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King Tut
JUNE 2005
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By A. R. Williams
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Photographs by Kenneth Garrett
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Egypt's boy pharaoh has fascinated the world since the first glimpse of his tomb in 1922. Now modern forensics and high-tech imaging offer new insights into his life—and death.
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Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.
An angry wind stirred up ghostly dust devils as King Tut was taken from his resting place in the ancient Egyptian cemetery known as the Valley of the Kings. Dark-bellied clouds had scudded across the desert sky all day and now were veiling the stars in casket gray. It was 6 p.m. on January 5, 2005. In a few moments the world's most famous mummy would glide headfirst into a CT scanner brought here to probe the lingering medical mysteries of this little understood young ruler who died more than 3,300 years ago.
All afternoon the usual line of tourists from around the world had descended into the cramped, rock-cut tomb some 26 feet (eight meters) underground to pay their respects. They gazed at the murals on the walls of the burial chamber and peered at Tut's gilded face, the most striking feature of his mummy-shaped outer coffin lid. Some visitors read from guidebooks in a whisper. Others stood silently, perhaps pondering Tut's untimely death in his late teens, or wondering with a shiver if the pharaoh's curse—death or misfortune falling upon those who disturbed him—was really true.
When the valley closed to the public at dusk, Egyptologists in jeans and laborers in long robes and turbans got to work. Shouting directions and encouragements over the roar of fresh air being pumped into the tomb, they quickly attached ropes to the head and foot of the coffin lid and lifted it out of the sarcophagus. After a pause to reposition the ropes, they slowly pulled up a plain wooden box. Inside, cradled by cotton batting and yellowed muslin, lay the mortal remains of King Tutankhamun: a serene face with a scarred left cheek, a barrel chest, skeletal arms and legs, all blackened by resins poured on during his burial rites.
"The mummy is in very bad condition because of what Carter did in the 1920s," said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, as he leaned over the body for a long first look. Carter—Howard Carter, that is—was the British archaeologist who in 1922 discovered Tut's tomb after years of futile searching. Its contents, though hastily ransacked in antiquity, were surprisingly complete. They remain the richest royal collection ever found and have become part of the pharaoh's legend. Stunning artifacts in gold, their eternal brilliance meant to guarantee resurrection, caused a sensation at the time of the discovery—and still get the most attention. But Tut was also buried with everyday things he'd want in the afterlife: board games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, cases of food and wine.
After months of carefully recording the pharaoh's funerary treasures, Carter began investigating his three nested coffins. Opening the first, he found a shroud adorned with garlands of willow and olive leaves, wild celery, lotus petals, and cornflowers, the faded evidence of a burial in March or April. When he finally reached the mummy, though, he ran into trouble. The ritual resins had hardened, cementing Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin. "No amount of legitimate force could move them," Carter wrote later. "What was to be done?"
Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.
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