One of our beloved members brought a a dear friend along with her son, Gregory, to visit the museum. He enthusiastically chose the Golden Mummiform Coffin to spotlight this week.
Golden Mummiform Coffin
.
296 lbs = 4,736 ounces x $1,790, current price per ounce of gold =
$8,477,440. A rather expensive coffin.
Lying within the stone sarcophagus, facing the sunrise, were 3 nesting anthropoid coffins, each more magnificent than the one preceding it. The 2 outer most coffins were made of wood (the first of them identified as cypress) overlaid with gold foil and inlaid with elaborate
cloisonné
work. Their sculpted covers (here represented by a traditional Pharaonic mummiform coffin lid) bear the reliefs portraying the recumbent pharaoh as Osiris, embraced by the protective wings of Isis and Nephthys. Nothing in their features suggests that they were originally intended for Tutankhamun. To Howard Carter’s astonishment, the third and innermost coffin was made of solid gold weighing 296 pounds, its ethereal gaze a result of the darkening of its inlaid alabaster eyes through the ages. Wearing the pleated false beard of divinity and the striped
memes
headdress crowned with the “Two Ladies” (the vulture and the cobra divinities), this dazzling mummy case is decorated in the classic Osirine style of the late New Kingdom.
Click below to watch the video, King Tut Sarcophagus.
