CLASS – 11 ENGLISH NOTES L-3 & POEM

Discovering Tut: the saga continues

Q.1: Give reasons for the following.

(i) King Tut’s body has been subjected to repeated scrutiny.

(ii) Howard Carter’s investigation was resented.
(iii) Carter had to chisel away the solidified resins to raise the king’s
remains.
(iv) Tut’s body was buried along with gilded treasures.
(v) The boy king changed his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun.

Ans : (i) King Tut's body has been subjected to repeated scrutiny for the
riches it was buried with. There has also been a lot of speculation about the
manner of his death and the time of his death.
(ii)Howard Carter's investigation was resented because he used
unscientific methods to cut the body away from the wooden base. He also
focused more on the discovery of gold than on the fascinating details of
Tut's life and the mysteries of his death.
(iii)Carter found that the ritual resin that was used as a polish had
hardened. The result was that the mummy was cemented to the bottom of
the solid gold coffin. Neither the strongest force could move the mummy
nor the burning sun could loosen the remains of the king.
(iv) The ancient royals of Egypt were fabulously wealthy. They believed in
afterlife. They also believed that they could take their wealth with them. So
gilded treasures were buried with them.
(v) Tutankhamun means 'Living image of Amun. He was a major god in
ancient Egypt. King Amenhotep smashed the images of Amun and closed
his temples. Tut oversaw a restoration of the old ways, He also changed his
name to express his belief on Amun.

Q.2: (i) List the deeds that led Ray Johnson to describe Akhenaten as
“wacky”.
(ii) What were the results of the CT scan?
(iii) List the advances in technology that have improved forensic analysis.
(iv) Explain the statement, “King Tut is one of the first mummies to be
scanned — in death, as in life...”

Ans : (i)According to Ray Johnson Akhenaten was ‘wacky’ because:

 ▪ He promoted the worship of Aten instead of Amun.
▪ He moved the religious capital from Thebes to the new city of
Akhetaten.
▪ He smashed Amun's images.
▪ He closed Amun’s temples.
▪ He changed his name to Akhenaten or servant of Aten.
(ii) Today C. T. technology helps us to take hundreds of X-ray images in
cross-sections. They can be put together like slices of bread to create three
dimensional virtual body. This provides precise data for an accurate
forensic reconstruction.
(iii) The advances in technology that have improved forensic analysis are
as follows:
1. Today, diagnostic imaging can be done by Computed Tomography or CT.
2. In CT, hundreds of X-rays in cross-section are put together like slices of
bread to create a three dimensional virtual body.
3. The X-ray images in cross section can scan even the intricate structure
by reducing it to slices in millimeters.
(iv) The above statement means that there are hundreds of mummies in
Egypt. But, Tut’s mummy is the first to be scanned. He remains the first in
death, as he was the first among his countrymen when he lived, He was a
ruler, an emperor.

The Laburnum Top 

Think it out

Question 1.
What do you notice about the beginning and the ending of the poem?
Answer:
The beginning of the poem is about the silence and stillness of the
laburnum. The end of the poem again drifts into silence and emptiness of
the laburnum.

Question 2.
To what is the bird’s movement compared? What is the basis for the
comparison?
Answer:
The bird’s movement is compared to that of a lizard. The basis for the
comparison is the sleek, alert and abrupt movement with which the bird
enters its nest. This movement of the bird is compared to that of a lizard.

Question 3.
Why is the image of the engine evoked by the poet?
Answer:
The poet evokes the image of an engine because as soon as the goldfinch
enters its nest on the laburnum top, the whole tree comes alive with the
chirruping of the young ones of the bird, their twittering and the tremor of
their wings. As an engine brings a seemingly dead machine to life, so the
chittering family of the goldfinch brings the whole tree into life.

Question 4.
What do you like most about the poem?
Answer:

I like the depiction and the imagery in the poem. The poet creates a
mundane yet beautiful picture of a tree top that goes through stages from
being silent to alive and drifts back into silence again. The imagery of an
engine bringing alive a machine is also something that catches my fancy.

Question 5.
What does the phrase “her barred face identity mask” mean?
Answer:
The phrase refers to the face of the bird that is covered with fur of different
colours and which looks like a mask making it the identity of the bird.

EXTRA QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS -

Question  1.
What generated the interest of the world in King Tut?
Answer:
King Tut was just a teenager when he died. He was the last heir of a
powerful family that had ruled Egypt and its empire for centuries. Since the
discovery of his tomb in 1922, the modem world wondered about what
happened to him and wondered if he could have been murdered.

Question 2.
How did nature seem to echo the unnatural happening?
Answer:
As King Tut was taken from his resting place in the ancient Egyptian
cemetery, dark-bellied clouds that had scudded across the desert sky all
day, veiled the stars in grey. It seemed that the wind was angry and had
roused the dust devils.

Question 3.
Why did the tourists throng to see Tut’s tomb? What was their reaction?
Answer:
The tourists came to pay their respects to King Tut. They admired the
murals and Tut’s gilded face on his mummy-shaped outer coffin. They read
from the guidebooks in whisper, or stood silently, pondering over Tut’s
untimely death, dreading, lest the pharaoh’s curse befall those who
disturbed him.

Question 4.
Who was Howard Carter? What did he find?
Answer:
Howard Carter was the British archaeologist who in 1922 discovered Tut’s
tomb after years of unsuccessful search. He discovered the richest royal
collection ever found that included stunning artifacts in gold that caused a
sensation.

Question 5.
Tut was buried in March-April. How did Carter conclude this?
Answer:
On opening a coffin, Carter found a shroud decorated with garlands of
willow and olive leaves, wild celery, lotus petals and cornflowers. Since
these flowers grow in March or April, Carter concluded that the burial was
in these months.
Question 6.
“When he finally reached the mummy, though, he ran into trouble.” Why
was it so?
Answer:
When Carter tried to raise the mummy out of the coffin, he could not. The
ritual resins had hardened, cementing Tut’s body to the bottom of his solid
gold coffin. No amount of force could pull it out.

Question 7.
How did he decide to detach the mummy? Why?
Answer:
First Carter tried to loosen the resins with the heat of the sun. For several
hours, he put the mummy outside in blazing sunshine that heated it to 149
degrees Fahrenheit but it was in vain. Then he decided to carve it out from
beneath the limbs and trunk as there was no other way of raising the king’s
remains.

Question 8.
What were the treasures found in the coffin? Why were they put there?
Answer:
King Tut’s coffin contained precious collars, inlaid necklaces and bracelets,
rings, amulets, a ceremonial apron, sandals, sheaths for his fingers and
toes, and his inner coffin and mask, all of which were made of pure gold.
The royals, in King Tut’s time, hoped to take their riches along with them for
their next life.

Question 9.
How has the viewpoint of archaeologists changed with the passage of
time?
Answer:
The archaeologists, earlier, focussed on the treasures that the tomb would
yield. The centre of attention, now, is more on the fascinating details of life
and intriguing mysteries of death. Moreover, now they use more
sophisticated tools, including medical technology.

Question 10.
What was the interesting fact about Tut that was brought to light in the late
sixties?
Answer:
In 1968, more than forty years after Carter’s discovery, an anatomy
professor X-rayed the mummy and revealed a startling fact: beneath the
resin that caked his chest, his breast-bone and front ribs were missing.

Question 11.
Why was King Tut’s death a big event?
Answer:
King Tut’s demise was a big event as he was the last of his lineage and his
funeral sounded the death rattle of a dynasty. Moreover, he died at the very
young age of about eighteen.

Question 12.
What is known about Tut’s predecessor Amenhotep IV?
Answer:
Amenhotep IV, during his reign, promoted the worship of the Aten, the sun
disk, and changed his own name to Akhenaten, or ‘servant of the Aten’,
and moved the religious capital to the new city of Akhetaten. He outraged
the country by attacking Amun, a major god, smashing his images and
closing his temples.

Question 13.
What made a guard remark, ‘curse of the pharaoh’?
Answer:
When Tut’s body was taken out to be scanned and the million-dollar
scanner had stopped functioning because of sand in a cooler fan, the guard
jokingly remarked that the king had expressed his annoyance at being
disturbed.

Question 14.
With King Tut was being finally laid to rest, nature was at rest too. Explain.
Answer:
When King Tut was finally laid to rest, the wind stopped blowing and was
still, like death itself. Orion, the constellation that the ancient Egyptians
knew as the soul of Osiris, the god of the afterlife, was sparkling. It seemed
to be watching over the boy king.

Discovering Tut: The Saga Continues :Long Answer Type Questions

Question 1.
Nature echoed the unnatural happenings with King Tut’s body. Comment.
Answer:
To set to rest the modem world’s speculation about King Tut, the body was
taken out of its resting place some 3,300 years later. He was required to
undergo a CT scan to generate precise data for an accurate forensic
reconstruction. As the body was taken out, raging wind began to blow
which seemed to arouse the eerie devils of dust. Dark clouds gathered and
appeared to shroud the stars in a grey-coloured coffin. When the body was
put down for scan, the million-dollar scanner seemed to keep from
functioning.

There was sand in a cooler fan. It was when he was finally laid to rest, that
the winter air lay cold and still, like death itself, in this valley of the
departed. Just above the entrance to Tut’s tomb stood Orion the
constellation that the ancient Egyptians knew as the soul of Osiris, the god
of the afterlife, supervising the young pharaoh returning to his rightful place.

Question 2.
“The mummy is in a very bad condition because of what Carter did in the
1920s.” What did Carter do and why?
Answer:
Howard Carter was the British archaeologist who in 1922 discovered Tut’s
tomb. He searched its contents in haste. The tomb, which had stunning
artefacts in gold, caused a sensation at the time of the discovery.

After months of carefully recording the treasures in the pharaoh’s coffin,

Carter began investigating the three nested coffins. When he finally
reached the mummy, he found that the ritual resins had hardened. Thus,
Tut’s body was cemented to the bottom of his solid gold coffin. Carter set
the mummy outside in blazing sun that heated it up to 149 degrees
Fahrenheit, to no avail.

To prevent the thieves from ransacking, he chiselled the body free. To

separate Tut from his embellishments, Carter’s men removed the mummy’s
head and severed nearly every major joint.

Question 3.
Describe the changing attitudes of the archaeologists over a span of time.
Answer:
Archaeology has changed substantially in the intervening decades. It now
focusses less on treasure and more on the interesting details of life and the
intriguing mysteries of death. It also uses more sophisticated tools,
including medical technology. In 1968, more than forty years after Carter’s
discovery, an anatomy professor X-rayed the mummy and revealed a
startling fact: beneath the resin that cakes King Tut’s chest, his breast bone
and front ribs were missing.

Today, diagnostic imaging can be done with Computed Tomography, or CT,

by which hundreds of X-rays in cross section are put together like slices of
bread to create a three dimensional virtual body. It can even answer
questions such as how a person died, and how old he was at the time of
his death.

Question 4.
What are the facts that are known about King Tut’s lineage?
Answer:
Amenhotep III, Tut’s father or grandfather, was a powerful pharaoh who
ruled for almost four decades at the height of the eighteenth dynasty’s
golden age. His son Amenhotep IV succeeded him and initiated one of the
strangest periods in the history of ancient Egypt. The new pharaoh
promoted the worship of the Aten, the sun disk, changed his name to
Akhenaten, or ‘servant of the Aten’, and moved the religious capital from
the old city of Thebes to the new city of Akhetaten, now known as Amarna.
He further shocked the country by attacking Amun, a major god, smashing
his images and closing his temples. After Akhenaten’s death, a mysterious
ruler named Smenkhare appeared briefly and exited with hardly a trace. A
very young Tutankhaten took the throne as the king, thereafter.

The Laburnum Top Extra Questions and Answers Short Answer Type

Question 1.
Why is the poem named ‘The Laburnum Top’?
Answer:
The poem has been named ‘The Laburnum Top’ because the top of the
Laburnum tree has been described in detail in the poem. It is on the top of
the Laburnum tree that the nest of the goldfinch is located and where all the
activity takes place when the goldfinch visits the nest.
Question 2.
What is the significance of ‘yellow’ in the poem?
Answer:
The flowers of the Laburnum tree and its leaves (in autumn) both are
yellow in colour. Apart from this, the goldfinch’s feathers are also yellow in
colour. The poem highlights the high security that the mother bird
(goldfinch) ensures for her babies and the colour yellow helps in
camouflaging the babies. Hence they escape being noticed by any
predator.

Question 3.
How is the tree transformed during the bird’s visit?
Answer:
After the goldfinch arrives on the tree, the silent and still Laburnum tree
suddenly starts trembling and moving. The whole tree comes to life as the
chicks of the goldfinch make a lot of noise as they chitter and trill on seeing
their mother.

Question 4.
To what is the movement of the goldfinch compared? What is the basis for
the comparison?
Answer:
The movement of the goldfinch is compared to that of a lizard. The basis of
the comparison is the sleek, alert and sudden movements of a lizard. The
goldfinch makes similar kind of movements when it arrives on the
Laburnum tree to avoid being noticed by any predator.

Question 5.
‘Then sleek as a lizard and alert and abrupt, She enters the thickness’.
Explain the given line.
Answer:
The lizard is a quick moving animal. It is also very alert and its movements
are sudden. In the given line, the arrival of the goldfinch on the Laburnum
tree is described. The poet describes its movements as alert and sudden
just like that of a lizard. This is done to avoid getting the attention of the
predators.

Question 6.
What is the engine of the machine? What is its fuel?
Answer:
The goldfinch has been called the engine of her family. Just as the engine
starts up the machine, the goldfinch’s arrival in the nest has suddenly
started the machine i.e. the young ones in the nest have started making
noise. The fuel of the engine is the food that the goldfinch brings for her
chicks.

Question 7.
How does the Laburnum ensure security for the nestlings?
Answer:
According to popular belief, the bark and the seeds of the Laburnum tree
are poisonous. So, predators normally do not come near the tree. Apart
from this, its yellow flowers and yellowing leaves in the autumn season
complemented by the yellow coloured feathers of the goldfinch help in
camouflaging the nestlings from the predators.

Question 8.
Explain the line, ‘And the Laburnum subsides to empty’.
Answer:
This is the last line of the poem. It describes that with the departure of the
goldfinch from the Laburnum tree, it falls silent. The tree was noisy and
lively when the goldfinch came to feed its chicks, but it reverts to its earlier
self after its departure from the tree.

The Laburnum Top Extra Questions and Answers Long Answer Type

Question 1.
The arrival of the goldfinch on the Laburnum top brings about a change in
the poem. How do you interpret this change? Is change good or bad in life?
Answer:
At the start of the poem, the top of the Laburnum tree in the poem is silent
and still. There is hardly any activity on it as the sunlight falls on it on a
September afternoon. However, with the arrival of the goldfinch, it suddenly
becomes a place of feverish activity. The silence of the place is broken by
the twittering and chirruping of the chicks and the goldfinch.

I think that the change brought about by the arrival of the goldfinch on the
Laburnum top is good, as it breaks the monotony. The tree becomes alive
and lively with the movement of the goldfinch and the twitterings and
chirrupings of the chicks. Change can be good or bad in life depending on
a situation. However, the fact is that change is the only constant in life. So,
even if a change is bad, we have to accept it and move on in life.

Question 2.
What values do you learn from the goldfinch in the poem ‘The ‘Laburnum
Top?
Answer:
The goldfinch has its nest on the top of the Laburnum tree in the poem,
‘The Laburnum Top’. Her chicks stay in the nest while she (the mother
goldfinch) keeps going out at regular intervals to get food to feed her
chicks. This shows her caring nature and highlights the values of motherly
care and affection of a mother towards her offspring.

The other aspect of the goldfinch that is captured in the poem is its
movement. She arrives at the Laburnum top in a sudden manner and is
very much alert to her surroundings. The poet has compared her
movement with the sleek movement of a lizard. However, there is a reason
for her moving like this (in an alert and sudden manner). She is moving in
this manner so as to avoid getting noticed by any predator. She does not
want any predator to know that her chicks are resting in her nest on the
Laburnum top as then the predators may kill them or harm them. The
values of safety and security for her offspring is highlighted in this act of the
goldfinch.

The Laburnum Top Extract based Questions and Answers

I. Read the extract given below and answer any two of the questions that
follow.

The Laburnum top is silent, quite still In the afternoon yellow September
sunlight,
A few leaves yellowing, all its seeds fallen.

Question 1.
What does ‘Laburnum top’ mean here?
Answer:
It means the top part of the Laburnum tree

Question 2.
What has happened to the tree?
Answer:
The leaves of the tree have turned yellow and its seeds are falling down

Question 3.
Find a word from the extract which is the antonym of ‘noisy’.
Answer:
Silent

II. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.

Then sleek as a lizard, and alert, and abrupt,

She enters the thickness, and a machine starts up
Of chitterings and a tremor of wings, and trilling
The whole tree trembles and thrills.

Question 1.
Who is ‘she’ in the second line ? Where does she enter?
Answer:
‘She’ is the mother goldfinch who enters the thickness of the Laburnum
tree

Question 2.
What does ‘machine’ refer to in the extract?
Answer:
It refers to the nest of the goldfinch where its young ones are staying.

Question 3.
Find a word from the extract which is the synonym of ‘entire’.
Answer:
Whole

III. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow.
Then with eerie delicate whistle-chirrup whisperings She launches away,
towards the infinite
And the Laburnum subsides to empty.

Question 1.
What does ‘launches’ mean in the extract?
Answer:
It means flying.

Question 2.
What effect does the last line create?
Answer:
It creates the contrast between the liveliness of the tree and its silence.

Question 3.
……….from the extract means the same as ‘strange’ and ‘mysterious’.
Answer:
Eerie.