King Tut unmasked

The face of Egypt's most famous ancient ruler, King Tutankhamun, has been put on public display for the first time.

Archaeologists took the mummy from its stone sarcophagus and placed it in a climate-controlled case inside his tomb in Luxor's Valley of the Kings.

The event comes 85 years to the day after the pharaoh's tomb was discovered by British explorer Howard Carter.

Until now, only about 50 living people have seen the face of the boy king, who died more than 3,000 years ago.

But that face, as now visible, may owe a lot to reconstructive surgery:

The centrepiece of the tomb was the pharaoh's mummified body, covered in amulets and jewels and wearing a solid gold burial mask.

In an effort to extricate the treasures, Carter and his team cut the body into pieces, chopping off the limbs and head and using hot knives and wires to remove the gold mask which was fused to Tutankhamun's face by the embalming process.

The body was reconstructed and returned to its original sarcophagus in 1926. . .

From the BBC. And more here (with pictures), where it is noted:

The mummy is in danger of being damaged by the heat and humidity from the thousands of tourists who visit his tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. . .

Although the treasures of Tutankhamun were moved to the Egyptian museum long ago, the mummy was not.

Note also this National Geographic article from last month:

King Tutankhamun likely died after falling from his chariot while hunting, Egypt's top archaeologist says in an upcoming TV documentary, offering new insights into the boy pharaoh's long-debated death. . .

The new theory stems largely from examinations of some of the 5,000 artifacts found in the king's tomb, which suggest he was an active, sporting young man and not the sheltered and fragile boy often portrayed by history. . .

"There's been, to some extent, a perception in the past of Tut as the 'tragic' boy king," said John Coleman Darnell, an Egyptologist at Yale University and author of a recent book called Tutankhamun's Armies.

"I think this has been done less in terms of looking at the evidence and what we know and more to sort of heighten the pathos of the wealth of the tomb and the fact that he wasn't terribly old when he died."

Other experts agree that Tutankhamun was a highly active ruler.

"There is certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that he was not only an archer, but also a good charioteer," said David P. Silverman, an Egyptologist at the University of Pennsylvania . . .

"He came from the Tuthmosis family, who were well known earlier in the dynasty as military men and also huntsmen," Silverman explained.

Posted by David on November 4, 2007 10:28 AM