Discovering Tut: the Saga

Continues

Prepared By:
Y. Rama Prasad,
PGT English
Jawahar
Navodaya
Vidyalay
Panchawati,
North & Middle
AndamanTutankhamun

The history of ancient Egypt and

their Customs and traditions

18thDynasty

Perhaps the height of Egyptian wealth

and power came between 1550 and
1290 BC. The dynasty began with the
expulsion of the Palestinian Hyksos
rulers from the north of Egypt by King
Ahmose I - an event that may have
inspired the Biblical story of the
Exodus.
Carrying
forward
the
momentum of this act, subsequent
rulers, in particular Thutmose III,
established an empire of client states in
Syria-Palestine,
and
dominions
stretching towards the heart of Africa.
War booty and lively international trade
founded on Egypt's highly productive
gold mines made Egypt a major world
player.

King Akhenaten

Around 1350 BC, however, King Akhenaten (formerly

known as Amenhotep IV - see above) turned Egypt on
its head by abolishing all the nation's gods, and
replacing them with a single sun-god, the Aten. The
new faith was accompanied by a radical new art-style,
as seen in the statuette above, currently owned by the
Louvre.
The cult of Aten, however, barely survived the death of
its patron. Within a few years, orthodoxy had been reestablished and Akhenaten's very dynasty had died
out, leaving the throne to a series of generals, the last
of whom, Ramesses I, was the founder of a new 19th
Dynasty.

After
the
death
of
Akhenaten, a mysterious
ruler named Smenkhkare
took over throne for short
period.

After
Smenkhkare,
Turankhaten
took
the
thorne- King Tut as he is
widely known today.
Tutankhamun

Customs and Traditions

Ancient Egypt was a land of elaborate religious customs.

Egyptians fervently believed in the concept of an afterlife, and

thus, funerary tradition was always enacted with deeply
religious implications.

They also believed devoutly in the Divine Right of Kings.

Pharaoh was a representative of the Gods.

Pharaoh was entitled to greater wealth and prosperity in the

next life.

HOWARD CARTER AND THE DISCOVERY

OF TUTANKHAMUN

The tomb of Tutankhamun, which is

today designated as KV 62, was
number 4.33 in Howard Carter's
sequence of discoveries since 1915.

Carter took almost a decade to

carefully preserve and remove the
treasures to Cairo.

Howard Carter did a good job by

discovering King Tut but he did not do
good
to
mummy.
During
his
investigations
he
damaged
the
mummy.

Howard Carter

ADVANCED MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY

AND THEIR USE

In order to find out the reasons

behind the death of King Tut at
an early age of 19 the following
scientific device was used.
Computed tomography (CT)
is a powerful nondestructive
evaluation (NDE) technique for
producing 2-D and 3-D crosssectional images of an object
from
flat
X-ray
images.
Characteristics of the internal
structure of an object such as
dimensions,
shape,
internal
defects, and density are readily
available from CT images.
Computed tomography

How a CT system works

The imaging system provides a

shadowgraph of an object, with
the 3-D structure compressed
onto a 2-D plane.

A number of slices through the

object can be reconstructed to
provide a 3-D view of internal
and external structural details.
As shown below, the 3-D image
can then be manipulated and
sliced in various ways to
provide thorough
understanding of the structure.

Egyptian Mummy Project

Egyptiona
Mummy
Project- began
an
inventory in late 2003.
Till now it has recorded
almost 600 mummies so
far and still counting.
They scan the mummies
with a CT.
They reconstructed the
face of the most famous
Egypt's mummy
Tutankhamun.

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General

of Egypts Supreme council

The reconstructed face of Tutankhamun

Three independent artistscientist teams, one French,

one American, and one
Egyptian, used modern
forensic
techniques
to
reconstruct Tuts face. Two
of these teams were chosen
and sponsored by the
National Geographic; the
third was selected by the
SCA.

THE REASONS BEHIND KING TUTS

DEMISE

More than 3,000 years after the death of the young

Pharaoh Tutankhamen, questions are still being asked
about how he died. Was it a natural death or was he
murdered?
If he were murdered, who did it?
Was it Aye, Tutankhamen's vizier who ascended to the
throne after his death and married his wife?
Or was it Horernhab, the army officer who became king
after Ayes short four-year rule?

A very recent medical

examination
of
the
remains
of
King
Tutankhamun suggest
that he may have not
been murdered, but
died instead from an
infection caused by a
broken leg.

SCIENTIFIC INTERVENTION TO UNEARTH

BURIED MYSTERIES

Dr. Hawass led the effort to see what King Tut, who died over three
thousand years ago, might have looked like in life. Under his
direction three independent artist-scientist teams, one French, one
American, and one Egyptian, used modern forensic techniques to
reconstruct Tuts face.
These likenesses are based on CT scan data collected by an allEgyptian team, led by Dr. Hawass, using a portable CT scanner
provided by the National Geographic Society and Siemens AG. The
scan took place on January 5, 2005, in the Valley of the Kings in
Luxor
The scientific team concluded that Tutankhamun was about 19
when he died. He was well-fed, and showed no signs of childhood
diseases or malnutrition.

They did note a bad fracture

just above the left knee that
may have occurred a day or
two before the king died
(rather than being caused by
the embalmers or Carters
team). It is possible that this
injury became infected and
killed the king, says team
leader Zahi Hawass.

We can conclude with the

help of science only we can
know about past very well
otherwise everything would
go in speculations.

References

http://touregypt.net/featurestories/killtut.htm
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC00112/death.htm
http://guardians.net/hawass/Press_Release_0505_Tut_Reconstruction.htm
http://www.ndted.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Radiography/Advan
cedTechniques/xrsim.htm
http://voanews.com/english/portal.cfm
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/tutexcavation.htm
MS Encarta 2006