Tutankhamun Head of Nefertem
This head was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922, at the very threshold of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Fashioned from wood and standing at a modest 30 centimetres in height, it bears a fragile stucco coating, once painted a vivid red but now sadly scarred by age and circumstance. There is a split down the side of the face, Carter himself noted the damage in 1924, and said the object was damaged when seized by the Egyptian authorities. The Boy King stares forth, with large the kohl-rimmed eyes which are of a dark blue tint, giving the youthful king a surprisingly lifelike presence.
The head portrays Tutankhamun as a child, his scalp shaven smooth with a delicate stippling of painted black stubble, giving the piece a realistic touch. His ears, pierced just as on his golden death mask. Though small in stature, the bust possesses a curious dignity, at once intimate and monumental.
In this form, Tutankhamun is shown as Nefertum, the youthful god who emerges each morning from the lotus blossom at the dawn of creation. For the Ancient Egyptians, Nefertum was more than a handsome youth crowned with a lotus; he was the embodiment of first light, the fragrance of renewal, and the promise of eternal rebirth. To portray the deceased king rising like the lotus from the waters was to declare that he too would be reborn, not merely into another day, but into the timeless realm “beyond,” where gods and spirits dwell. If the head was indeed placed by the doorway at the time of burial, it may have carried a deeper significance: in Egyptian belief, the Ba-soul was thought to leave the tomb each morning, taking wing into the sunlight before returning at night. Positioned at the threshold, this image of Tutankhamun as the lotus-born Nefertum could thus embody his Ba in the very act of emerging, a spiritual departure from darkness into light, from death into the eternal cycle of dawn. In this way, the bust becomes not only a portrait but a prayer, a hope carved in wood that Tutankhamun’s spirit might forever blossom with the morning sun.
“Rise like Nefertem from the blue water lily, to the nostrils of Ra (the creator and sungod), and come forth upon the horizon each day.”
The base is painted a serene blue, evoking the waters from which the sacred lotus springs. This flower is no ordinary bloom: at dusk it folds itself away, only to unfurl again at dawn, turning eastward to greet the rising sun. In its daily rhythm the Egyptians saw a profound truth, the lotus was the sun itself, reborn each morning after its hidden journey through the shadowed realms of the underworld. Placed within Tutankhamun’s tomb, this delicate sculpture carried a message as bright as the dawn: a wish that the young king, like the lotus and like the sun, might rise anew for all eternity.
“Speak his name softly. Tutankhamun.
Treasured antiquity sealed in a tomb.
Now, weave us a tapestry, silver and gold.
Sing us a song of him, centuries old.”
— Narrated by Orson Welles in ‘Tut, The Boy King’, 1977
The Mythology of Nefertum
At the very dawn of time, when the world was still cloaked in the dark embrace of the primeval waters, a single lotus bud stirred and slowly unfurled. From its fragrant heart arose Nefertum, radiant and youthful, the first light of creation glistening upon his brow. Crowned with the blue petals of the water-lily, he was the breath of perfume that heralded morning, the gentle beauty that promised the world’s renewal. To the Egyptians, Nefertum was the living blossom of hope, a reminder that from stillness and shadow, light and life would always return.
Summary:
Tutankhamun as Nefertum
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Tutankhamun, c. 1332-1323 B.C.
Found at the entrance of his tomb (KV62). Valley of the Kings, West Thebes
Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 60723
