This life-sized statue of King Tutankhamun is one of a pair that stood face to face before the sealed doorway to his Burial Chamber. Scenes of the deceased holding a staff and a sceptre frequently appear on false doors from the Old Kingdom onwards as well as in vignettes from the Book of the Dead. In this statue, the king wears a nemes headcloth and a pleated royal kilt, and holds a long staff and a mace. The black colouring evokes the fertility of the black silt deposited annually by the Nile flood and also symbolizes resurrection. An inscription down the front of the kilt says: ‘Tutankhamun, may he be given life forever, like Re, every day’.