For decades, the coffin was relegated to an acrylic display case in a classroom used for workshops and field trips at the Nicholson Museum in Sydney.

The outside of the sarcophagus was intriguing enough: The face of a woman at rest was carved into the dark wood. Hieroglyphs indicated its occupant was Mer-Neith-it-es, a high priestess from the temple of the goddess Sekhmet.

The coffin, from the 6th century B.C., had been purchased by Sir Charles Nicholson from an Egyptian antiquities market in 1857 or 1858, records said. It was among the hundreds of items Nicholson had bequeathed to the University of Sydney to launch the museum that would bear his name.