Item TAA ii.6.80 - Escorting Tutankhamun's "mannequin"

1 postcard

Formerly with an online postcard dealer in the U.S.A. in August 2023.

The Griffith Institute purchased the postcard in August 2023.

• Postcard
• Photograph, photographer not known.
• The photograph was probably taken in early 1923; the postcard's production date is unknown, but it was almost certainly in the 1920s.
• (Carter 116)
• Howard Carter (second from right, striding, wearing a hat with a black band) accompanying the wooden portrait figure of Tutankhamun (the so-called "mannequin"; Carter 116), which is carried by an Egyptian member of the team transporting the object to the "Laboratory" tomb (KV 15, of Sethos II) for cleaning and conservation.
• Also present in the photograph is Lord Carnarvon (sitting on the wall at the far left), who watches as the group passes by. The man walking to the left of the Earl is Arthur Weigall (dark hat with a darker headband), a former Egyptian Antiquities Service Inspector now engaged as a journalist reporting on the excavation. The other Europeans present here are also journalists or tourists.
• The portrait bust of Tutankhamun [Carter 116] was found in the tomb's Antechamber. The King is portrayed wearing a yellow flat-topped crown featuring the centrally positioned uraeus on the crown's temple band. The King also wears a close-fitting white garment.
• The bust's purpose is unclear, but it probably displayed part of the King's regalia. A recent proposal is that it may have been originally used for supporting and storing the King's gold corset (Carter 54k) in the tomb. When thieves ransacked the tomb in antiquity, these robbers likely removed the corset from the bust before breaking the heavy regalia into smaller, portable pieces.

Property of the Griffith Institute. No restrictions.

Copyright Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.

Archived scan in Griffith Institute.

• http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/carter/116.html
• Same photograph as TAA ii.4.38

• http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/gri/4anacpho.html

• Acquired with TAA ii.6.72-9, 81-7 (postcards from the same series).