Through the Eras

Visual ArtsTUTANKHAMUN’STombThe English archaeologist Howard Carter discoveredTutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. The subsequentpublicity made Tutankhamun one of the most famousof ancient Egyptian pharaohs. This king was littleknown before his tomb was discovered. Ironically,the tomb itself has not yet been fully studied eightdecades after its discovery.Tutankhamun came to the throne as a child andruled roughly ten years from 1332 to 1322 B.C.E. Heofficially presided over the god Amun’s return topower after King Akhenaten (1352–1336) attemptedto suppress the worship of all gods except the Aten(sun disk). Tutankhamun’s inscription restoring Amun’stemples provides evidence of this important event.The tomb’s discovery was the single most spectacularand most highly publicized event in Egyptianarchaeology of the twentieth century. So far, it remainsthe only unplundered pharaoh’s tomb fromthe Valley of Kings known today. As a result, unlikethe rest of the royal tombs that were robbed andemptied in antiquity, thousands of objects were discoveredstill neatly packed in their ancient wrappingsand boxes. Three major traveling exhibitions of artifactsfrom the tomb to Europe, Great Britain, andthe United States in the second half of the twentiethcentury added to this king’s fame. Yet scholars havestudied only a handful of objects from the tomb.These include the thrones and the sarcophagus(coffin). Interestingly, these objects once belongedto the king’s predecessor, Smenkare, who ruled lessthan three years. The splendor and wealth of thetomb revealed in the exhibitions makes Tutankhamuna figure of fascination for many.Relief of Ramesses II. BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART, 11.670, MUSEUMCOLLECTION FUND. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.with its gods neatly arranged in rows. The god Osiris,king of the dead, is the first image the visitor to Senedjem’stomb would see on entering it. To the left thevisitor would see Senedjem and his wife Iyneferti worshippingthirteen gods of the underworld arranged intwo rows. They include Osiris at the head of the top rowand Ra at the head of the lower row. Above them aretwo images of the jackal god Anubis, guarding the entranceto the tomb. On the end wall to the visitor’s rightis a scene of Senedjem and Iyneferti harvesting flax inthe next world. Dressed in their best clothing, they plowand then harvest the flax that they can later use to makelinen clothing. The text included in the scene comes fromA chamber in the tomb of Senedjem. The painting on the endwall depicts him and his wife performing ritual acts of plowing,sowing, and reaping crops in the Field of Reeds. © WERNERFORMAN/ART RESOURCE, NY.the Book of the Dead where the deceased are promisedthe ability to plow, reap, eat, drink, and copulate in thenext world. The scene is another way of guaranteeing thatSenedjem and Iyneferti will have a successful afterlife.Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.) 307