Inside the Tomb of Tutankhamun

Tucked into the sandstone flank of the Valley of the Kings, KV 62 is hardly more than a corridor, a stair and a single painted chamber, but what a chamber!

Built in haste for the boy-king who is thought to have died unexpectedly, Tutankhamun’s tomb became, thanks to Howard Carter’s discovery on November 4th, 1922, the most celebrated archaeological find of the Twentieth Century, with walls, daubed a brilliant golden ochre, forming an illuminated manuscript in plaster, compressing the theology of an empire into a space no larger than a modern garage, approximately 109 square metres (1,170 square feet).

Scholars have long suspected that the snug tomb now celebrated as KV 62 was never meant for Tutankhamun at all, with some whispers proposing it was hacked out for a courtier or even for his wily successor, Ay, who may (so the unproven theory runs) have commandeered a grander resting place and ceded this serviceable bolt-hole to the boy-king.

Whoever its intended owner, the little sepulchre was pressed into service at breathtaking speed: a sixteen-step staircase and a short sloping corridor usher one into an antechamber barely 7.9 × 3.6 m, off which lie a cupboard-like annexe, a treasury of similar proportions, and a painted burial chamber just 6.4 × 4 m; the whole architectural footprint scarcely 110 m².

Walls were hurriedly plastered and washed in golden ochre, and the paint was still damp when the doorway was sealed; trapped moisture later bloomed into the chestnut “freckles” of mould that vexed Howard Carter’s conservators.

The contents, too, betray haste: chariots piled atop beds, alabaster oils wedged between war-fans, and thrones peeping from beneath funeral garlands; a glorious jumble, as though the palace store-rooms had been swept wholesale into the chamber and the door slammed shut. Thus, the most modest tomb in the Valley, slapped together in a rush and packed like an attic, became the glittering jewel of modern Egyptology and breathed new life into a humble, long forgotten brief reign of a boy king.

Compared with the corridors of the tomb of Seti I, or the labyrinthine netherworlds painted for Ramesses VI, Tutankhamun’s burial chamber feels almost austere, with hardly more than four hastily plastered walls, each bearing a single, concentrated vignette of royal resurrection.

Tutankhamun’s grandfather Amenhotep III had envisioned a sprawling tomb-palace (WV22) lined with lengthy Netherworld books; Tutankhamun’s decorators, racing against the embalmer’s forty-day clock, reduced the cosmic journey to its bare essentials. Yet in that very compression lies a kind of poetry: the boy-king meets his gods in scenes as direct as they are luminous, and every brushstroke speaks of hurried devotion.

Overall, Tutankhamun’s tomb only has four painted walls, each decorated with scenes meant to guide and legitimise his passage into the afterlife. The surrounding rooms (the antechamber, treasury, and annexe) are unadorned and undecorated, which is highly unusual for a royal tomb, but speaks to the hurried nature of the king’s burial.

Tomb Layout

The tomb’s painted programme follows a ritual and symbolic logic more than a linear one, often interpreted in a clockwise ceremonial order, echoing the sun’s nightly journey through the underworld.

Upon entering Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, the first wall one sees is the North Wall, which functions as the visual and spiritual focal point of the space, depicting key scenes of divine reception, including Tutankhamun with his Ka before Osiris, his greeting by the goddess Nut, and the Opening of the Mouth ritual performed by Ay.


The East Wall, to the left upon entry, shows the funerary procession and transition from life to death.

The South Wall, to the right, features the king welcomed into the afterlife by gods such as Anubis and Hathor, affirming his divine rebirth.

Behind the viewer, the West Wall presents twelve baboons representing the twelve hours of night from the Book of Amduat, evoking the sun god’s regenerative journey. Together, the walls form a cyclical narrative of death, transformation, divine acceptance, and eternal renewal, with the north as a spiritual anchor and the entire chamber serving as a sacred microcosm of the afterlife.

Within his tomb, Tutankhamun is referred to via his throne name (prenomen) Neb-kheperu-re (𓎟𓋴𓇓𓊪𓂋𓂤𓂋).

Neb (𓎟): “Lord”
Kheperu (𓇓): plural of kheper, meaning “manifestations” or “forms of becoming” (symbolised by the scarab beetle, 𓆤)
Re (𓂋): the sun god Ra

In royal funerary contexts, especially from the New Kingdom onward, it was customary to emphasise the prenomen rather than the nomen (birth name). This was because the throne name represented the king’s divine role and solar affiliation, not his personal identity.

Tutankhamun’s name; Tut-Ankh-Amun Heqa-iunu-shema (“Living Image of Amun, Ruler of Southern Heliopolis“), does appear on objects from his tomb, such as his seal rings, funerary goods, and some coffin inscriptions, but within the tomb chamber murals, it’s the prenomen that dominates. This fits the theological tone of the burial: in death, the king is no longer a mere man but a divine solar being, reborn in the image of Re and Osiris, and so, Nebkheperure is the name most fitting for eternity.

Burial Chamber

North Wall

The North Wall of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber is the most theologically charged and visually arresting wall in the tomb; confronting the viewer immediately upon entry. Painted in vivid yellows, with stylised red-brown and white figures, this wall narrates the pivotal moments of the king’s transition from earthly ruler to divine being. It is divided into three distinct scenes, each rich in symbolic nuance.

At the left end of the wall, Tutankhamun is shown standing alongside his Ka, his spiritual double, depicted with the characteristic upraised arms symbol on its head. Together, they face Osiris, enthroned, green-skinned, and wrapped in the traditional white mummy garb, holding the crook and flail. This is the moment of divine judgement and acceptance: Tutankhamun is formally presented to Osiris, lord of the dead, affirming his entry into the afterlife. The Ka signifies that not only the king’s body but also his essential life force has made the journey.

In the central and perhaps most intimate scene, the sky goddess Nut stands before the boy-king, her arms outstretched in a rare and tender gesture of welcome. Her hands display the zigzag hieroglyph for water; symbolising “celestial waters” or “life-giving essence.”

The text accompanying the scene, have the goddess declaring Tutankhamun as her son, with the phrase “whom she gave birth” (wnn.t nt mAˁ hAt(w)). Nut is not merely welcoming the deceased; she is reincorporating him into her cosmic womb, affirming his rebirth among the stars. Although it is ritual and symbolic, the language does cast Tutankhamun as her offspring, evoking imagery of divine maternity rather than clerical servitude.

This maternal address supports the broader Egyptian-afterlife theology: the deceased king becomes a divine child of Nut, rising again with the sun and finding place among the imperishable stars, the eternal “ihemu sek“. It’s a gesture both tender and cosmic: a goddess guiding her celestial child from death into everlasting life.

On the right side of the North Wall, a startling scene unfolds. The figure of Ay, Tutankhamun’s successor and possibly his former vizier, is shown performing the Opening of the Mouth ritual upon the deceased king, who is represented in Osiride form. Ay wears the leopard-skin robe of a sem-priest, indicating his ritual authority. This is the only known royal tomb scene where a non-royal successor performs this rite on a king, a detail that has intrigued and unsettled Egyptologists, given the theories that Ay may have hastily claimed the throne and married Tutankhamun’s widow. It is thought that this was Ay’s attempt at certifying his status as the rightful heir of Tutankhamun, and legitmizing his claim to the throne.

The entire wall is marked by freckled discolourations, believed to be the result of mould growth caused by sealing the tomb too quickly before the wall paintings had dried, a sign of haste, perhaps in both Tutankhamun’s burial and Ay’s political ascent.

East Wall

On the east wall of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber the painter has captured the hush of the funeral cortège itself. A dozen men, some bald, others sporting cropped, shoulder-length wigs, grip the towing ropes; each brow is circled by a plain white head-band and each body simply adorned in white costume, the usual fine details of translucent pleated linens are left to the imagination, as though there were no time to delve into details. For this scene, simple white tunics and togas suffice.

In unison the men haul the great sledge that bears the king’s coffin to his final abode, its vivid cavetto cornice and feathered garlands framing the swathed mummy, whose cartouche “Neb-kheperu-Re, justified” still glints beneath Nut’s freckled ochre sky. Above the procession a brief horizontal inscription intones the essential blessing: “A royal offering, which the king gives to Anubis, lord of the sacred booth, that he may grant burial in the West to the Osiris, King Neb-kheperu-Re, true of voice, for ever and ever.”

Nothing more is needed. The tug of the rope, the flat hush of white garments, and that single line of hieroglyphs tell the whole story: a boy-pharaoh, hurried to eternity, drawn to his last doorway by the earnest, unadorned devotion of his people.

South Wall

On the south wall of Tutankhamun’s painted burial chamber, the scene is serene yet solemn: the young king stands in a crisp white khat headdress, flanked on his right by Anubis, and on his left by Hathor; each god the same size as the monarch, affirming his divine parity.

Anubis, with one hand resting firmly upon Tutankhamun’s shoulder, clasps an ankh in his other hand, casually positioned by his side; a gesture of protection and eternal life. Opposite him, Hathor mirrors the pose: her ankh extended before the king’s face in benediction, her second hand lowered at her side. Above the figures, a concise inscription reads: “The king (Nebkheperu-Re), beloved of Anubis and Hathor, who grant him life and burial in the West.”

The artistic style here, as with all of the tomb, is striking in its simplicity and charm: figures are solid, almost cartoon-like in their deliberate boldness. There are no intricate registers or sprawling mythic panoramas, as seen in the tombs of others both royal and non royal. Instead, each wall carries a single sacred tableau, stripped back to the essentials, a direct dialogue between king and gods. Clearly, the artisans had little time for ornamentation; they focused on the rites and deities necessary for Tutankhamun’s passage, eschewing elaborate landscapes for unambiguous reverence.

West Wall

The scene of the twelve squatting baboons painted along the western wall of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber may appear, at first glance, deceptively simple. But in fact, it draws from one of the most powerful and esoteric funerary texts of the New Kingdom; the Book of Amduat, specifically the First Hour of Night.

These twelve baboons are no mere decorative flourish, but divine sentinels of the duat, the netherworld through which the sun-god Ra must pass each night in order to be reborn at dawn. And in selecting this scene for Tutankhamun’s modest burial chamber, the tomb’s designers distilled the very essence of Ancient Egyptian resurrection theology.

In the Amduat, the journey of the sun through the twelve hours of night is a symbolic map for the soul’s voyage after death. Each hour is a gateway, a testing ground, and a chapter in the cosmic narrative of death, renewal, and divine triumph. The twelve baboons specifically preside over the First Hour, standing watch as the solar barque enters the western horizon, descending into the underworld. Their howls at dawn were thought to greet and glorify the sun’s return; hence, they are often depicted raising their arms or seated in reverent poses, as seen in Tutankhamun’s tomb.

In Ancient Egyptian religion, baboons (especially in their form as sacred animals of Thoth) were symbolically linked to both the sun and the moon. While their sunrise howling made them natural solar heralds (hence their connection to the First Hour of the Book of Amduat) they also had lunar associations, particularly through the god Thoth in his baboon form.

Thoth, as lord of time, writing, and wisdom, governed both lunar and solar cycles. In lunar contexts, he was believed to regulate the phases of the moon, measure time, and restore the eye of Horus, a symbol also closely linked to lunar rebirth. Baboons, by extension, became creatures of celestial balance; able to straddle the mysteries of night and the illumination of day.

So, these painted baboons in Tutankhamun’s tomb are not merely symbolic of daylight’s return, but also of cyclical transformation and the timely resurrection of the soul; be it through the rising sun or the waxing moon.

The Book of Amduat was a prestigious text, most often reserved for royal tombs, beginning in the reign of Thutmose III. Its presence in Tutankhamun’s tomb, even in abbreviated form; signals that Tutankhamun was being honoured as a fully divine figure, worthy of cosmic passage. In a tomb that is otherwise relatively sparse and symbolic, the baboon tableau anchors the space with celestial order and timeless hope.

For the artists and priests hastily adorning the burial chamber, the inclusion of this scene served a vital function: it placed Tutankhamun’s soul within the protective rhythm of the cosmos. Despite the absence of long funerary texts or multiple chambers, this single tableau was enough to affirm that the king, like Ra, would descend, transform, and rise again with the dawn.

Antechamber, Annex & Treasury

Beyond the painted burial chamber, Tutankhamun’s tomb is a study in succinct architectural economy. A shallow staircase of sixteen steps descends from the valley floor to a sloping corridor barely eight metres long; from there one steps directly into the antechamber, the largest space, about 7.9 × 3.6 metres. Carter found it crammed like an attic: dismantled chariots, folding beds with leonine legs, ceremonial shields, and the king’s golden throne stacked cheek-by-jowl, as though palace storerooms had been emptied overnight.

Off the antechamber, to the right, lies a cupboard-sized annexe (roughly 4 × 2.6 m). Here the hurried packing was even more apparent: wine-jars, game boards, baskets of food, and alabaster vessels lay toppled together in what Carter called “a magician’s lumber-room,” provision for eternity but with no attempt at courtly order.

Straight ahead from the antechamber a doorway leads to the burial chamber, its four painted walls the golden stage on which the king meets his gods. Tucked beyond that, entered from a low opening in the north-east corner, is the treasury (about 4 × 3.6 m). This was the shrine room: the black jackal of Anubis crouched atop a gilt shrine, the canopic chest of calcite guarded by the four goddesses, and two magnificent gilded statues of Tutankhamun as Osiris standing sentinel beside the doorway.

And that is all, no pillared halls, no long corridors of nether-world texts; just stair, corridor, antechamber, annexe, burial chamber, and treasury. Small though it is, each room was packed to the lintel with the furniture of immortality, a testament to the haste of the funeral yet also to the determination that even a boy-king would not enter the afterlife ill-equipped.

Annexe:

The annexe is a small, rectangular room located just off the antechamber (to the right as one enters). It measures roughly 4 by 2.6 metres, and unlike the burial chamber, it is undecorated—no wall paintings or inscriptions. Howard Carter, who discovered the tomb in 1922, found the annexe packed chaotically with a mixture of items, including:

• Jars of wine and oil
  
• Boxes, baskets, and bags of food
  
• Cosmetic vessels
  
• Furniture parts
  
• Board games
  
• Ritual objects

Serving as a kind of overflow chamber, where objects deemed necessary for the king’s afterlife were hastily stashed, likely in the final days before burial.

Antechamber:

An antechamber (from the Latin ante- meaning “before”) is a room that serves as an entrance or waiting area before a larger or more important space. The antechamber in the Tomb of Tutankhamun is the first room encountered after descending the steps and passing through the sloping entrance corridor. It is the largest room in the tomb, measuring roughly 7.9 × 3.6 metres, and served as the central receiving and storage area for many of the king’s burial goods. When Howard Carter opened it in 1922, he was confronted with a magnificent and chaotic treasure trove:

• Collapsed ceremonial beds shaped like sacred animals
• Chariots dismantled and stacked
• The golden throne of Tutankhamun
• Shields, robes, statues, and stools

All of which were jumbled together as if the contents of a palace storeroom had been tipped in with little ceremony. Unlike the burial chamber, the antechamber and like the annexe, the antechamber is undecorated, with plain walls and no inscriptions, yet despite its lack of ornament, it is the room that first offered the modern world a glimpse of Tutankhamun’s astonishing wealth.

Treasury:

The treasury is the easternmost room, located directly to the right of the burial chamber, and was intended to house the most sacred and spiritually significant items associated with the pharaoh’s rebirth and protection in the afterlife. Though smaller than the antechamber, the treasury is rich in symbolic weight, both literally and metaphorically, as in Ancient Egyptian tomb architecture, the treasury was not for earthly wealth in the modern sense but rather the spiritual riches required for eternity.

The Treasury measures about 4 × 3.8 metres, a modestly sized room yet filled floor to ceiling with precious objects. Howard Carter described it as being filled with “objects of the most intimate and sacred character”, a sharp contrast to the disorder of the antechamber. Its placement on the east side of the burial chamber mirrors the rising sun and thus symbolises rebirth. Within the treasury were:

• The canopic shrine, shaped like a miniature chapel, housing the canopic chest which contained the embalmed internal organs of the king, protected by goddess-figurines at each corner (often Isis, Nephthys, Selket, and Neith).
  
• The Shrine of Anubis symbolising his role as guardian of the necropolis.
  
• Dozens of ushabti figures, meant to serve the king in the afterlife by performing menial tasks on his behalf.
  
• Chests of countless pieces of jewellery, amulets, and ritual objects, all tightly packed and carefully rearranged by Carter’s team after the initial discovery in 1922.