The King of Bling

The King of Bling

On Tour with Tut and His Treasures

World Almanac for Kids

When Carter discovered Tut's tomb, it was the only crypt of an ancient Egyptian king that had not been ransacked by thieves.

Howard Carter feverishly chipped away at the ancient door. With sweat dripping from his
brow, Carter chiseled a hole in the rock, hoping to create a space big enough to peer through.

Bit by bit, tiny fragments of stone and dust fell to the floor. Finally, when the hole was big
enough, Carter picked up a flashlight and looked inside.

"The sight that met us was beyond anything one could conceive," the famous archaeologist
wrote in his diary.

Inside the ancient Egyptian vault were alabaster vases, shiny white chests, finely carved
chairs, and a golden throne.

The year was 1922, and Carter had just made one of the greatest archaeological finds in
history: the tomb and the mummified remains of the boy king the ancient Egyptians called
Tutankhamun.

Treasures on Tour
From the early 2000s to early 2010s, some of the treasures Carter discovered were displayed
in an exhibit called "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs." The exhibit toured
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 The King of Bling

several U.S. cities. It included more than 130 objects. Most of them had never left Egypt
before.

Visitors to the exhibit had an opportunity to learn about King Tut and to see what life was like
for pharaohs, or kings, and other royalty in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. That's when
Tutankhamun ruled. Tut was 9 or 10 when he came to power after the death of his father,
Akhenaten.

When visitors entered the exhibit, they first saw a wooden sculpture of the boy king. In a
darkened room of the exhibit hall, a light shined on a model, depicted without any of Tut's
famous gold or jewels.

"Not only does [the figure] show Tut's majesty, but it also shows his human side," David
Silverman, curator and professor of Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania, told Senior
Edition. "You can see a young boy behind those eyes."

The exhibit included Tut's royal diadem-the crown that historians suggest Tut wore on the
throne. Visitors could also see a golden collar in the shape of a falcon. The collar depicts the
god Horus, a deity associated with Egyptian kings.

The Afterlife
When Carter discovered Tut's tomb, it was the only crypt of an ancient Egyptian king that had
not been ransacked by thieves. The ancient Egyptians believed in the afterlife, or life after
death. Therefore, religious leaders buried pharaohs with gold, jewels, and furniture-things
the rulers would need in the afterlife. One of the fascinating items on display was a solid-gold
dagger Carter found strapped to Tut's mummified thigh. Scientists believe Tut's subjects
buried their king with the dagger so that he could fend off villains in the afterlife.

The exhibit included a canopic jar that held Tut's liver, which was also believed to have been
needed in the next world. Canopic jars are special containers used to hold the preserved
organs of the dead.

Protecting History
Visitors were able to see relics from Tut's father, mother, grandparents, and great-
grandparents. Eighty items unearthed from other royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, near
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 The King of Bling

the Nile River, were also on display.

Money from the exhibition went toward protecting Egypt's historic sites, including the Great
Pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx.

Zahi Hawass, the former head of Egyptian antiquities, said those sites and others in Egypt
had been literally crumbling. "These monuments will be gone in 100 years if we don't raise the
money to restore them," he told The New York Times.

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