Dress bust of Tutankhamun

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Dress bust of Tutankhamun (Mannequin of Tutankhamun)
Mannequin of Tutankhamun.jpg
Dress bust of Tutankhamun
material Wood, stuccoed and painted; Gold leaf
Dimensions H. 76.5 cm; W. 42 cm;
origin Valley of the Kings , KV62 , Tutankhamun's tomb
time New Kingdom , 18th Dynasty , Tutankhamun period
place Cairo , Egyptian Museum , JE 60722

The dress bust of Tutankhamun , also known as the mannequin of Tutankhamun (English: Mannequin of Tutankhamun or Torso of Tutankhamun ), comes from the tomb of Tutankhamun ( KV62 ) in the Valley of the Kings in West Thebes , which was discovered by Howard Carter in November 1922 . It dates to the 18th Dynasty ( New Kingdom ). The object with the find number 116 is today as an exhibit with the inventory number JE 60722 in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Find history

Tutankhamun's dress bust was found during the first excavation season (October 28, 1922 to May 30, 1923) behind a dismantled chariot (find number 120) on the south wall of the antechamber near the entrance to the side chamber on the west wall. Nearby finds were the ritual bed of the Ammit and the gold leaf-covered throne of Tutankhamun below. For the excavators, this find with the “realistic face” of the young king next to the ritual beds, boxes and chariots was extraordinary.

  • Floor plan of KV62 (The Tomb of Tutankhamun)

  • Find situation ( Burton photo: p2004)

  • after recovery (Burton photo: p0326)

The clothes bust

Nefertem's head

Howard Carter referred to the mannequin as a "wooden portrait figure of the King " and described it as life-size. In contrast to the head of Nefertem (also head on the lotus blossom ), this is not a childlike portrait, but a youthful person. According to MV Seton-Williams, the wooden statue probably shows Tutankhamun at the age shortly before his death.

The figure cannot be compared with other surviving royal busts or sculptures, as the “wooden statue” consists only of the head and torso. Comparisons have been made with statues from the Middle Kingdom that identify the king with Osiris , or from the time of the Old Kingdom , but all of these statues have full arms. The cut surfaces below the shoulders on the upper arm and above the hips are straight and smooth and not broken off, as is often the case with stone sculptures.

The mannequin is covered with a thin and painted layer of stucco . For the skin color of the king, red or brown was used, as is customary in ancient Egyptian art for the representation of men. The outline of the eyes, the pupils and the eyebrows are black. As with Tutankhamun's golden death mask, small red dots were added to the white of the eyes in the corners to make them look realistic.

The headgear is unusual and does not correspond to any of the known crowns for an ancient Egyptian king . It resembles the red crown of Lower Egypt in a somewhat flattened shape, but is kept in yellow, the color that symbolizes gold. The headgear is comparable to the “blue crown” characteristic of Nefertiti . The “crown” also shows similarities with the headgear typical of the god Amun without the double feather above that characterizing the god. However, in comparison to depictions of Amun, Tutankhamun's dress bust lacks the braided royal beard and there is basically no uraeus snake on the forehead of Amun's cap .

The Uraeus snake, the symbol of the country goddess of Lower Egypt, Wadjet , is attached to the crown without its counterpart, the country goddess of Upper Egypt , Nechbet in the form of a vulture. Both can be found in full, for example, on Tutankhamun's golden death mask, but also on the coffins and canopic jars . The Uräus is an exception when it comes to processing and using materials. It consists of a copper alloy that is painted and provided with gold leaf. The snake's body, on the other hand, is painted red on the headgear, as can be found, for example, as preliminary drawings of wall decorations in graves.

The face appears individual, especially the mouth and chin area, which show influences from Amarna art. Like Nefertem's painted head, which is also made of wood, the earlobes have pierced ears.

The implied simple robe is white to imitate linen . In Tutankhamun's tomb, various items of clothing made from this material were found, although not all in good condition.

Together with the two black painted wooden guardian figures, the head on the lotus flower or the death mask, the mannequin of Tutankhamun is the only life-size representation of the young king that was found in his grave and can be attributed to him based on the facial features.

State of preservation and exhibition

The mannequin is in good condition, but shows the typical age-related cracks and flaking for the material used, painted stucco on wood. After the discovery, object 116 was carried out of the grave so that it could be seen by everyone in the valley. According to Howard Carter's notes, the figure was sprayed with celluloid and amyl acetate to preserve it and also treated with paraffin . Afterwards, like all objects recovered and preserved from KV62, the bust was packed and brought to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where it has been on display ever since. Outside of Egypt, the dress bust was in the 2004 exhibition “Tutankhamun. The golden afterlife. Grave treasures from the Valley of the Kings. ”Can be seen in Basel and Bonn.

Meaning and use

There are different hypotheses about the use of the bust.

Carter concluded that the figure was a dress or tailor's dummy that was used to try on and adjust royal robes or jewelry. On the other hand, it could also have been used to store robes or jewelry before the king put them on. While Zahi Hawass sees the theory that it is a mannequin as a European-influenced view that cannot apply to ancient Egyptian culture, André Wiese considers such a use to be plausible.

Another option is being considered to function as a kind of ritual statue to ensure the rebirth and eternal life of the king. Since the figure lacks the arms, it cannot be part of a Ka statue as found twice in KV62. Hawass assumes that this "mannequin" may have been part of a complete royal figure, as statues in ancient Egypt often consisted of several parts and were made of different materials. However, there is no indication that arms or other parts were intended to complete an entire body of the figure.

Since it cannot be clearly determined what the figure was used for, the original location before Tutankhamun's burial is suspected to have been in a palace or in a temple. According to Campbell Rice, a definitive assignment of their function is not yet possible. Compared to the other objects found in the grave, however, the clothes bust does not seem to be related to the funeral and can be assigned to "worldly" objects, such as furniture.

literature

  • Aude Gros de Beler: Tutankhamun. Komet, Frechen 2001. ISBN 3-89836-202-7 , p. 64.
  • Daniela Comand in: Alessia Amenta, Maria Sole Croce, Alessandro Bongioanni: Egyptian Museum Cairo (= National Geographic Art Guide. ). 2nd edition, National Geographic Germany, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-934385-81-8 , p. 299.
  • Zahi Hawass : Tutankhamun. The Treasures of the Tomb. Thames & Hudson, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-500-05151-1 , p. 64.
  • Zahi Hawass: Discovering Tutankhamun. From Howard Carter to DNA. The American University Press, Cairo 2013, ISBN 978-977-416-637-2 , p. 86.
  • TGH James : Tutankhamun. Müller, Cologne 2000, ISBN 88-8095-545-4 , p. 191.
  • MV Seton-Williams: Tutankhamun. The Pharaoh. The grave. The gold treasure. Ebeling, Luxembourg 1980, ISBN 3-8105-1706-2 , p. 68.
  • André Wiese, Andreas Brodbeck: Tutankhamun. The golden afterlife. Grave treasures from the Valley of the Kings. Hirmer, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7774-2065-4 , p. 352.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ TGH James: Tutankhamun. Cologne 2000, p. 191.
  2. ↑ Howard Carter: The Tomb of Tutankhamun. Volume 1: Search, Discovery and Clearing of the Antechamber. Bloomsbury, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-4725-7686-6 , p. 111.
  3. ↑ MV Seton-Williams: Tutankhamun. The Pharaoh. The grave. The gold treasure. Luxembourg 1980, p. 68
  4. ^ André Wiese, Andreas Brodbeck: Tutankhamun. The golden afterlife. Grave treasures from the Valley of the Kings. Hirmer, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7774-2065-4 , p. 352.
  5. ↑ Howard Carter: The Tomb of Tutankhamun. Volume 1: Search, Discovery and Clearing of the Antechamber. Bloomsbury, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-4725-7686-6 , p. 113.
  6. ^ Campbell Rice: Other Tomb Goods. Clothing, jewelry and cosmetics. In: Richard H. Wilkinson, Kent R. Weeks (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook of the Valley of the Kings. Oxford University Press, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-19-993163-7 , p. 282.
  7. ^ André Wiese, Andreas Brodbeck: Tutankhamun. The golden afterlife. Grave treasures from the Valley of the Kings. Hirmer, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7774-2065-4 , p. 352.