The idea of an eternal and actual death was incomprehensible to the ancient Egyptian. After crossing the threshold of death, he lived on in the "beautiful West" and presumably the purely material conception of giving him his entire property in the grave so that he might enjoy eternal life was a further development from this idea. The dead man was not buried merely with drinking -vessels and dishes for food - these being indispensable objects found also in the graves of the poor. His earthly riches surrounded him in the kingdom of the dead; he could even sign a contract with the Ka-priests while he was still alive, stipulating that they should provide him regularly with food-offerings at the grave or in the temples of the dead. The corpse was washed and anointed with oil; the cavities left in the body after inner organs had been removed were filled with resin or resinous substances, and the extracted viscera were preserved in Canopic jars. At the end of the mummification process, the corpse was wrapped in long strips of linen. Tutankhamun�s mummy was enclosed in 3 coffins and four shrines. The head and shoulders of the young monarch were covered with a gold funerary mask, actually a portrait-effigy of the king.
The sarcophagus was accurately orientated on an east west axis, and there were 143 burial objects entombed with it. The head was encircled by a gold diadem set with precious stones, with the cult symbols of the Northern and the Southern Kingdoms. A gold band ran across the breast to the ears to hold the King�s head-dress in place. Round the neck there were two kinds symbolical collars and twenty amulets grouped in six layers and between each of these layers were numerous linen bandages. The breast was ornamented with 35 objects disposed in 17 groups, and consisting of four golden collars with Nekhabet vultures and Buto serpents, then more metal collars, eight in all, each separated from the next by linen bands. In an eleventh and twelfth layer, further pieces of jewelry, such as pendants and pectoral ornaments in the form of vultures and scarabs, and heart shaped pendants of gold with the symbols of Osiris and Isis. In the linen cloth over the thorax and the abdomen were two groups of golden finger-rings.
Both forearms with a mass of golden bracelets and bangles right down to the wrist. Each finger encased in a gold sheath. Gold rings on the second and third fingers of the left hand. Above the body, ten objects distributed in ten layers separated from each other by linen bandages, among which a gold amulet, eight gold circlets in four pairs, a gold waist-band or girdle encircling the waist, obliquely across the abdomen a richly ornamented dagger of gold housed in ornate ornamental gold sheath. On both girdles cylinder-like attachments for ceremonial pendent tails. A ceremonial apron made up of seven gold plates, extending from the abdomen down to the knees. Underneath, a finely-wrought dagger with an iron blade in a gold scabbard. Attached to the diadem and forming part of it, on the right the Nekhabet vulture, left, the Buto serpent, seven more circlets in three layers of wrappings above the upper part of the thighs. The feet in wrougt-gold sandals, each toe in a separate gold sheath.
The sevenfold encasing in four shrines and three coffins in a yellow quartzite sarcophagus that surrounded Tutankhamun�s mummy, the sumptuous extravagance of the inventory and cult objects and the immense wealth of gold give a further mysterious picture of this Pharaoh. To the question whether the more powerful kings were buried with still greater pomp, there is yet another, Is Tutankhamun not a special case as regards burial and magic?
� 1998
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