[4] Bearing the likeness of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the afterlife, the mask is 54 centimetres (21.3 in) tall, weighs over 10 kilograms (22 lb) or 321.5 troy ounces, and is decorated with semi-precious stones.

According to the British Egyptologist and archaeologist Nicholas Reeves, the mask is "not only the quintessential image from Tutankhamun's tomb, it is perhaps the best-known object from ancient Egypt itself.

The ears are pierced to hold earrings, a feature that appears to have been reserved for queens and children in almost all surviving ancient Egyptian works of art.

[11] However, the Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, a former Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, told Al-Monitor that the "theory about the ear piercing is unfounded because all the 18th Dynasty's rulers wore earrings during their period of rule.

[3][13][9] When it was discovered in 1925, the 2.5 kg (5.5 lb)[14] narrow gold beard, inlaid with blue glass,[9] giving it a plaited effect, had become separated from the mask, but it was reattached to the chin using a wooden dowel in 1944.

[16] In January 2016, it was announced that eight employees of the Egyptian Museum were fined and faced discipline for allegedly ignoring scientific and professional methods of restoration and causing permanent damage to the mask.

It never totally replaced the older cult of the sun, in which dead kings were thought to be reanimated as the sun-god Re, whose body was made of gold and lapis lazuli.

[19] Although it is usually removed when the mask is on display, it has a triple-string necklace of gold and blue faience disc-beads with lotus flower terminals and uraeus clasps.

[11][21] However, Christian Eckmann, the metal conservation expert who carried out the restoration in 2015, says there are no signs that the face is composed of a different gold than the rest of the mask or that the cartouches have been altered.