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Elizabeth (El) Fayet
Professor Kiernan
Art History 2750/01
December 4, 2018
King Tutankhamun’s Burial Chamber
Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom, and led the throne in 1333 BC at the age of nine or ten years old. Due to his age, Tutankhamun had extremely influential consultants that would assist him in reigning over Egypt. During the third year of his rule, Tutankhamun overturned numerous alterations made throughout his father’s rule. He terminated the worship of the god Aten, the sun god, and reestablished the god Amun to omnipotence. Tutankhamun instructed numerous construction tasks including various monuments, a temple devoted to Amun, and the message that is seen on his tomb door. He died at the age of eighteen and even-though there are no existing archives of what exactly caused Tutankhamun’s death, major analyses have been conducted to determine a tangible conclusion to the reason of his early demise. The latest CT scans on his mummy uncovered congenital defects, which is very common with the offspring of incest. It is thought that he also had a partly forked tongue, another congenital defect, but countless additional diseases have been appealed as potential reasons for his early death.
Tutankhamun was buried in a tomb that was uncommonly tiny considering his status as king. His demise might have happened unpredictably, before the completion of a greater royal tomb, so this mummy was buried in a tomb meant for someone else at first. Since king
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Tutankhamun had died in the New Kingdom era, the deceased were put into tombs and not pyramids. Five areas were a part of the tomb; the passage, the annex, the antechamber, the burial chamber, and the treasure room. The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter near Thebes. Dark brown blotches on some of the murals in Tutankhamun's burial chamber hinted that he had been entombed even before the paint could dry.
The murals on the walls of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber are more than three thousand three hundred years’ old and depict three scenes of Tutankhamun. In one scene he is in the form of Osiris having the opening of the mouth ceremony completed on him by Aye, his vizier, outfitted as a priest. This ritual was done to Ancient Egyptian mummies and statues as this ritual supposedly brought life into the mummies themselves. In the middle of the mural, Tutankhamun is depicted as a child being welcomed by the Goddess Nut. In her hands, she holds symbols that resemble the surface of water, drawn as if a child had made it. These symbols signify the Goddess greeting Tutankhamun in his voyage into the afterlife. The left side of the mural is Tutankhamun accepting Osiris, the god of life, death, the flooding of the Nile, and the afterlife. Behind Osiris stands his Ka, or spiritual representation, approving Tutankhamun. The west side of the mural is covered with twelve monkeys representing the twelve hours through the evening in which Tutankhamun has to pass through in order to get to the Afterlife. The boat ride was significant because practically all ancient Egyptians believed that the pharaoh had to make this voyage. Due to this, the boat that the pharaoh is riding on was painted with a scarab beetle representing the sun god, Ra, as a form of worship as two apparitions of Osiris were in the boat worshipping Ra along with Tutankhamun.
The artwork in Tutankhamun’s burial chamber has high historical as well as cultural significance to it mainly due to the murals on every wall surrounding the coffin. Though it’s not as detailed as other tombs in the same area, it still depicts the culture and beliefs of that era though the painted murals of polytheistic Egyptian gods and goddesses as well as rituals. There were many tombs during this time period that all could possibly be compared to this one, and that goes for the murals as well. King Tutankhamun’s tomb and burial chamber are still considered uncommon for the time, though, only due to the fact that most Pharaohs’ tombs were much more grander and decorative for the time, and King Tutankhamun’s mummy was put into a tomb that was easily suited more for the commoners of his kingdom.
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List of Works Cited
Edwards, I. E. S., National Gallery of Art, and Rogers D. Spotswood Collection. Treasures of Tutankhamun: National Gallery of Art, Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago, New Orleans Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York]: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976.
BBC Worldwide Ltd, Films for the Humanities & Sciences, and Films Media Group. Cairo Museum. Museum Secrets; Series 1. New York, N.Y.: Films Media Group, 2011.
Vannini, Sandro, and Mohamed Megahed. King Tut: The Journey through the Underworld. Köln,: TASCHEN, 2018.
"Replica of King Tut's Tomb to Open in Egypt." National Geographic. October 24, 2013. Accessed December 04, 2018. https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/replica-of-king-tuts-tomb-to-open-in-egypt.aspx.
"King Tut's Tomb: Burial Chamber." KingTutOne.com. April 06, 2012. Accessed December 04, 2018. http://kingtutone.com/tutankhamun/tomb/burial/.