Gold is one of the many metals that can be found in nature in its native form, which means that early humans would have found pure gold on the ground without having to extract it from ore. While we don’t know exactly what they used it for, flakes of native gold have been found in caves in Spain, used by Paleolithic people over 40,000 years ago. Some 35,000 years later, the ancient Egyptians began creating gold artifacts. 34,000 years after that, around 1300 BCE, Egyptian artisans perfected the art, creating a treasury of gold artifacts that has come to stand as a symbol of ancient Egyptian civilization and continues to inspire goldsmiths to this day: the burial goods of the Eighteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun. We’ve mentioned this work before, but it deserves an article of its own. The standout artifact of that hoard, one instantly recognizable to anyone just about anywhere in the world, is the funerary mask.
The Funerary Mask
This artifact is not only the most famous piece of ancient Egyptian art but may also be the most famous gold artifact from anywhere in the world. Though it is today one of the world’s most recognizable works of art, it was never meant to be seen. The mask depicts Tutankhamun as both Osiris (the god of the underworld) and Re (the sun god), who was said to have golden skin and hair of lapis lazuli.
Weighing in at 22.5 pounds (10.23 kg), the mask is constructed of two sheets of gold heated and hammered together. The gold is a 23-karat alloy, with copper added to facilitate shaping. The blue bands are lapis lazuli, the eyes are obsidian, and the bands along the rim are carnelian, lapis lazuli, and turquoise inlay.
We’re all probably familiar with this piece, but the more you study it, the more impressive the artisans’ technique becomes. Howard Carter, the archaeologist who discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, wrote in The Tomb of Tutankhamun in 1923:
The gold mask exhibits [Tutankhamun] as a gentle and refined-looking young man. Those who were privileged to see the actual face when finally exposed can bear testimony to the ability and accuracy of the Eighteenth Dynasty artist who has so faithfully represented the features, and left for all time, in imperishable metal, a beautiful portrait of the young king.
Indeed, the face is stunningly lifelike, from the contours of the chin to the character of the mouth and nose to the anatomical details of the ears. These details humanize the god-king and, in a way, vindicate the Egyptian belief in immortality. Tutankhamun still lives as a historical figure because of this mask. The visage presented here is an idealized one, much healthier and more confident than the sickly young man Tutankhamun likely was, yet still true to his actual appearance. The purpose of the mask is to protect the mummy, and the face has to resemble that of the person mummified so that the soul could find its way back to the body. The artisans certainly did their job on that front.
As arresting as the face is, the surrounding features, like the cobra and falcon heads adorning Tutankhamun’s crown and the innumerable lapis lazuli, carnelian, and turquoise inlays, demonstrate the skill and aesthetic sensibility of these ancient artisans.
The Artisans’ Technique
It was probably around 5000 BCE that Near Eastern artisans likely discovered that gold becomes easy to hammer into any shape when heated, so by the time Tutankhamun died, Egyptian artisans already had thousands of years of goldsmithing tradition behind them. It is still inspiring to see what can be done to a hot sheet of metal with tools as simple as the hammer, punch, and tongs.
The mask was shaped with a technique called repoussé, in which the metal is hammered and punched out from the back to create a relief. The details were later sharpened using chasing, in which a sheet of metal is indented without cutting into the surface (basically, the opposite of repoussé). It is done using a hammer and a punch to move gold around without removing it.
While we rarely get a look at the back of the mask, it is just as impressive as the front, if not more on account of it being something we don’t see often. Below the headdress is a large sheet of gold inscribed with hieroglyphics, a spell from the Book of the Dead intended to protect the mummy. The inscriptions were also made by chasing. The copper alloy makes this technique easier.
The mask is made of at least two sheets of gold joined by heat through brazing. This technique is like soldering in that it uses a filler metal to join two pieces of metal, though at higher temperatures than soldering.
A Priceless Artifact
Gold comprises 321.5 troy ounces (20 lbs.) of the mask’s total weight of 22.5 lbs. Using the DHF Precious Metal Calculator app, available in the App Store, you can see that 321.5 troy oz. of gold is worth about $1,293,619.55. That estimate is based on the London Fix price of $4,023.70/troy oz. as of October 27, 2026. This artifact, however, is worth far more than its weight in gold.
