This sacred wall painting depicts Pharaoh Ay conducting one of ancient Egypt's most important funerary rituals - the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. With precise strokes of a ceremonial adze, Ay is shown opening the mouth of his predecessor Tutankhamen to allow his ka, or life essence, to leave his body and enter the afterlife. Significantly, Ay wears the ceremonial leopard skin and Khepresh crown, indicating he has rightly assumed the full titles and roles of the Pharaoh after Tutankhamen's untimely death.

The level of artistic detail in portraying the different regalia and ritual implements suggests this painting was intended to magically imbue Tutankhamen's freshly constructed tomb with all due ceremonial rites and allow his transition to the divine realm of Osiris to be complete. Furthermore, the scene's inclusion on Tutankhamen's burial chamber walls would have served to legitimise Ay's new rule by symbolically showing he had properly taken over the duties of Egypt's kingship from the deceased boy pharaoh.

In summary, this evocative wall painting offers a rare glimpse into important royal succession rituals in ancient Egyptian society, conveying through vivid symbolism Pharaoh Ay's sanctioned authority over both the living as the new ruler of Egypt and the dead as guardian of his predecessor Tutankhamen's passage into the afterlife.