f helping to preserve it. This head was carved of wood, plastered and painted in which it represented the king as the god Nefertem, incarnation of the sun god at dawn. The head rose from a lotus blossom, which closes at night and opens at sunrise, which is symbolic of resurrection and rebirth (Hawass, 2007). Kerr (1977) also agrees with Carter’s analysis of the head statue as it symbolizes the sun and life, being immortal and eternal. His was most surprised, however, when he entered the first chamber and found that the tomb was still intact.
The first room that can be seen from the corridor is the antechamber. After Lord Carnarvon asked if he could see anything, Carter's first words when he saw how magnificent it was, “Yes, wonderful things” (MacQuitty, 1972). The
area was lit up with gold treasures and it was if these things were some sort of organized chaos. There was around 600-700 individual items such as beds, couches, chests, baskets, large statues, stools, boxes, bows, linen cloth, and arrows. There were two grave goods that stood as possibly having ties to the afterlife. The drinking cup in the shape of a lotus and the guardian statues that were located on both sides of the entrance to the burial chamber. The guardian statues are thought to be protectors of the burial chamber (Edwards, 1976) whereas the lotus cup was a symbol for
rebirth and is usually associated with happiness and eternal life (Hawass, 2007). This chamber did not have any
decorated walls which could possibly be due to not enough time to cover them with meaningful art.
chamber (Edwards, 1976) whereas the lotus cup was a symbol for
rebirth and is usually associated with happiness and eternal life (Hawass, 2007). This chamber did not have any
decorated walls which could possibly be due to not enough time to cover them with meaningful art.
The second room that they entered was the burial chamber but in order to get to this area, they had to break open the wall on the right side of the antechamber, and go through a small passageway. There stood multiple shrines surrounding the confined mummy enclosed in a quartzite sarcophagus. This room was the only one in the tomb that had decorated walls. Each wall, in the chamber, told a different story (Reeves, 1990). The Northern wall represented Tutankhamen in three different stages. The first stage was a ceremony of mummification, which brings them life. The second stage was him being accepted into the afterlife by a goddess and the third stage was him embracing Osiris. His embrace with Osiris depicts him being officially accepted into underworld.
The Eastern wall had his name written all over in hieroglyphics with five men dressed in white dragging him along the ground. The Southern wall showed Tutankhamun beside a few gods maybe representing a good life in the afterworld. Lastly, the Western wall showed 12 baboons which symbolized the 12 hours of night in which the sun and king must travel before achieving rebirth at dawn and every pharaoh has to undergo this journey (Reeves, 1990). In this chamber there were candles and lamps, possibly resembling that there is light even in the darkness of death.
In total, they believed that there were roughly 300 individual pieces in this part of the tomb. The sarcophagus
itself was made of four different parts. The first outer layer was a granite block, with three more sarcophagi containing the pharaoh (Silverman, 1976). The innermost coffin was made of pure gold and contained his body in which he was
wearing the infamous gold mask. At every corner of the coffin was a god or goddess in which protected the mummy.
This was the first time the undisturbed burial traditions for Pharaoh could be observed in 33 centuries. It is traditionally
thought that a 'curse' is brought upon those who were involved with the excavation (MacQuitty, 1972).