Egyptian replica - Tutankhamun / Tutankhamen - Relief

                                       Tutankhamun wearing the triple crown.

     This design was my first attempt at Tutankhamun in 1995 of which the piece on offer is a direct descendent and has not been available for nearly seven years. As a 2009 piece it still looks good enough to recieve as a gift or for yourself if you are feeling the need for a bit more Tut in your life.

I resisted doing him for so many years because I was saturated with him as we Egypt lovers all are from time to time but he is often the first port of call. You can't escape him. How fortunate though that of all the kings to have had a burial survive in near completion  a face so alluring and sculptural greets us at every turn. I mean I have nothing against Senusret/Sesostris the third  but he would have had a rather gruff death mask had it been found.

 Rather than attempt yet another lame death mask in plastic looking gold I chose a forgotten carving from one of the panels of Tutankhamun's burial shrines. To date I have recreated three such scenes in a stone like format as their are so few of Tutankhamun represented this way. A great number of statues with  his features did survive as a great many was needed to replace those that were smashed and buried during Akhenatons' reign. Images of the gods were created usually with the features of the reigning monarch and Tutankhamun's face can be clearly seen in a large statue of the god Khonshu on the ground floor of the Cairo museum. It has been my favourite statue for a very long time and I nearly fainted when I finally saw the real thing.

Anyway back to the piece at hand....He looks spritely and youthful wearing the double crown of upper and lower Egypt resting on top of the striped royal Nemes head cloth, thus making a triple crown. He wears a typical elaborate collar and clutches the crook and flail sceptres which further signifies divine royalty.

The double cartouche spelling his names and titles are neatly positioned above his raised arm. The first cartouche reads 'Tutankhamun ruler of 'Waset' . Waset was the ancient name for Thebes. You can see the crook of kingship represented once more here as a tiny hieroglyph representing the whole word 'ruler' in one economical hieroglyph. This glyph's direct neighbours at the bottom of the cartouche are  a 'wass' sceptre and another abstract glyph representing a water sedge plant to make Waset. At the top of this cartouche are three glyphs starting with a feather, a rectangular glyph with stylized stalks? pointing upwards and the symbol for water being used for its phonetic 'N" sound thus spelling Amun. Below these an Ankh cross provides in one hieroglyph what takes me four letters to describe. Next to the Ankh on the right are two semi-circles seperated by a chick to create the sound Tut or Toot . Nobody cane be100% sure how much 'ooooh' the little chick represents.The other cartouche featuring the familiar scarab beetle (Khepri- god of the rising sun = rebirth)  is his throne name - Neb kheperu ra.

Mounted  on a removable felt based stand, this work is a compact delight with a lot of information contained within the boundaries of the fragment.

Dimensions : 23cm high x 15.5cm base length x 6.5cm base width