The head of Tutankhamun emerges from lotus flower




Among the treasures of the Golden King Tutankhamun: a small, attractive and unique head, a masterpiece of art, was found by Howard Carter at the entrance to the king's tomb. The piece depicts the king as a boy with beautiful features, executed in the style of Amarna, where the head emerges from the flower of lotus with the opening of the petals. The blue base is the water on which the flower grows. It is characteristic of the lotus flower that it closes its petals at dusk, and only opens at dawn towards the east; where the sun revives, so the open lotus flower symbolizes the sun that is renewed every morning, following its night journey to the other world. It symbolizes also the flowering of the sunrise in the eternal ocean (Nun) in the primal time according to the egyptian cosmogony (the theories of ancient Egyptian creation). Thus, this beautiful sculpture, which was found in the tomb, expresses a wish for the king in eternity and immortality. We note here that the sculptor followed the "Akhnatonic artisitc school" in the work of the head where skull head longitudinal feature of Amarna in the era of King Akhenaten, the father of Tutankhamun. The head is shaven and it seems that the hair has just begun to germinate where the artist expressed the appearance of it with small black dots and the eyes have been neatly defined in indigo blue.

Height: 30 cm.
The New Kingdom, the 18th Dynasty, the reign of King Tutankhamun.
Among the treasures of the tomb of King Tutankhamun, the Valley of the Kings, "Wast" (ancient Thebes, now Luxor).
The piece homes among the treasures of the Golden King in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt.


The Sun springing from an openeing Lotus-flower in the form of the Child Horus.

In the creation story of Hermopolis, the sun god, Ra emerged (self-created) from a lotus flower which grew in the chaos of Nun (primeval waters).
Papyrus Paintings from the Book of the Dead of the so-called Ani, Spell for being transformed into a lotus.
British Museum, London.

Hathor and Maat flank the ram god Atum in this gold and lapis lazuli breastplate of Queen Kama, mother of Osorkón III, king of the XXIII dynasty. Egyptian Museum, Cairo.



By: Raafat Reda Ahmed

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