Lion Funerary Bedhead
We asked Carole, a visitor to the museum from Orange County to pick a piece for this weeks spotlight. She chose the Lion Funerary Bedhead.
Reminiscent of a royal throne, the first of 3 ritual couches discovered in the Antechamber was flanked by a pair of gilded wooden lions (or cheetahs). Its 2 magnificent bedheads, identically sculpted in leonine form, were elaborately inlaid in blue glass with eyes of painted crystal. The bed was assembled in 4 sections inside the tomb, this ornamental head still bearing the remains of black construction marks on its neck. Standing too high for practical use as a bed and inscribed with the epithet “The Osiris”, the Lion Couch was apparently employed as a ritual bier during the pharaoh’s 70 day process of mummification.
Click below to watch the National Geographic video, Live a Day in the Life of King Tut.
