King Tutankhamun Informative Speech

Good Morning/Afternoon students and teachers, my speech that I will be presenting today is on King Tutankhamun’s Golden Throne and The Kings Dagger’s.

The throne is carved from wood is gold plaited and there is some silver overlay as well, its inlaid with multi coloured glass paste, glazed terracotta and semi precious stones. The seat is made from cane and is supported by animal feet.

The Golden Throne is by far the most spectacular of the six chairs found by Howard Carter in the tomb of Tutankhamun. The arm panels of the Throne take the shape of winged uraei surmounted by the double crown of upper and lower Egypt which is regularly associated with the most powerful person in Egypt, the Pharaoh. In this case Tutankhamun.

The Kings Golden Throne has a strong Political composition as the style was popular for royal chairs of the eighteenth dynasty. This is also conveyed on either side of the throne, where a winged cobra wears the double crown. The cobra’s outstretched wings enclose the hieroglyphs for “King of upper and lower Egypt” followed by shen the sign for infinity. A cartouche of the king is at the end of each wing on either side of the chair. And the seat was initially intertwined by lily and papyrus plants which symbolise the unification of the two countries.
The Throne also has a religious aspect partially visible is the well rendered chair back, which shows the Queen Ankhesenamun anointing her husband beneath the life giving rays of the sun disc.
The elaborate nature and design of the chair emphasises the skill of the Egyptian craftsman at the time of the New Empire and the high economical stature of
Egypt.

The next artefact I will be speaking about is the King’s Daggers. The pair of daggers were discovered wrapped in Tutankhamun’s mummification wrappings, amongst the complicated array of 97 amulets, jewellery and other ritual goods. The Daggers one on either side of his torso, kept close to hand as he entered the afterlife.

The blade of one of the daggers is made from gold and has many striking decorative elements. This dagger has an elegant design of lily plants which runs down the centre of the blade. The sheath is also made from gold, on one side it shows a sequence of animals which can still be distinguished as bulls and ibexes being attacked by lions and dogs. The reverse side of the sheath has a design of feathers followed by a jackals head at the point. The second dagger has an iron blade which at the time of discovery was still relatively clean and shinning. The handles of both daggers are decorated relatively identical apart from some minor details. The only major difference is the pummel of rock crystal on the iron blade dagger.

There could have been a militaristic concept to the Kings Daggers, it is more likely that the iron bladed dagger was used for fighting as daggers were a part of the military technology of the new kingdom. It is unlikely that the Golden Dagger was used for military purposes, it is more likely that the Golden Dagger was used for more significant occasions such as religious occasions or ritualistic occasions.

The design and nature of The Kings Daggers also just like the Golden Throne emphasise the economical power of the Egyptian New Empire. The elaborate use of gold, precious stones and the skill of the craftsmen to construct these two artefacts indicates the wealth and power of the Egyptians and the high stature they hold their Pharaoh in.