Mask of King Amenemope

This mask was part of the mummy-shaped coffin of gilded wood of Amenemope. The mask is composed of thick sheets of gold molded with the features of the king. The round face of the king is surmounted by the uraeus, the royal cobra, which is attached to the forehead.

The uraeus’s long sinuous body descends from the headdress and coils round itself before raising its head. It is made of solid gold with inlays of red stone and blue turquoise. The pupils, the eyebrows, and the outlines of the eyes are bronze.

Amenemope was originally buried in the only chamber of a small tomb (NRT IV) in the royal necropolis of Tanis; a few years after his death, during the reign of Siamun, Amenemope was moved and reburied in NRT III, inside the chamber once belonging to his purported mother Mutnedjmet and just next to Psusennes I.

His undisturbed tomb was rediscovered by French Egyptologists Pierre Montet and Georges Goyon in April 1940, just a month before the Nazi invasion of France. Montet had to stop his excavation until the end of World War II, then resumed it in 1946 and later published his findings in 1958.

Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, reign of Amenemope, ca. 1001-992 BC. From Tanis. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 86059