Head of Amun

Carved in dark granodiorite, this commanding head of Amun bears features closely aligned with those of Tutankhamun, marking it as a royal commission of his reign. Though acquired in Cairo in 1907, the sculpture was almost certainly created for Karnak, Amun’s great temple at Thebes.

The head belongs to the young king’s programme of restoration, undertaken after the upheavals of the Amarna Period, when Akhenaten had defaced or dismantled the god’s monuments. Here, Amun is restored not only in stone, but in presence; his divine image once again fashioned with care, permanence, and royal authority.

Continuously exhibited and widely published since its acquisition, this fragment stands as a quiet testament to Tutankhamun’s role not merely as a boy king, but as a restorer of tradition, order, and the ancient gods.

Tutankhamun and the Restoration of Amun

Tutankhamun ascended the throne as a child, and the reins of power were likely held by senior courtiers and priests, who guided the kingdom back toward tradition after the religious upheaval of the Amarna Period. Born Tutankhaten, “the Living Image of Aten,” the young king soon changed his name to Tutankhamun, signalling the formal restoration of Amun and the ancient pantheon.

Under Akhenaten, Amun’s temples had been closed, his images defaced, and his supremacy deliberately diminished in favour of the solar Aten. The return of Amun restored not only a god, but the balance of divine order, temple economy, and royal legitimacy; an act as political as it was pious.

Amun, Head of the Egyptian Pantheon

Amun rose from a local Theban deity to become king of the gods, embodying creative force, hidden power, and divine authority. Often merged with Ra as Amun-Ra, he ruled not through visibility, but through presence; “the hidden one” whose influence permeated all things.

His vast temple complex at Karnak stood at the heart of Egypt’s religious and economic life, and devotion to Amun underpinned kingship itself. To restore Amun was to restore Egypt’s cosmic equilibrium, where gods, king, and people once more moved in harmony.