The three ritual couches

Place of discovery:

Three tall couches in the form of sacred animals were found in the antechamber of the tomb of King Tutankhamen; they were arranged along the west wall, smallest to largest opposite the entrance of the tomb.

Material:

They are made out of wood stucco and gilded

The three couches were constructed in the same way:

Two animals side selections

A mattress

Foot board at the tail

Hollow rectangular pedestal

Description:

These shapes of three animals are:

Leonine which takes the shape of lioness, represents goddess mHt.

Bovine which takes the shape of cow represents goddess mHt wrt.

Mixture of different animals (head of hippo, body of leopard, and crocodile skin)

These couches were not used by King Tutankhamen during his time as they were funerary couches.

The evidence is:

 The inscription on each bed on the upper surface of the frame of the mattress, in the next, there is the name of the king, followed by some formula like: true of voice (mAa xrw), beloved of Osiris (mry wsir). Such formula used to be said to the dead person.

Similar couches were represented in some scenes carved and painted on the walls of the tomb of king Ramsis III.

This indicates that these couches formed a great part of the typical funerary furniture during the New Kingdom.

The dead king would rest on any of the couches with the hope of reviving force and survive as Re, he could then rise up in Nun, whom he would then bear once again.

The couch of goddess mHt:

Goddess mHt the lioness goddess was an embodiment of Hathor, Sekhmet, and Isis; she was the goddess of the Nile during the flood time, as her name mHt means the flood.

The couch of goddess Ammwt:

goddess Ammwt hybrid goddess was the devourer of the dead, she appeared in the final judgment scenes with a head of a crocodile, body of the leopard and the back of a hippo, she is usually depicted waiting to swallow the deceased, if he failed to pass the test while his heart is being weighted against the feather of mAat.

Ammwt also may appear as Nut, the sky goddess as it was believed that he swallowed the deceased after being a star and she would give birth to him again.

In the couch she is represented with different arrangement may be to suit the shape of the bed. She is shown wit hippo head, leopard body and crocodile skin and tail.

The couch of mHt wrt:

mHt wrt means the great flood or the great northern one, she was the primordial cow who appeared from the primeval ocean. She was the one who carried god Re on her back in his journey from earth to heaven and by this bed the king will be able to join Re in his journey to heaven, she is shown as a cow with two horns and solar discs, her body is inlaid with trefoils of dark blue glass, her eyes are inlaid with glass paste in form of wDt eye. The back of the couch is decorated with the presentation of Dd pillar symbolizing the stability and resurrection, and also we can see the Tt knot symbolizing birth and protection.