Tutankhamun Bust, King Tut Statue

He was about nineteen when he died, he reigned for roughly a decade, and he changed very little. By any measure that mattered to the Egyptians he was a minor pharaoh, and later kings scrubbed his name off the lists on purpose.

He is the most famous Egyptian who ever lived for one reason: his was the tomb the robbers missed.

Famous for not being looted

When Howard Carter got through the wall in November 1922 he found the only royal burial in the Valley of the Kings that was still more or less intact. Everything we picture when we picture ancient Egypt, we picture because one unimportant teenager was buried somewhere inconvenient and then forgotten.

The mask may not even have been his

The gold in the face is a different alloy from the gold in the rest of it, and the cartouche on the back shows signs of having been altered. The serious argument is that the mask was made for somebody else, possibly Nefertiti, and reassigned in a hurry when a young king died without warning.

So the most recognisable object in the ancient world may be a hand-me-down. We rather like that.

What the sculpture does

The nemes headdress is the whole silhouette: it flares out wide either side of the face and falls in two heavy lappets over the chest, every stripe cut deep into the surface as a proper channel rather than scratched on. In bare white those channels read as pure shadow, which is why this works unpainted far better than we expected it to.

The face is smooth and completely still. Wide open eyes, cosmetic lines carved and running well past the outer corners, a small full mouth in repose. It is not a portrait of a person, it is a portrait of a job.

Below it, the plaited false beard, and across the chest the broad collar in concentric carved bands.

The gold one is coming

The original is about ten kilograms of solid gold, lapis, carnelian and coloured glass, and there is a hand-finished edition in the works that goes after it properly. It is a slow, fiddly job and we are not going to rush it out to hit a date.

The numbers

• Printed and finished by hand in Australia.
• WEIRDO 009. That number belongs to this design and will never be given to another.
• Height and width to be confirmed. This is the widest piece we make.

Looking after it

Wide and bottom heavy, so it sits more securely than most things in the range. Lift it by the lappets either side of the chest. Dust with a soft dry brush, which gets down into the stripes better than a cloth will. Out of direct sun, because PLA softens around 60 degrees.

Ordering one now

Made to order. Order it and yours goes into the next batch, usually within a fortnight, and you are emailed when it goes on the bed and again when it ships.

Change your mind before it is printed and we refund it in full without asking why. After that you still have every right you have under Australian Consumer Law, which we cannot exclude and would not want to.