TAA i.3.6.1

                                                                          Casket 21.

                     Notes on the end panel of Tutankhamun’s 

                     painted casket – the king as a sphinx

                     treading down his enemies.

The almost entire absence of red except for 

sketch lines & a few outlines is peculiar. 

Instead of the sequence in patterns blue-green, blue

xxx[?] red-blue, there is blue, green, blue, yellow,

blue. The yellow is granular in texture when applied 

thickly & transparent when used as a wash over white,

as in the cartouches. It seems to be orpiment which 

has almost the effect of gold <dust>; (cf. touches on Princesses in 

Ashmolean). The paraffin wax applied by Carter to 

preserve the casket has undoubtedly darkened the 

blues & greens which had already darkened 

with age. So the present colours do not correspond 

to those originally put on. It is very difficult to 

determine what was dark blue – so near to black 

has it become. The greens too have only here & there

their real tint. I have tried to show the difference 

between blue & black (without getting too far from 

the present colouring) which one knows from