This strange combination couch of Tutankhamun represents the dreadful Ammit, the monster who waits during the final judgment in the court of Osiris and who devours the unjust deceased. Three ritual funerary couches were found in the antechamber of Tutankhamun. They are made of stuccoed gilded wood in the form of sacred animals whose eyes...
The Clepsydra of Karnak has 12 carved columns of 11 false holes, corresponding to the hours of the night. The water flowed through a very small hole made in the center of the bottom, emerging on the outside under the figure of a seated baboon. This clepsydra is the oldest water clock of which there...
This alabaster canopic chest of Tutankhamun is considered to be one of the finest masterpieces of King Tut’s collection. The interior of the chest is divided into four compartments, each with a cylindrical hollow covered by a lid elegantly carved in the form of the king’s head. At the four corners of the chest, carved...
Although this snake goddess is not named in an inscription, her human face and the two finger-shaped feathers on her crown identify her as Meretseger (She Who Loves Silence), a patroness of fertility and the harvest. Like this statue, most images of Meretseger are modest in quality and were placed in small chapels or shrines...
Illustration of the interior of a royal tomb of a king of Ancient Egypt. This depiction is partially based on the tomb of Thutmose IV, the 8th king of the 18th Dynasty. Thutmose IV ruled from 1401 BC to 1391 BC. The tomb has many rooms and side room, with the tomb at lower right. An...
At the Egyptian Museum in Cairo reside two extraordinary granite statues representing the Souls of Pe and Nekhen, sculpted during the reign of Amenhotep III in the 18th Dynasty, around 1391–1353 B.C. Hewn from grey granite and originally set within the grand temple precinct of Karnak, these figures (JE 41210 and JE 41211) encapsulate some...
This wadjet eye pectoral was found on the mummy of the king Tutankhamun, symbol of the entity of the body. The cobra goddess Wadjet wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt “Deshret”, while the vulture goddess Nekhbet wearing the White Crown of the Upper Egypt “Hedjet”. Howard Carter believed that this pectoral was a piece...
The third outer shrine of Tutankhamun is of similar design to the second, with a sloping roof and somewhat smaller dimensions. It is gilded over its entire surface and decorated in sunk relief with vignettes and extracts from Egyptian religious texts. The sides of the shrine are inscribed with abridged versions of the second and...
Ancient Egyptian signet-ring with a rectangular bezel bearing a cartouche with the name of King Amenhotep II flanked by Nile gods (Hapi). The Egyptians primarily used signet, or seal, rings, in which a seal engraved on the bezel can be used to authenticate documents by the wearer. Egyptian seal rings typically had the name and titles...
Detail of a wall relief depicts Osiris, Lord of the underworld, god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation. Osiris was the god of afterlife, the underworld and the dead, green-skinned with a king’s beard, wearing the atef crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and holding a symbolic crook...
