Tutankhamun Revealed

Dr Zahi Hawass, Egyptologist and Vice Minister if Culture, has released a series of videos about one of the most famous of Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, King Tutankhamun whose nearly intact tomb was found in 1922 by Howard Carter while excavating in the Valley of the Kings near the modern city of Luxor.

The photographer is Sandro Vannini whose work I admire immensely.

I have detailed pages If you are interested in knowing more about Tutankhamun or the his treasures and tomb (Kv62). As always the latest from the Valley of the Kings is on my blog.  I also have more Ancient Egypt Hubs including one about the timeline of Ancient Egypt..

Note: the series is being released piece-meal. I'll update the Hub to add new installments when they become available.

In the first episode, Dr Hawass talks about the birth and death of King Tutankhamun.

Dr Hawass believes that Queen Kiya was his mother.  Not all Egyptologists agree - everybody is hoping that DNA tests will prove this conclusively one way or the other.  Queen Kiya was the second most important queen of the Pharaoh King Akhenaten who, if Kiya was Tut's mother, was probably his father.  (Ankhenaten's Chief Royal Wife was the much more famous Queen Nefertii.)

Dr Hawass goes on to explain that Tutankhamun was not murdered as some thought and that a CT scan has shown that the whole in his skull was caused during mummification.  Dr Hawass believes that he dies from an accident shortly before his death.  (Actutally, of course, there is no evidence that any fall was an accident, it could still have been murder or a battle injury.  We will probably never know.)

Don't worry, once the video gets going there is more than Dr Hawass' face: there are some nice photos of reliefs and objects from Tutankhamun's Valley of the Kings tomb.

Dr Hawass says he never believed in the curse and put the curse of Tutankhamun to bad air (or bacteria) trapped in the sealed tomb. He reveals that when he opens a tomb he always leaves it for 24 hours to vent to the fresh air before venting. He also doesn't shave so that there are no open cuts on his face - shaving is part of what is believed to have killed Lord Carnarvon by allowing a mosquito bite to become infected.

Dr Hawass then goes on to explain the strange and unpleasant coincidences which occured on the day he removed from mummy of King Tutankhamun from his tomb so that it could be investigated in a CT scanner.

Throughout there are more great photos by Sandro Vannii of Tutankhamun's tomb and his mummy.

In the the third part of this video documentary, Dr Hawass presents some of the most amazing treasures from Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings including the Golden Throne of Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenamun and some of the jewelry.  It's no known that perhaps 60% of the jewelry was stolen shortly after the death of Tutankhamun.  When ones sees what survived to be found by Howard Carter, one realises the enormity of the artefacts from the tomb.

In the final part, Dr Hawass mentions that Tutankhamun's tomb was robbed 3 times in antiquity but was saved from the worst activities of tomb robbing by the construction of a tomb above it which covered the entrance to KV62 with debris.  Other scholars, notably Stephen Cross, believe that a flash flood a decade or two after the death of Tutankhamun, burried his tomb under boulders carried by the flood water.  Under Cross's theory, other tombs of the Amarna period may also lie buried beneath this flood-carred debris, undiscovered and ... perhaps ... intact. 

Dr Hawass himself goes on to mention that tombs such as that of Nefertiti, and Amenhotep I have not been located yet and could be discovered soon.  On my Valley of the Kings blog, I follow the latest excavations in the Valley of the Kings and the expected announcement of a new tomb ot tombs.