2/ Not Boxing day (Dec 26) for those in UK & Canada, but boxes, chests, & caskets from Tutankhamun's tomb. Egyptians didn't have wardrobes & dressers. Elite stored their stuff in boxes. Carter found dozens of wood boxes in the tomb from plain to lavish.
3/ Chests made from local woods like sycamore & exotic imports like cedar of Lebanon & ebony. Veneers of ebony, ivory, etc & gold leaf also applied to Tutankhamun's boxes #Egypt#Egypte#Egipto#Egito Αίγυπτος #Ägypten מִצְרַיִם# مصر# #Egitto#エジプト#이집트#Египет#Єгипет
4/ Boxes stored clothing, jewelry, & personal effects. Chests left on floor or stacked on furniture in the tomb.
5/ So-called "Treasury" named after boxes filled with gold jewelry & regalia
7/ Another wood box covered in fine inlays, called marquetry, has 100s of fine slivers of ivory & ebony arranged in herringbone patterns & tiny squares in chess board & diamond patterns with larger ebony & ivory veneers. #furniture#carpentry#marquetry
8/ Most boxes have short legs. Some are "shrine shaped" with a cavetto cornice on top of box & hump-shaped lid like this box. Compare roof of Tut's gold shrine
9/ Same shrine roof shape on this gilded chest with blue glass inlays. It has Tutankhamun's cartouches mixed with cobras on the sides & his Horus name on the lid.
10/ more views of gilded chest. Front end has two figures of Heh, god of Eternity & Tutankhamun's names. Glazed knob in dark blue with light blue cartouches imitates lapis lazuli & turquoise. Knob on top of box for opening, A string connected 2 knobs to seal box
11/ Several of Tutankhamun's boxes sit on tall legs for convenient access while standing or sitting in a chair. Made from cedar with ebony veneers & gilded details. friezes of hieroglyphs like ankh "life" & others meaning "stability" or "dominion" as fretwork between legs
12/ wooden surfaces often painted with hieroglyphic texts of Tutankhamun's royal names & titles, often in striking complementary color. Here, yellow paint used against ebony veneer
13/ This jewel casket with ivory & ebony marquetry has black hieroglyphs against ivory panels & on ivory knobs.
15/ Detail of yellow painted glyphs on an ebony & cedar chest of Tutankhamun
16/ Some boxes were unusual shapes, like this half circular example of cedar & ebony. Note the bronze carrying rings on the upper side. It has ilded studs on lid, ebony knobs. On front, 3 gilded cartouches of Tutankhamun & Queen Ankhesenamun sit on Unification of Two Lands symbol
17/ 3 views of circular box.
18/ This is a small ivory jewelry box with internal compartments. His names are carved on the front & lid in relief & it has gilded bronze knobs & hinges. The remains of twine used to seal the box is visible on top. A scribe wrote an ink text in the cursive hieratic script.
19/ This is a wicker box made from reeds from Tutankhamun's tomb
20/ A better preserved box made from papyrus reeds contained Tutankhamun's writing supplies. The scene painted on its front shows the king receiving jubilees from Ptah & Sakhmet, the gods of Memphis. More on Tut's writing kit another day
21/ Here is an excavation photo of the papyrus box stacked with other objects in a larger wooden casket. You can see the larger box was divided into compartments.
22/ We will look at some even more spectacular boxes & chests another day, including the famous painted casket with battle & hunting scenes & the cartouche shaped jewelery box
23/ One last item for today is the small chest made from calcite (Egyptian alabaster). It has the classic barrel lid & is decorated with geometric patterns & hieroglyphs in black & red paint. The pointed shapes represent rows of lotus flower petals
24/ The lid has painted images of two complex flower bouquets with Tutankhamun's names & titles between
1/ today some weird and wonderful early writings of Ramesses II's cartouche names as he experimented with different styles in the first year of his reign. For reference here is the standard form of his cartouches used throughout most of his long 2reign
2/ a pair of early cartouches on a statue in the Luxor museum 3
3/ several unusual writings of Ramesses II's nomenclature and prenomen cartouches turn up in the Great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak. These are nomens
2/ When Carter removed the 2nd gilded wooden coffin from the first he was puzzled by the weight. Opening the 2nd coffin he was astounded to find the 3rd coffin was of solid gold!
3/ Chairs symbolized elite status & the golden throne enhanced Tutankhamun's authority & prestige. Its back has an image of the king & Queen Ankhesenamun #Египет#Єгипет#埃及#埃及
2/ Only 8 complete chariots, & 1 chariot cab, have survived from the Late Bronze age among several civilizations that had them. All these come from 18th Dynasty Egypt, 6 of them from Tutankhamun's tomb