Reconstructing King Tut's Tomb

A week ago, stumbling about forlornly within the deepest abysses of summer-vacation-induced monotony, I found my battered old copy of Ian Shaw's 'The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt'.

Thus was born an idea; to make a model of an ancient egyptian tomb.

I decided upon KV62 in particular, not for any poetic or symbolic reason, such as the monumental impact that the discovery of the tomb had on Egyptology in general and the wave of Tut-mania it unleashed in the 1920s; but simply because I thought it looked fairly easy to replicate at a 1/24 scale.

Thus began the project.
Regrettably, I neglected to take pictures in the early stages of the build; I will explain the process as best I can.

THE WALLS:
Using several images and dimensions provided by The Madain Project (a wonderful website that I encourage you, the reader, to visit) and that of several tourists and visitors to the site, I first built the main walls of burial chamber J using cardboard.
To recreate the limestone and plaster texture so prominent in such tombs, I utilised textured paper towels, which I plastered to the cardboard walls using thinned out glue,

I advise you to use a rough toothbrush to break up the mostly even texture of the paper towels. Additionally, I suggest you veto using cardboard, as the vertical stripe-y texture cast into relief by certain lighting can be most irritating.
MDF, or something similar, would be an admirable substitute.

I then began the slow and laborious process of painting the walls.
These paintings are nowhere near perfect, and perhaps the colours were initially too bright. However, this was remedied by the copious amount of weathering I added later.

(The following is the west wall painted with the images of twelve baboons, and is an extract from the first section of the Amduat, a funerary text)

For additional texture, I mainly used a mixture of paint and baking soda, along with the remnants of some ceramic clay powder i had left over.

The floor was done in a similar manner.

THE SARCOPHAGUS:
At this stage of the project, I was faced with a dilemma. Was I to attempt to carefully carve and reconstruct the three inner, gilded, coffins of the Boy-Pharaoh?

I decided that I'd rather keep my sanity, as meagre as it already is, with me for at least another week.

Thus, I chose to instead make the outer quartzite sarcophagus.

The base was, as is most things that I make, cardboard. I added a wooden dowel frame, along with clay on top.

The base coats, being pitifully shiny and plastic in nature, were then covered with a mixture of reddish brown paint and copious amounts of baking soda, in order to mimic stone.

I ensured to make the lid appear cracked in the middle, where that of the real sarcophagus was repaired with gesso.

Dear reader, I assume this is where you eagerly await an in-depth discussion of the copious carvings and detailed glyphs that I painstakingly added to the sarcophagus; the beautiful wings of Isis, Nephthys, Neith, and Selket, and the many protective inscriptions running along its surface.

I simply did not do that, for a variety of reasons.
I felt that it was nigh on impossible to recreate them with any finesse at this scale, and that simply suggesting the forms would look even worse.
Most importantly, I simply did not want to.

THE CEILING FLAP:

I then constructed a small tunnel of sorts, where Carter and his team would have dug into the tomb, hanging out of the as of yet flat cardboard exterior.
This was textured using clay.
I then made a ceiling, one that would hinge open. It was textured with clay, baking soda, and paint. I simulated the chisel marks of the ancient diggers with strokes of white paint.

Thus, the tomb was, in my eyes, complete.
I intend to make the exterior appear like a block of sandstone.
Please enjoy the results: