Discovering Tut: The Saga Continues Chapter Highlights...................................................
Answers
- Tutankhamun or King Tut died as a teenage pharaoh and was buried laden with gold. He was the last king of a powerful family that ruled Egypt for centuries.
- On 5th January, 2005 his mummy was brought out of his tomb and a CT scan was done to ascertain the reason of his death.
- Multitudes of tourists from around the world came to visit the tomb to pay their respects.
- Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the mummy was in a very bad condition because of what Carter did to it.
- Howard Carter, the British archaeologist, discovered king Tut’s tomb in 1922 and investigated its contents.
- Carter faced difficulty in extracting the mummy out of the coffin. The ritual resins had hardened, resulting in cementing
- King Tut’s mummy to the bottom of his gold coffin.
- Howard Carter tried to loosen the resins using the sun, but in vain. His men thus removed the mummy’s head and cut off nearly every major joint before reassembling it.
- In 1968, an anatomy professor X-rayed the mummy and revealed a startling fact. He claimed that the breast bone and the front ribs of the mummy were missing.
- Amenhotep III — King Tut’s father or grandfather – was a powerful king. He was succeeded by Amenhotep IV, who promoted the worship of Aten, the sun disk, and changed his name to Akhenaten. He made some other changes.
- King Tut’s mummy was one of the first mummies to be scanned. The CT scan showed a grey head, neck vertebrae, a hand, several images of the rib cage and a section of the skull.
- Zahi Hawass was relieved to find that nothing had gone seriously wrong with the mummy.
- After their observations, when they left, the wind had stopped and there was complete silence. Just above the entrance to
- King Tut’s tomb stood Orion, the constellation watching over the boy king.
Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues is a chapter which gives us an in-depth insight of Tutankhamun, the last ruler of the powerful Pharaoh Dynasty in Egypt. He was a teenager when he died and his death was a mystery. Some speculated that he was murdered. He ruled in Egypt and its empire for centuries. In 1922, his tomb was discovered by Howard Carter, a British Archaeologist. After 80 years, he was taken from his resting place for CT scan which offers to solve the mystery of his life and death by creating a forensic reconstruction. Tut’s father or grandfather, Amenhotep III, was a very powerful Pharaoh who ruled over a period of forty years. His son, Amenhotep IV, thrived him and began the strangest period in the history of Egypt. He promoted the worship of Aten (the sun disk). He changed his name to Akhenaten meaning servant of the Atens. He also moved the religious capital from Thebes to the new city of Akhenaten, called Amarna. Further, he attacked Amun, a god, smashed his images and closed his temples. Another mysterious ruler succeeded him who died soon. Next, Tutankhamun, also known as Tut, sat on the throne and ruled for nine years. He worshipped god Amun in the old ways. However, he died mysteriously. When Tut’s mummified body was discovered, he was laid with lots of gold, wealth and everyday items like a bronze razor, games, clothes, cases of food and wine. Carter discovered him after searching for many years. After researching on the treasures, he decided to investigate his three nested coffins. Some parts of the Tut’s treasures in the tomb were already looted. His tomb was rock-cut, 26 feet underground, which had wall paintings. On the outer coffin, Tut’s face was gilded. In the first coffin, he found the garlands of olives, lotus petals, and cornflowers. It showed that he was buried in the months of March or April. The third and final coffin put Carter into trouble. The resins used to cement Tut to the bottom of the solid gold coffin was hardened enough making it impossible to move. He put the coffin in the sun for several hours in hope for the resins to loosen up but it didn’t work. Finally, he removed the resins with the help of chisel and hammer. Carter felt he didn’t have any other choice as to if he hadn’t cut the mummy from limb to limb, thieves would have looted the gold. His men first removed his head, then they cut off every joint. After removing the body parts, they placed it on the layer of sand in a wooden box and put it at the original place. In 1968, the mummy was X-rayed by an anatomy professor, revealed few facts – his breast bone and front ribs were missing. Later, on January 05 2009, Tut was taken for CT (Computed Tomography) scan which takes hundreds of X-Rays and creates a three-dimensional image. The night of the scan, the workmen carried his body from the tomb in a box. They climbed ramp and stairs and lifted it on a hydraulic trailer that held the scanner. The scanner stopped working which paused the procedure. After using a pair of spare fans, the scan was finally done. After three-hours, his body was taken back to his tomb where his body is resting in peace.