What the robbers left behind

The head was mummified. The torso had been stripped of its wrappings and pulled out of the end of a coffin, through a side panel.

Several other coffins lay in pieces in a corner of the chamber. Hundreds of other objects, including dozens of wooden models of boats, animals, and craftsmen, were scattered about in piles, their limbs and other body parts broken in pieces.

All this was the work of ancient tomb robbers looking for gold and precious jewelry. They found it. They took it with them.

But what they left behind was staggering: Above all, a beautifully painted coffin made of cedar known as the “Bersha Coffin,’’ widely regarded as the finest of its type ever produced. Among the hundreds of broken models, there was also a superbly realized wooden sculpture of four women standing in procession, carrying offerings on their heads and shoulders.

These are both prized possessions of the Museum of Fine Arts. But the rest of the contents of tomb 10A have not, until now, been quite so prized. Or so it would seem. The museum puts a spin on it by saying that the conservation and reconstruction effort has taken almost 100 years. But in reality, many of the more than 250 objects recovered from the tomb were left to languish.

Until recently. For the first time since these painted coffins, cult objects, walking sticks, vessels, furniture, and jewelry were placed in the tomb about 4,000 years ago, they have been reassembled and are ready to be shown in their entirety in the Museum of Fine Arts’ exhibition “The Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC.’’ The show runs Oct. 18-May 16.

Tomb 10A was the burying place for Djehutynakht, a governor in Middle Kingdom Egypt. The Bersha coffin, with its exquisite, painterly surfaces in red, turquoise, white, and black, was Djehutynakht’s. The other coffin was his wife’s.

Who, you may be wondering, once possessed the severed head, which is sure to be one of the exhibit’s star attractions? Despite some intensive scientific research, we do not yet know if it is his or hers. (At the time of writing, three doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital had just finished extracting a molar from the head and had sent it to a medical examiner’s office for DNA analysis, hoping to settle the question. By the time the exhibition opens to the public, we may know.)

Among the items included in the tomb were nearly 60 wooden boats with special symbolic significance. It took five conservators about 10,000 hours to reassemble their parts. These and the other contents of tomb 10A will be complemented by a selection of Middle Kingdom sculptures from other sites, including the MFA’s life-size “The Statue of Lady Sennuwy,’’ a masterpiece of the early 12th dynasty.

The story of the discovery of tomb 10A is a great tale, set in desert heat during World War I. The find came only after the fruitless excavation of 15 other burial sites and a succession of setbacks, including a mutiny from local villagers helping with the work and the nearly self-defeating use of some explosives.

When the trove was finally discovered, Djehutynakht’s coffin was damaged in the attempt to remove it. The contents of the tomb were carried to Cairo but did not leave Egypt for four years because of the war. Just as the ship finally neared the United States, a fire broke out on board, and the crates carrying the goods were drenched with water in the (successful) attempt to contain the blaze. Luckily, they were not damaged.

But from ancient tomb robbers to shoddy explosives and threats from sea and fire, you get a sense of the enormous distances these amazing objects have traveled, and the random spankings of fortune they have survived.

Sebastian Smee can be reached at ssmee@globe.com.