Herbert E. Winlock discovered in the winter of 1920-21 the burial of Myt ("female cat") that had been robbed but restored and resealed in Antiquity.
Myt’s mummy was wrapped in several layers of linen sheets, and five necklaces (22.3.320–.324) were found between the layers around her head. The precious material and fine quality of her jewelry indicate that she must have been of high status, even though she was just a little girl five years old. It has been speculated that she was a daughter of Mentuhotep II, but there is no direct evidence for that.
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