Amun Protecting Tutankhamun
Unknown · Reign of Tutankhamun, c. 1330-1320 BC
The god Amun sits over two metres tall on a throne with a backrest, wearing the tall double plumed crown, a kilt, a corselet and a broad collar, his curled false beard on his chin. Between his knees stands a small king, no bigger than a child beside him, in the nemes headcloth, a kilt with a triangular front panel, sandals and a leopard skin thrown over his shoulders. The king's head is lost. The god's hands rest near the king's shoulders in a gesture of protection. Hieroglyphs on the throne give the king's names, and if you look closely you will see they were hammered, then partly recut.
The small king is Tutankhamun, who restored the worship of Amun after the reign of Akhenaten, and this dark diorite group from Karnak proclaims that reconciliation: the god embraces the king who brought him back. After Tutankhamun's death his successors erased his memory, which explains the damaged cartouches. The statue was chosen by Auguste Mariette in the winter of eighteen fifty seven for the collection of Prince Napoleon, sold in eighteen sixty eight, and bought from the dealers Feuardent and Yanakopoulos by the Louvre in nineteen twenty.
Did You Know? The boy king's names were hammered off this statue by his successors, but enough survived for Egyptologists to read Tutankhamun's cartouches again.
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