THE GOLDEN SARCOPHAGUS (Detail)

Tutankhamun's body was mummified and bandaged in the prescribed Osirian fashion, and a crook and flail, the emblems of Osiris, were placed in artificial hands of burnished gold outside the bandages over his chest.

Mummification and the various rites connected with it had a double purpose: The preservation of the body to receive the soul, and the creation of a likeness of the god Osiris.