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Click here to see the full set and learn more about the Ritual Figures of King Tutankhamun!

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.

Click here to see the full set and learn more about the Ritual Figures of King Tutankhamun!

In some of the discovered Ritual Figures, the faces are evidently not those of King Tutankhamun himself, although reconstructions show that he had some effeminate features. Some details, such as the shape of the belly button and size of the bust are indicative of gender, but in many ways it can be difficult to determine male statues from females.

Click here to see the full set and learn more about the Ritual Figures of King Tutankhamun!

The second statue shows King Tut astride a panther and wearing a tall crown, bearing a flail in his left hand and a staff in his right. The black panther represents the netherworld and the night sky, and by riding on its back, the boy king is able to navigate safely through the dangers posed by these, allowing him to be reborn in the coming morning. It has been suggested this figure was originally made for a Queen, due to the ample bust - possibly for Nefertiti.

Click here to see the full set and learn more about the Ritual Figures of King Tutankhamun!

Carved from hard wood, and covered with gold leaf, he is shown in highly realistic detail taking a long stride forward, as he prepares to launch his spear. In his other hand is a coiled bronze rope, for capturing the defeated animal. The style of the statuettes reflects trends of the Amarna period - 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.

Click here to see the full set and learn more about the Ritual Figures of King Tutankhamun!

The small statues of King Tutankhamun showed him in a variety of positions and acts. The first of which, photographed by Sandro, show the boy king riding a papyrus raft, hunting an invisible hippopotamus with a spear or harpoon. The hippopotamus was considered by the ancient Egyptians to symbolise evil and disorder, because the evil deity Seth - according to Egyptian mythology - transformed himself into a hippo before being defeated in battle by the god Horus. The statue is representative of King Tut restoring order to the Egyptian universe like a golden god, by hunting down the hippo.