Boy King

In our Art History class, we learned about the Arts of the Ancients. The reporters discussed how people showed the happenings during those time. We knew what was the style, form and content people used in the artwork. We also knew the history behind in every artwork. Every artwork has their history or background behind on it. One artwork stuck on my mind and that was King Tut’s Mask.

King Tut

Probably one of the best known pharaohs of ancient Egypt, Tutankhamun was a minor figure in ancient Egyptian history. The boy king of the 18th Egyptian dynasty was the son of the powerful Akhenaten (also known as Amenhotep IV) and most likely one of Akhenaten's sisters. His short reign of eight to nine years accomplished little, but the discovery of his nearly intact tomb in 1922 has led many to attempt to unravel the mysteries of his life and death.

The Ancient Egyptians were obsessed with the prospect of life after death - the eternal afterlife. The Ancient Egyptians used elaborate masks to great effect. Egyptian masks were generally used as Death Masks and Ritual Masks. The fabulous King Tut Mask was a death mask. Royal death masks or burial masks such as the fabulous death mask of Tutankhamun, the boy King Tut, were made of gold in the image of the deceased. The King Tut mask was used to cover the face of the mummy of the pharaoh and ensure that his spirit would be able to recognize the body.
Here are some description behind the mask:
                                             

The Nemes, Cobra and Vulture
The design depicts the traditional nemes headdress. The nemes was the striped head cloth which would have been worn by the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The nemes was worn tight across the forehead and has lappets falling forward over each shoulder. The top of the nemes displays the uraeus and the vulture on the brow. The uraeus was a rearing cobra emblem associated with the "eye" of the sun and meant to protect the pharaoh by spitting fire at his enemies. The cobra snake and the vulture were emblems of the deities Wadjet and Nekhbet. The goddess Wadjet was the patron goddess of Lower Egypt and was associated with the land where the cobra was present. The goddess Nekhbet (the embodiment of Hathor) was the patron goddess of Upper Egypt and was associated with the vulture. These two goddesses were together known as the 'two ladies of the pharaoh' whose special purpose was to protect the Pharaoh. The figures of a vulture and a cobra therefore sit on the king's forehead on the nemes headdress. The headdress has yellow stripes of solid gold, broken by bands of glass paste, coloured dark blue imitating lapis lazuli.

The Beard of the Pharaoh
The King Tut mask depicts the boy king wearing the traditional false beard of the Pharaoh. Beards were considered to be sacred to the gods and therefore the Pharaohs. The false beard depicted on the King Tut Mask was therefore a divine symbol of the gods, emphasizing his status as a living god. King Tut would have worn the false beard of the Pharaoh on important religious and other ceremonial occasions.



The Crook and the Flail
The King Tut mask shows Tutankhamun holding the Crook and Flail which were part of the royal regalia and the symbols of kingship. The crook and flail are shown in images of the god Osiris, lord of the underworld and this was imitated by the divine pharaoh. The crook was called the hega and flail was called the nekhakha are made of cylindrical sections of dark blue glass, obsidian and gold mounted on a copper rod.

What I’ve learned in this topic is that it’s not easy to become a ruler. At a very young age, King Tut ruled the Egypt. Being a leader is a responsibility to the community and to the society. King Tut was the youngest ruler of all times. It’s quite hard to be a leader. There’s a lot of responsibilities that you need to handle. There’s a lot of things that you need to sacrifice. And in King Tut’s situation, he did his best to make the Egypt to become successful.