Face to face with Tutankhamun
Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El Aref)
Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Zahi Hawass has long been keen that efforts be made to preserve Tutankhamun's mummy, which is in poor condition. It suffered extensive damage at the hands of Carter and his team as they attempted to remove the many ornaments from the mummy, including the boy king's golden funerary mask. The pelvis was separated from the trunk and the arms and legs detached. Hot knives and iron bars were variously used to remove amulets and other jewellery. Carter's team then attempted to reconstruct the body they had dismembered, reassembling the parts in a sand tray and even reattaching the hands and feet with resin. In 1968, when the mummy was re-examined, it took days to return the fingers to their original position.
Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly that the humidity and heat generated by the breath of the thousands of visitors that daily visit Tutankhamun's tomb constitutes an ongoing threat to the condition of the mummy, which currently rests inside his gleaming anthropoid sarcophagus.
"Removing it to a climate-controlled plexi- glass showcase, like those used to display the royal mummies in the Egyptian museum in Cairo, will not only help preserve the mummy but will allow visitors to see the real face of the Pharaoh," he says. Only the face will be left uncovered. The rest of the body will remain covered with linen.
See the above page for the full story.
- Numbers To Tomb Of Tutankhamun To Be Restricted
Reuters Africa I suppose that this was inevitable after all the new visitors that the new display have attracted to the tomb of Tutankhamun in Luxor: Egypt will limit the number of visitors to the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun to 400 a day from December...
- From Golden Sarcophagus To Plexi-glass Case
Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref) The last tourists may have been leaving the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank in Luxor but the area in front of the tomb of Tutankhamun remained far from deserted. Instead of the tranquillity that usually descends on...
- The Face Of Tutankhamun Revealed In His Tomb
Times Online More than 3,000 years after his death, King Tutankhamun went on display to the public yesterday in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, a slightly bucktoothed boy who died aged 19. King Tut’s mummified face – which has been seen only...
- Tutankhamun's Mummy To Go On Display In The Valley Of The Kings
news.com.au EGYPT will put the mummy of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun on display next month inside his tomb in Luxor's Valley of the Kings, allowing visitors to see his face for the first time, Egypt's chief archaeologist said overnight.Zahi Hawass,...
- Exhibition: More On Tutankhamun's Cloth Wrappings
Al Ahram Weekly PRECIOUS amulets that once decorated the mummy of the boy king Tutankhamun are on special display at the Egyptian museum, Nevine El-Aref toured the new exhibit. The three-month exhibition hall on the ground floor of Cairo's Egyptian...