Silver Antropoid coffin of Psusennes I, Egyptian Museum

In 1940, French archaeologist Pierre Montet discovered a pharaoh with a coffin made of pure silver. Psusennes has been dubbed “the silver pharaoh.” According to the ancient Egyptians, gold was the flesh of the gods, and silver, their bones.

However, silver needed to be imported from Western Asia, which made it the most precious metal in ancient Egypt. Psusennes’s coffin reflects staggering wealth and casts aside assumptions about the limited power of 21st dynasty pharaohs.