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The Tutankhamun collection — complete, together, for the first time

More than 5,000 objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62) are on permanent display at the Grand Egyptian Museum. For the first time in a century, the complete burial assemblage — from the iconic gold mask to the young king's reed sandals — is shown in a single place. This is an account of what is there, how it was found, and how to see it properly.

4 November 1922

How the tomb was found — and why it matters

Tomb KV62 was discovered in the Valley of the Kings at a moment when most archaeologists believed the valley had been exhausted. Its contents transformed what we knew about ancient Egyptian royal burial.

Howard Carter had been excavating in the Valley of the Kings under Lord Carnarvon's patronage since 1917. By the autumn of 1922, Carnarvon was prepared to withdraw funding — six seasons without a major find was long enough. Carter persuaded him to finance one final season, focusing on a patch of ground near the entrance to the valley that had been largely ignored because it was covered by rubble from earlier excavations. On the morning of 4 November 1922, a water carrier's boy, digging in the debris, exposed a stone step. Carter had his workmen clear the site. By the following afternoon, they had uncovered the top of a sealed staircase cut into the bedrock, leading to a plastered doorway bearing intact royal seals.

Carter sent a telegraph to Carnarvon: "At last have made wonderful discovery in valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; re-covered same for your arrival; congratulations." Carnarvon arrived in Luxor on 23 November, and on the afternoon of 26 November 1922, Carter made a small hole in the upper-left corner of the inner doorway, held a candle to it, and looked through. His famous exchange with Carnarvon followed: "Can you see anything?" "Yes, wonderful things."

What he could see was the antechamber — four gilded dismantled chariots, three ceremonial beds in the form of composite animals, 101 baskets of food and wine, alabaster vases, boxes of linen, and two life-size black resin guardian statues flanking a second sealed door. The tomb had been entered twice in antiquity — both times, it appears, by thieves — but was resealed each time and remained essentially intact for 3,245 years.

The full excavation took ten years. Carter documented every object in situ with photographs and detailed notes — a standard of archaeological recording that was revolutionary at the time and remains a model for the discipline. The objects were transported to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where storage and display constraints meant that only a fraction of the collection was accessible to the public at any one time. The Grand Egyptian Museum was designed, in part, to solve this problem. The Tutankhamun galleries were a central argument for the museum's existence.

Inside the collection

Key objects in the Tutankhamun galleries

Five thousand objects span dozens of rooms. These are the twelve most significant — the ones to find and spend proper time with.

The solid gold funerary mask of Tutankhamun
The centrepiece

The golden death mask

Cast from 10.23 kilograms of solid gold, inlaid with lapis lazuli, carnelian, quartz, obsidian, turquoise and coloured glass, the funerary mask is the most recognisable object in ancient Egyptian art. It covered the head and shoulders of the king's mummy inside the innermost gold coffin. The face was modelled to represent the idealised king in the guise of Osiris. The striped nemes headdress, the false beard, and the crossed crook and flail are all standard royal attributes — but the scale, the quality of the gold-working, and the extraordinary preservation make this mask uniquely affecting in person. It is displayed in a purpose-built climate-controlled case in the first major hall of the Tutankhamun wing.

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The nested gilded wooden shrines of Tutankhamun
Scale and grandeur

The four gilded shrines

Tutankhamun's burial was enclosed in four nested gilded wooden shrines, each fitted inside the next like a set of boxes. Together, they fill a room. The outermost shrine measures 5.1 metres long, 3.3 metres wide and 2.75 metres tall — Carter's team had to dismantle the doorway of the burial chamber to get it out. All four are covered in gold leaf and inscribed with religious texts and images of protective deities. At the GEM, the shrines are displayed in their proper sequence and scale for the first time, with enough space around them to appreciate their dimensions. Seeing them is one of the few museum experiences that produces involuntary astonishment about scale.

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The golden throne of Tutankhamun with painted scene
Royal regalia

The golden throne

The ceremonial throne of Tutankhamun is made of wood overlaid with gold and silver sheet, inlaid with faience, coloured glass and semi-precious stones. The back panel bears a painted scene of extraordinary intimacy: the young king seated on a cushioned chair while his queen, Ankhesenamun, applies perfumed oil to his collar. Both figures are shown wearing the short Amarna-period crowns, and the composition retains the naturalistic style of the Akhenaten revolution even after the court had officially returned to traditional forms. It is the most visually sophisticated object in the tomb and the one that most rewards close study.

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The royal chariot of Tutankhamun on display
Power and ceremony

Six chariots

Six chariots were found in the tomb — four in the antechamber, two in the treasury — in various states of assembly. They range from functional war chariots to purely ceremonial vehicles covered in embossed gold. The wheels and axles were removed for storage; Carter's team numbered every component and reassembled them in Cairo. At the GEM, the chariots are displayed fully assembled for the first time, which gives a proper sense of their size (a single chariot could carry two standing adults at speed) and of the sophistication of New Kingdom woodworking and metalwork. The ornamentation on the state chariots includes battle scenes, bound captives, and the cartouche of the king.

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The canopic shrine and jars of Tutankhamun
The burial itself

The canopic shrine and coffinettes

The canopic chest — which held the four miniature gold coffinettes containing the king's mummified organs (liver, lungs, stomach, intestines) — is an object of astonishing refinement. The chest itself is alabaster. Each of the four coffinettes is solid gold, between 39 and 40 cm tall, modelled in the royal likeness wearing the nemes headdress, and inscribed with protective spells addressed to the four sons of Horus. The chest was enclosed in a further gilded wooden shrine, protected at each corner by a carved figure of a guardian goddess with arms extended — Isis, Nephthys, Neith, and Serqet — each face turned slightly outward as if watching for threats. The composition is one of the most beautiful assemblages from any ancient burial.

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Everyday objects from Tutankhamun's tomb including sandals and games
The human dimension

Daily-life objects and personal items

The final rooms of the Tutankhamun galleries contain the objects that most visitors reach last and rush through — a mistake, because they are the most humanising part of the collection. Among them: reed sandals, a child's chair he had outgrown, a lock of hair from his grandmother Queen Tiye preserved in a small coffin, board games (including Senet, the oldest board game in continuous play), hunting boomerangs, calcite lamps, an iron dagger (the blade almost certainly made from meteoric iron, indicating rare foreign trade), and a reed flute. Two tiny mummified foetuses were also found in the tomb — likely the king's stillborn daughters. These objects bring Tutankhamun back to a specific, individual life in a way that the gold regalia does not.

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How to see it well

Practical advice for the Tutankhamun galleries

The Tutankhamun wing is the most-visited part of the GEM and has the heaviest visitor traffic in the morning, particularly on weekends and between October and April. The large object rooms — the shrines, the sarcophagus components, the chariots — can absorb crowds relatively well because the objects themselves take up much of the floor space. The smaller rooms housing jewellery, the canopic equipment and the daily-life objects become congested, because visitors naturally cluster in front of the cases.

The best strategy is to enter the Tutankhamun wing at around 12:00–13:00, after the morning tour groups have moved on and before the afternoon arrivals build up. If you arrive at opening, the wing is often immediately busy because tour coaches time their arrival for the first slot. Midday has a genuine window of quieter conditions, which coincides with most people taking lunch.

Move against the natural crowd flow if you can: most visitors follow the signage, which takes them through the large objects first. If you begin with the small-object rooms at the end of the wing and work backward toward the shrines and the mask, you will encounter the smaller items at the quieter part of your visit and reach the mask room as the first-wave crowds are thinning.

Photography without flash is permitted throughout the Tutankhamun galleries. Certain objects — the mask, the innermost coffin — have additional restrictions posted on signs outside the relevant cases. The restrictions are enforced. Do not try to photograph past them; the museum has security staff in each room.

Allow a minimum of 90 minutes for the Tutankhamun collection alone. A thorough pass takes two hours. If you are visiting with children aged eight to fourteen, the chariots, the hunting weapons and the board games are the objects that tend to hold their attention most effectively; these are distributed across the middle rooms of the wing.

For the ticket structure — whether Tutankhamun requires a supplement on top of general admission — see our tickets and hours page, which carries current information. And if you want a recommended sequence for combining the Tutankhamun wing with the main chronological galleries, our gallery guide has a full suggested route.

Tutankhamun — quick facts

Tomb designation: KV62 (Valley of the Kings, tomb 62)

Discovery: 4 November 1922, by Howard Carter

Objects recovered: 5,398 individually catalogued items

King's age at death: approximately 18–19 years

Reign: c. 1332–1323 BCE (about 9 years)

Dynasty: 18th, New Kingdom

Gold mask weight: 10.23 kg solid gold

Innermost coffin: 110.4 kg solid gold

Time needed at GEM: 90–120 minutes minimum

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Tutankhamun FAQ

What visitors ask most often

More than 5,000 objects from tomb KV62 are on permanent display at the GEM — the complete collection from Howard Carter's excavation, shown together in a single institution for the first time. At the old Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square, only a fraction could be shown at any time due to space constraints. The GEM was designed specifically to resolve this.

Yes. The solid gold funerary mask (10.23 kg) is on permanent display in the Tutankhamun galleries at the GEM, relocated from the Tahrir Square museum. It is displayed in a purpose-built, climate-controlled case with lighting designed to show the gold inlay and lapis lazuli detailing at their best. It is confirmed as part of the permanent collection and is not on loan or rotation.

Allow at least 90 minutes, ideally two hours. The collection is so large that a quick pass misses most of it. The final rooms — which contain the children's coffins, games, food provisions and personal jewellery — are among the most affecting parts and are often rushed by visitors who spent too long at the entrance. Budget time accordingly.

The ticket structure has tiers, and the Tutankhamun collection has at times required a supplementary ticket. Because this is subject to revision, we keep current pricing on the tickets and hours page rather than quoting a figure that may have changed by the time you read this.

Tutankhamun reigned for about nine years (c. 1332–1323 BCE) and died at around 18–19 years old. In his own time, he was a relatively minor king whose main historical significance was reversing the religious revolution of his probable father Akhenaten — restoring the traditional gods and moving the capital back from Amarna. His fame today comes entirely from the accident of his tomb's survival. The intact burial, discovered in 1922, contained the complete royal burial assemblage of a New Kingdom pharaoh — something never found before or since — and made him the most recognisable figure from the ancient world.

Midday (12:00–13:30) is typically the quietest window. Morning slots coincide with tour-coach arrivals; late afternoon, the wing becomes busy again as visitors who spent the morning in the main galleries arrive. If you arrive at opening, go to the main galleries first and work toward Tutankhamun at lunchtime rather than the reverse. See our getting there page for how early arrival affects your overall day plan.

See the Tutankhamun collection properly

Want a curated route through the Tutankhamun galleries with the key objects marked and timing suggestions? Send us your visit date and we'll put one together.

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