ART 198 - HISTORY OF WORLD CERAMICS

When Howard Carter and Lord Carnavon discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen in the early 1920's a rage of 'Egyptomania' was set off in Europe and the United States. Never before had an intact tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh been explored. Upon entering the tomb, however, Carter discovered that the tomb had, in fact, been entered previously by grave robbers, but they had been caught in the act, (and assuredly executed), and the tomb was resealed and forgotten by the passing of time and the sands of the desert. Entering further into the tomb, he came upon the inner shrine, with the original necropolis (city of the dead) seals intact, so he knew that at least this inner chamber was undisturbed. In this photograph we see the original rope, tied, knotted, and sealed with clay. The clay seal at right bears the symbol of the jackal (Anubis) and 9 bound captives. This seal was used by the guardians of the Royal Necropolis. Inside this chamber was the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen, containing the solid gold visage of the young king atop his body. Tutankhamen, one of the most famous of the pharaohs, was a relative nobody in his day, and is now famous because he was forgotten and his tomb never plundered. His more famous mother was Nefertiti and father was Akenaten, the iconoclastic pharaoh who introduced a short period of monotheism into polytheistic dynastic Egypt.

Intact necropolis seal on the door to the inner shrine of Tutankhamem 1300 BCE, Valley of the Kings, Egypt