TUTANKHAMEN’S COFFIN

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 166, 10 April 1926, Page 22

TUTANKHAMEN’S COFFIN

MARVEL OF EGYPTIAN ART

The opening of Tutankhamen’s great sarcophagus, and its enclosed nest of coffins, reveals, even more than the King’s tomb, the magnificence of Egyptian art, and its wealth of decoration 13 centuries before Christ. Mr. Howard Carter has just informed the public, through the “Illustrated London News,” of the marvellous discoveries made before Christmas, when he and his colleagues examined Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus in detail. The sarcophagus was of yellow quartzite stone with a granite lid, which had long been cracked, probably during the process of fixing. Ou raising the granite slab Mr. Carter found a linen shroud, sprinkled with the remains of withered flowers, and covering the outermost of three- nested coffins. The lid of the outermost coffin consisted of a sculptured anthropoid effigy, wrapped in sheeted gold, and decorated with paintings, gold work, and glass work. On removing this lid there was revealed a second hu-man-shaped coffin, also in sheet gold, so tight!v wedged within the lower half of the outer coffin that rope tackle was required to raise it. Mr. Carter says that before the third or innermost coffin, containing Tutankhamen’s mummy, could be detached from within the second coffin, great care was necessary to clear its contents of a mass of pitch-like substance, composed of the consecrated oils used at the burial, which had coagulated. This third or innermost coffin was of “solid” gold. It contained a shroud, and a withered wreath of flowers which had once been placed around the neck of the figure—a fine portrait resemblance of Tutankhamen, in Osiride form. This figure is six feet long, and is a mass of the most elaborate decoration. The bands of the figure arc crossed; one holds the flail and the other the crook, emblems of earthly government. The chin ends with the conventional beard of Egyptian sculpture. The upper part of the figure is embellished with cloisonne work of gold and semi-precious stones, turquoise, lapis lazuli, cornelian, etc. The vulture and the hawk, emblems of Southern and Northern Egypt, arc wrought in heads, gold, and semiprecious stones; on each side of the abdomen there are also representations of some of the protective goddesses. Within the Osiris figure was the actual mummy in its windings. The head and bust were covered with a portrait mask, one of the most perfect examples of Egyptian sculpture ever found. The mask is of burnished gold, and the surrounding decorations arc of beaten gold, inlaid with lapis lazuli, felspar, cornelian, calcite, obsidian, and polychrome glass. Mr. Carter estimates the value of this superb work at 15000, and that'of the three coffins at £50,000. Thirteen hundred years B.C. the art work of Egypt surpassed anything else in the world. Gold was in great abundance. Native craftsmen could not manipulate hard gems like diamonds, emeralds, or rubies, but they had wonderful taste in design, and in the use of pastes, semi-precious stones, and the arrangement of their colours. It may surprise some that a Pharoah, aged 18 years, who had no mark in the history o' his country, and achieved no conquests, who was not even of Royal blood, and whose reign was very short, should have been honoured by such overpowering magnificence at his burial. The treasures of his tomb and the splendour of his coffins surpass everything in Egyptian history. A reason may be found in the gratitude of the priesthood, Tor he abandoned the heresy of his father-in-law, Akhenaten, and restored the old Amen worship. He reappointed the Amen priests, and restored their shrines, and the name of Amen in every important building in the land. He also gave back to the temples all the estates that Akhenaten had taken from them. He earned some popularity by one act of clemency, for. when he took up his residence in the Amen citv of Thebes, he took with Jiiin the singing then, singing women, dancers, and acrobats, who had served under his father-in-law in the House of Aten.