5,398 artefacts were found inside King Tut's tomb - so many that it took Carter over 10 years to research and catalogue them all. But where can you see them now? Well, the vast majority are kept by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, with the best and most famous pieces on permanent display there. A smaller collection is kept by the Luxor Museum, while more still can be found criss-crossing the globe as part of touring exhibitions.
To help you sniff out as many Tut artefacts as possible, we’ve put together this handy guide to finding King Tut around the world – be it sites of relevance, key artefacts on display, or even quality replicas.
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“Carter was actually outraged by the original exhibition of these pieces, claiming breach of copyright, and demanded they be destroyed.”
Two wooden panels, in Cairo, Egyptian Museum, CG 1426-7 showing Hesyre, the Chief dentist and physician for Pharaoh Netjeriket, known as Dsozer, 3rd Dynasty c. 2650 BCE.
Hesyre's tomb was North of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara; Tomb S 2405. The titles he is named with include doctor and dentist “ibeh snwn”. These wooden stelae are part of a collection of eleven found by Mariette and later by Quibell (1911-1912). Six are at the Cairo Museum, the rest was in bad condition and the only readable hieroglyphic were not recorded. The first reference to a dentist title was this, given to Hesyre.
Some authors think that there was no dental profession in Egypt and more swnw or doctors have this title. But taking into account what can be seen in ancient human remains from Egypt regarding their teeth, I am almost sure that a 'doctor for the teeth' was extremely necessary as they suffered more from teeth infections, abrasion and loss than we do today. The diet suffered from the presence of sand grains, that, even microscopic, produced an erosion of enamel, dentine and even the pulp, originating unbelievable pain and premature teeth loss. These are maybe few of the available depictions of doctors of ancient Egypt...
Four Senet boards were found inside the tomb of King Tutankhamun and suggests that the boy king was a keen player of the ancient game. In Ancient Egyptian society, senet was regarded as much more than just a game, however - it was a matter of life or death. The game involves throwing casting sticks or knucklebones, and over time became regarded as talismans for the journey into the afterlife with luck being a key deciding factor in the game.
The Restoration Stela is an important artefact, discovered in the Temple of Karnak, outlining the thoughts and actions of Tutankhamun that caused him to become deified by the people of Egypt in his short lifetime. Engraved into red granite with traces of blue and yellow paste, it describes how Tut thought the policy of Akhenaten (who might have been his father) in banning the worship of all gods and godesses except the sun deity Aten had brought misery upon the land:
"The temples of the gods and goddesses ... were in ruins. Their shrines were deserted and overgrown. Their sanctuaries were as non-existent and their courts were used as roads ... the gods turned their backs upon this land ... If anyone made a prayer to a god for advice he would never respond – and the same applied to a goddess."
He therefore decided to reverse Akhenaten's ruling and lift the ban on the old pantheon of deities and their temples. The stela goes on to describe how this brought prosperity and happiness back to his kingdom:
"Now the gods and goddesses of the land are rejoicing in their hearts...the provinces all rejoice and celebrate throughout this whole land because good has come back into existence."
Discovered inside the Tomb of King Tutankhamun, inside black resin-covered wooden shrines which were accessible via double doors, were 34 ritual figures. Of significant importance during the ritual ceremony, these statuettes are believed to assist the King Tut's passage to the afterlife. Upon discovering the shrines in KV62, the great explorer Howard Carter found only one of the boxes had been raided by tomb robbers, with the rest laying undisturbed since antiquity.
Organised by the University of Pisa in cooperation with the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Italian Archaeological Centre in Cairo, this exhibition will feature 50 original drawings of the Tuscan Literary Expedition to Egypt (1828-29), which accompanied the French Expedition of J.F. Champollion - the man who famously made the first translations of the Rosetta Stone.
Shown alongside the drawings will be unpublished manuscripts of notes taken on site by renowned Italian Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini, as well as letters to him by famous Egyptologists - including his great friend Champollion, plus Prussian Egyptologist Karl Lepsius and Dutch Egyptologist Conradus Leemans - and other material from the Rosellini Archives in the University Library of Pisa.
These small statuettes of the famous boy king Tutankhamun astride a panther came in a pair and were located along with 32 other ritual figures inside a black resined wooden box in the treasury section of Tut's tomb, KV62, in the Valley of the Kings. Like all of the statuettes, they are believed to have had a ritual and religious significance. The ancient Egyptians expected them to aid the young pharaoh's passage to the afterlife.
King Tut is carved in immense detail out of hard wood, and covered with gold leaf. In one hand he clutches a long staff, in the other a flail which represents his power. The panther is also skilfully and elegantly rendered, with great realism. It is painted black, as an inhabitant of the underworld.
The statuettes are meant to be interpreted not literally, but symbolically. The panther may represent an allegorical image of the sky, while Tut - resplendent in gold - is perhaps being likened to a sun god. The style of the statuettes reflects certain characteristics of the Amarna style of art - particularly the exaggeration of certain physical features. It has been speculated that they may have originally been created as an image of Tut's father, the "heretic pharaoh" Akhenaten, who founded Amarna.
Three ritual beds were found inside the Tomb of King Tutankhamun (KV62), made up of four pieces of gilded wood and bound together with hooks and staples. Assembly instructions were painted on the beds in black paint, with each bed representing a different animal deity.
