King
Tut's mummy to go on display for first time
(canada.com)
"Egyptian
authorities are to put on display the mummy of the boy pharaoh,
Tutankhamen, in November, the head of the country's High Council for
Antiquities said Friday. "For the first time ever, the mummy of the
golden pharaoh will be taken out of its sarcophagus and shown to tourists
inside its tomb in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor," Zahi Hawass
said. The mummy will be placed in a glass sarcophagus with climate
control...."
New
theory on King Tut's death suggest he died in hunting accident
(nationalgeographic.com)
"Tutankhamun is
widely thought to have died of an infection stemming from a broken leg,
after CT scans in 2005 revealed a severe fracture in his left thighbone,
challenging theories that he had been murdered. "He had an accident
when he was hunting in the desert," said Zahi Hawass, secretary
general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, who has overseen recent
examinations of the pharaoh's mummy. Falling from the chariot made this
fracture in his left leg, and this really is in my opinion how he
died." 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. Among the evidence for the theory are at least two chariots
entombed with the king that show signs of frequent use, presumably by Tut
himself...."
'Tutankhamun
and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs'
opens in Dallas next year, followed by two more U.S. stops
(associatedpress.com)
"A popular exhibit
including objects buried with Egypt's King Tutankhamun will return to the
United States next year with three stops, beginning in Dallas. The exhibit
opening Oct. 3, 2008, at the Dallas Museum of Art will be followed by
stops at two yet-to-be-name museums. "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age
of the Pharaohs" drew nearly 4 million visitors during its two-year,
four-city tour that wrapped up this fall after stops in Los Angeles, Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., Chicago and Philadelphia. When the exhibit opened in
2005, it was the first time in more than 25 years that treasures from King
Tut's tomb were shown in the United States. Next year's exhibit will
include artifacts that are new to the show and haven't been seen outside
of Egypt...."
Tutankhamun's
childhood home exhibited at Penn Museum
(huliq.com)
"Amarna, Ancient
Egypt's Place in the Sun, the University of Pennsylvania Museum's
popular new exhibition about the city of Amarna,
Tutankhamun's childhood home, will remain open as a long-term exhibition,
adding to the Museum's suite of ancient Egyptian galleries that offer the
public a year-round opportunity to explore more than 5,000 years of
ancient Egyptian culture, art, and history. Visitors who already have been
to the Amarna exhibition will soon have something new to see: on October
3, 2007 to June 2008, the exhibition will be adding a famous sculpture of
the head of King Tutankhamun from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as part
of a short-term loan exchange with that institution. Penn Museum's own
kneeling statue of Tutankhamun, a featured item in the final section of
the Amarna exhibition, will come down, to join the Met's exhibition, Gifts
for the Gods: Images from Egyptian Temples, opening in New York October
16."
Researcher
discusses death of King Tut: A badly broken and infected leg
killed him (guardian.co.uk)
"The world's most
celebrated boy king, Tutankhamun, may have died after badly breaking a leg
while playing sport. A detailed scan of the mummy, which was uncovered in
the Valley of Kings in 1922, has revealed the high-impact fracture as the
most likely cause of death. Speculation over the death of Tutankhamun has
raged since the mummy was first inspected in 1925, three years after his
tomb was excavated by Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon. The
first x-ray scans conducted in 1968 found signs of damage to the skull,
prompting suggestions that he had been killed by a blow to the head.
Researchers led by Ashraf Selim, a radiologist at Kasr Eleini Teaching
Hospital at Cairo University, used a mobile CT scanner to build up a 3D
image of the 3,300-year-old body from 1,900 separate images. The
reconstruction showed him to be 5ft 11in tall and probably 19 years old
when he died. But precision scans of the king's left thigh revealed
extensive details of a high-impact fracture above the left knee. The
kneecap was badly twisted to the outside of the leg, and the wound was
open to the outside world, where it was vulnerable to infection. What is
believed to be the remnants of embalming fluid had deeply penetrated the
fracture, suggesting the injury was sustained in the king's lifetime and
not inflicted during the original excavation.... How the injury was
sustained is still uncertain, but the...fracture matches a common breakage
suffered by jockeys...."
Who
was better endowed? Tut or Otzi? (discovery.com)
"King Tutankhamun
... could ... stand out in the shrunken world of male mummies, according
to a close look into old pictures of the 3,300-year-old mummified king....
At first look, Burton's pictures may seem to indicate that King Tut could
have been a little better endowed. But according to mummy expert Eduard
Egarter Vigl, the pharaoh was normally built.... Caretaker of Ötzi the
Iceman, the world's oldest and best-preserved mummy, Egarter was also a
member of the Egyptian-led research team that examined King Tut's CT scan
images.... Ötzi's natural mummification and dehydration in an Alpine
glacier produced a "collapse...." which left the Iceman with an
almost invisible member...."
A
summary: What we know about King Tut after scientific analysis
(discovery.com)
"On Jan. 5, 2005,
the mummy of Tutankhamun was removed from its tomb in the Valley of the
Kings (KV62) for the first time in almost 80 years. An all-Egyptian team,
led by Zahi Hawass, carried out a 15-minute CT scan which produced over
1,700 images. These images were studied by an Egyptian team, under the
auspices of Madiha Khattab, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo
University, and then by a foreign team composed of experts from Italy and
Switzerland...."
Zahi
Hawass's final take on King Tut (discovery.com)
"King Tut's case is
closed, top Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass has told Discovery News. Other,
new exciting findings are waiting to be uncovered from the Egyptian sands...."
Another
announcement about King Tut's cause of death: A wounded knee? (ansa.it)
"Tutankhamun was
killed by a sword blow to the knee, Italian experts claim. Two doctors
from Bolzano University, longtime researchers into Italy's famed Iceman,
were part of an international team that recently took another look at
Egypt's most famous mummy...."
Interview
with Zahi Hawass: Tut's death will remain mystery, but publicity for new
exhibit will not (travelvideo.tv)
In this interview Hawass gives what may
be the final word about the study of King Tut and the cause of his death:
"There’s no way to find out if he was poisoned even if you look at
his internal organs. They will not show any signs. It is impossible to
prove foul play. I declare the case on King Tut close! He will not need
any further examination. We should leave the King now in peace. His death
shall remain a mystery for the rest of his afterlife! King Tut’s
mystery will continue. After all, he is the most important discovery in
the Valley of the Kings." He also explains that the scan of King Tut
was, in some ways, publicity for the upcoming tour of a new King Tut
exhibit (beginning in LA in June 2005).
Additional
article (medicalnewstoday.com)
Additional
article (guardian.co.uk)
Additional
article (reuters.co.uk)
Additional
article (discovery.com)
Visit
Zahi Hawass's King Tut CT-scan page (with photos)
Photo
of Tut's full-body CT-scan
Close-up
photo of King Tut's face
years
after the archaeologist Howard Carter first walked into Tutankhamun's tomb
in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, the rest of the world got its first
glimpse of the most famous pharaoh in history. Yesterday the boy king's
delicate remains were transferred from a stone sarcophagus in his tomb to
a climate-controlled glass box to preserve it for the future. Tutankhamun
has captured the world's imagination in the decades since his
3,000-year-old mummy was found. An exhibition of some of the ancient
artefacts found in the tomb is coming to Britain later this month. It is
currently touring the US, where it attracted 4 million people in its first
few months. Thousands of tourists also visit the tomb in Luxor every
month...."