Meanwhile, The Hunterian said it had sought advice from Egyptologists before protecting Lady Shep-En-Hor’s remains as part of a “commitment to becoming a more ethical institution”.
A spokesperson for the museum, managed by the University of Glasgow, said the conclusion of that consultation led to the view Lady Shep-En-Hor “deserved privacy in death”.
Her ornate sarcophagus, which has been on display almost continuously since 1820, will remain on public view as a “fine work of late period ancient Egyptian funerary art”.
Lady Shep-En-Hor has never been removed from the coffin, but has been X-rayed and CT scanned in the last 50 years.
In the 1970s, several theories were put forward questioning whether the remains in the coffin were actually those of Lady Shep-En-Hor.
The Hunterian said excavators in the 19th century occasionally swapped over remains from different coffins, with better preserved specimens placed in the most intact or ornate sarcophagi.
