In the late 1330s BCE, artisans in Thebes built a roomy wooden chest for the teenage pharaoh Tutankhamun. Instead of wardrobes, Egyptians stored fine linen and regalia in such boxes, so the cabinet-makers gave this one generous proportions—about 61 × 43 × 44.5 cm—and a domed lid that invited painted storytelling.The painters began with the lid. On one half they set the king racing his chariot across the desert, loosing arrows at gazelles, ostriches and deer while sleek hounds sprint alongside. On the opposite half he confronts lions head-on, still poised in the flying gallop beloved of New Kingdom art. These vignettes celebrate the royal hunt, a ritual proving the ruler’s mastery over untamed nature.Next they turned to the long sides. One flank shows Tutankhamun charging Nubian ranks; the other, hurtling into Syrian charioteers. Egyptian archers and lancers advance in tight, disciplined files, while foreign troops tumble in tangled heaps of men, horses and shattered carts. The contrast between order and chaos turns the chest into a miniature panorama of imperial victory.On each short end the artists compressed the message into a single image: the king as a human-headed sphinx, paws trampling fallen foes of both North and South. This hybrid guardian, a blend of lion strength and human intellect, had guarded temple gateways for centuries; here it guards Tutankhamun’s personal belongings and, symbolically, Egypt itself.The chariot—first adopted only a few generations earlier—anchors every scene, marking the chest as unmistakably New Kingdom propaganda. For a boy-king whose reign lasted scarcely a decade, such imagery projected a timeless aura of vigor, control and cosmic balance.When Howard Carter opened tomb KV 62 in 1922, the chest lay in the antechamber, propped against a lifesize guardian statue. Inside were sandals, beaded belts, ritual robes, a headrest and necklaces—everyday comforts turned into eternal possessions.Today the box rests in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Its crowded miniatures still glow with cinnabar reds, Egyptian blues and ivory whites, condensing a young pharaoh’s aspirations, Egypt’s military reach and the thrilling speed of a new war machine into one portable masterpiece.

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Tutankhamen Chest