Today is the day on which in 1922 Howard Carter opened the tomb of the Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamun to the public.
The discovery of the tomb was an international sensation at the time and the various artefacts found, including the gold sarcophagi and face mask, are still quite sensational when viewed in person.
Tutankhamun was born around 1341 BC, the son of the ‘heretic’ king Akhenaten. He ascended to the throne at the age of nine but died ten years later. Scholars are still debating the cause of his death and theories range from murder by a blow to the head, the product of incest, malaria and infection following a fall which broke one of his legs.
The Pharaoh is one of the few Egyptian kings that still lie in their original tombs. Tutankhamun rests in a climate-controlled environment to prevent his body decomposing because of the humidity and warmth from the many tourists that enter the tomb.
Tutankhamun was revered in his lifetime, and he and the artefacts that were buried with him and which are now on view in the Cairo Museum, some of which are occasionally loaned to other museums, continue to amaze us thousands of years later.
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The discovery of the tomb was an international sensation at the time and the various artefacts found, including the gold sarcophagi and face mask, are still quite sensational when viewed in person.
Tutankhamun was born around 1341 BC, the son of the ‘heretic’ king Akhenaten. He ascended to the throne at the age of nine but died ten years later. Scholars are still debating the cause of his death and theories range from murder by a blow to the head, the product of incest, malaria and infection following a fall which broke one of his legs.
The Pharaoh is one of the few Egyptian kings that still lie in their original tombs. Tutankhamun rests in a climate-controlled environment to prevent his body decomposing because of the humidity and warmth from the many tourists that enter the tomb.
Tutankhamun was revered in his lifetime, and he and the artefacts that were buried with him and which are now on view in the Cairo Museum, some of which are occasionally loaned to other museums, continue to amaze us thousands of years later.
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