Thursday, January 21, 2010

Feature: Sandro Vannini's Ritual Figures of Tutankhamun

Heritage Key

With slideshow.

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. The ritual figures are now housed inside Cairo's Egyptian Museum and have been captured on film by Sandro Vannini, who has photographed Egypt's greatest treasures including the famous Golden Mask of King Tutankhamun.

The greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century, the inspiring tale of how Carter and his financier Lord Carnarvon uncovered the treasures of King Tutankhamun by working together is told by their modern day descendants the Earl and Countess in a video interview with Heritage Key (Watch this video).

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