The University of Warsaw has a collection of ancient Egyptian objects, including four human mummies (200334 MNW, 236805/3 MNW, 236806 MNW, along with the mummy remains under two numbers KMS St. 0089 and KMS St. 0096 from the coffin 236804 MNW). They were donated by various persons in the nineteenth century. This paper establishes their dating, history, provenances, and research history in the context of the university’s antiquities collection, interests in ancient Egypt, and the development of Egyptology in Poland, especially in Warsaw. Previous studies on the subject were problematic owing to the limited and dispersed nature of sources and the fact that some of them were ambiguous and sometimes contradictory. Since then, more information has become available, especially computed tomography and X-ray scans of the mummies made by the Warsaw Mummy Project in cooperation with the National Museum in Warsaw. This has allowed further elaboration on the history of the collection and to re-establish identities of some of the deceased.

The paper presents a hypothetical reconstruction of the tomb of a provincial dignitary, Nomarch (district governor) Ini I, who lived during the First Intermediate Period (late 3rd millennium BCE) and was buried in the Northern Necropolis of Gebelein. The tomb was discovered by Virginio Rosa in 1911. An unpublished account of the tomb’s discovery offers exact dimensions and a detailed description allowing to propose a reconstruction of its form and furnishing. Blender, an open-source software designed for three-dimensional modeling, has been employed for the task. The modeling process is described and followed by a discussion of the validity and usefulness of such reconstructions for archaeology and dissemination of research results.

Our understanding of the relationship between foreigners and ancient Egyptians comes primarily from Egyptian sources, thus largely reflecting the Egyptian perspective. The tomb of Ini, discovered in 1911, exhibits traditional Egyptian architectural form alongside some non-Egyptian elements of its furnishing, such as a cowhide upon which the owner’s ka -statue was placed. Ini’s statue, with a red hue, was additionally partly painted with a black substance, indicating his possible dual ethnic identity. This blending of ethnic expressions in Ini’s tomb is a significant example of cultural interactions in ancient Egypt, where elements of Egyptian and Nubian identities are intertwined. Such evidence highlights the complex relationships between Egyptians and Nubians in the Gebelein region during the First Intermediate Period and may act as a counterweight to the Egyptian-dominated sources.

While relatively much is known of Gebelein in the second and third millennia BCE, as well as the Ptolemaic times, the role of the town of Per-Hathor and its surrounding in the Third Intermediate (c. 1076–747 BCE) and Late (c. 747–332 BCE) periods remains largely obscure. The aim of this paper is to examine the existing sources pertaining to the history of Gebelein with the particular focus on state activities in the area, diachronic changes in settlement pattern and sacral topography, as well as funerary landscape in the first three-quarters of first millennium BCE and analyse the available information in a regional context. For this, published and unpublished records are utilised, together with the results of the current field prospection in Gebelein.