Preparing for Tutankhamun fever in London, U.K.

A much better than average article about the discovery of Tutankhamun, the European fascination with ancient Egypt and the Tutankhamun exhibition that is opening shortly in London.

rave robbers had twice struck within a dozen years of his burial, but, beyond leaving the grave goods in chaos, got away with little. In 1150 BC workmen's huts were built unwittingly on the very rubble filling the steps down to Tutankhamun's tomb. When, about 50 years later, a general clearance of pharaohs' tombs was made – to save their bodies from the robbers – Tutankhamun's was left undisturbed, for no one knew it was there. So it lay untouched for three millennia until Carter broke though the plaster to catch a glint of gold.

There was more than a glint when in 1925 the inner coffin was finally revealed. It weighed 296lb troy, making its scrap (tomb-robber) value today about £1.3 million. The lifting of that heavy coffin lid revealed the breathtaking portrait mask of Tutankhamun, flawless, under the congealed unguents, down to its translucent quartz eyes. Beneath it lay the embalmed body of the teenaged king, hung about with 143 pieces of jewellery and ornaments. His toes, blackened by age, were sheathed in gold fashioned with toenails and skin creases.

The corpse is of a young man about 5ft 6in tall, in good health with good teeth. Earlier speculations about a tuberculous spine were disproved by a CT scan in 2005. A bone splinter in the skull was also found to have been made after death, not by a murderer. Perhaps a broken thigh might have led to his death. No one knows.

Next month, at the O2 Dome in London, the exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs will use computer displays to picture the mummy and even a "forensic reconstruction" of Tutankhamun's face.