Pure gold lavishly decorated with "semi-precious" stones--that is what makes up the funerary mask of young King Tutankhamen. Other elements of this mask attest to the royalty of King Tutankhamen:;the false beard and the nemes headdress were two major articles of a pharaoh's wardrobe. The cobra standing projecting form the headdress is also a traditional Egyptian symbol of the "divine authority" of a pharaoh.
The Egyptians used a "canon of proportions" in all of their works in an attempt to create a perfect image. This canon was always used with royalty, so this mask might not even be an accurate portrayal of what the young king looked like.
Egyptian tombs, like Tutankhamen's, were stocked with treasures aplenty to ensure that the deceased's riches carried on with them into the afterlife. This mask, along with the other valuables discovered in Tutankhamen's tomb, show how affluent Egyptian royalty was.
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