Discovering Tut

Learning Objectives
After this lesson, students will be able to:

• Explain Egyptian beliefs and traditions about the afterlife.
• Describe and retell the story of King Tut.
• Discuss how archaeologists work.
• Their critical and creative thinking skills would be enhanced.
• They will be ready to accept the reality of life.
• Their vocabulary would be enriched.
• They would enhance their writing skills.
VOCABULARY
• Embossed - decorated with a raised ornament
• Taut - tightly drawn or tense
• Aristocrat - lord or member of ruling class
• Sarcophagus - stone coffin usually baring a sculpture
• Lush - luxurious, tender, juicy
• Loincloth - piece of cloth worn around the hips
• Embroidered - decorated with ornamental needle work
• Foes - enemies
• Invincible - cannot be conquered
• Exalted - noble, elevated, or grand
• Divine - pertaining to a god
• Vulnerable - capable of being hurt, difficult to defend
• Prominent - standing out, leading or important
• Amulet - small charm that wards off
• Vanquished - to conquer
• Rite - formal or ceremonial, religious act
• Egyptologist - an archeologist who specializes in Egyptology
Discovery Of Tut’s
Tomb
• The discovery of Tut’s tomb by
Howard Carter in 1922 is considered
the most important archaeological
find of the century. After years of
painstaking work in the Valley of the
Kings, Carter's patron, lord
Carnarvon, had warned him that that
would be the last season of work
because nothing significant had been
found. On November 22 of that year,
Carter's persistence finally paid off.
• Tutankhamun became a
household name, and his
magnificent treasures
became the measuring
stick for all future
archaeological discoveries.
The mysteries surrounding
his life and death are
gradually being solved.
And his story continues to
unfold as new theories are
proposed in an attempt to
explain what really
happened to the boy
behind the golden mask.
Lord
Carnarvon
Tut’s Life
• King Tutankhamen (or Tutankhamun) ruled Egypt as pharaoh for 10 years
until his death at age 19, around 1324 B.C.
• Although his rule was notable for reversing the religious reforms of his
father, Pharaoh Akhenaten, Tutankhamen’s legacy was largely negated by his
successors.
• He was barely known to the modern world until 1922, when British
archaeologist Howard Carter chiseled through a doorway and entered the boy
pharaoh’s tomb, which had remained sealed for more than 3,200 years.
• The tomb’s vast hoard of artifacts and treasure, intended to accompany the
king into the afterlife, revealed an incredible amount about royal life in
ancient Egypt, and quickly made King Tut the world’s most famous pharaoh.
• In his third regnal year, Tutankhamun
reversed several changes made during
his father's reign.
• He ended the worship of the god Aten
and restored the god Amun to
supremacy.
• The ban on the cult of Amun was lifted
and traditional privileges were restored
to its priesthood.
• The capital was moved back to Thebes
and the city of Akhetaten abandoned.
• This is when he changed his name to
Tutankhamun, "Living image of
Amun", reinforcing the restoration of
Amun.
• As part of his restoration, the king
initiated building projects, in
particular at Thebes and Karnak
where he dedicated a temple to Amun.
• Many monuments were erected, and an
inscription on his tomb door declares
the king had "spent his life in
fashioning the images of the gods". The
traditional festivals were now
celebrated again.
• The mummy was taken out
for CT scan to solve the
mystery of his death. The
mummy was scanned after
a thousand years to find a
cause of its untimely death
but technology hasn’t been
able to give us a definite
answer to Tut’s death.
• The CT scan offered new
INVESTIGATION clues on his life and death.

It was a thought that he
could have been murdered.
• Howard discovered
the world's richest
royal collection ever
found. He went to
his afterlife with
things such as board
games, food, wine,
linen undergarments,
etc. Artefacts of gold
of extreme brilliance
could be found in his
grave.
• It took months for Carter to record all the
things that had been found in his grave.
• But taking Tut's body wasn't that easy. Carter
and his team broke the three gold coffins one
after the other. Finally they broke the
innermost coffin and saw the dried, hard body
of Tut.
• It was really wonderful to see the dead body
of a 3300 year old mummy and to know for
sure that his name was Tutankhamun.
• He then decided to take the body out of the
coffins but soon realized that it was not so
easy because the body had got hardened with
the resins and separating the body from the
coffin was impossible.
But Carter could not think of
leaving the body there. He
feared the thieves who could
destroy the mummy for stealing
the valuable wealth inside, so
Carter decided to cut Tut's body
into pieces.
• Carter amputated Tut's hands,
legs and all the other joints.
• You can call it kind of a 21st
century murder of a 1300 BC
Pharaoh and the murder was
committed by Howard Carter.
• Carter had no other option
because for him the
mummy was more
important than the
treasures.
• Having taken the sliced
pieces of Tut, Carter
rejoined them into Tut
again.
• Carter received criticisms
from everywhere for
killing an ancient mummy
but Carter went ahead with
his discovery.
• After some years, probably after
Carter's death, a doctor performed
an X-ray and found out that one of
Tut's bones was missing from his
reassembled body. How did it
happen? No one knows! Years
passed and archaeologists and
scientists performed a number of
studies and experiments.
• Today CT scan takes hundreds of
X-Rays and creates a three
dimensional image of the body.
Tut’s mummy was put into a CT
scanner on 5 Jan. 2005 to answer
two questions – How did he die and
how old was he at the time of
death?
Burial treasures of Tut
• The treasures of Tutankhamun have been
marveled at since their discovery by Howard
Carter on November 4, 1922.
• It was the first, and to this day the only , royal
tomb in the history of Egyptology to be found
practically untouched, even though in ancient
times it had been the object of no less than two
attempts at robbery.
• The emptying of Tutankhamun's tomb lasted
several years and made possible the recovery of
about 3500 articles, confirming the tomb as the
most exceptional archeological discovery ever
made in Egypt.
• A cobra killed Howard Carter's pet canary after
the discovery of King Tut's tomb.
• Lord Carnarvon, the person who funded the dig
of King Tut’s Tomb, died shortly after the
discovery, due to a mosquito bite which turned
into an infection. At that exact moment the lights
in Cairo mysteriously went out.
• Lord Carnarvon's dog howled and dropped dead
at two in the morning when Carnarvon died.
• What is interesting is that Howard Carter lived a
decade after this major discovery.
THANK YOU

Discovering Tut

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Learning Objectives

After this lesson, students will be able to:

• The CT scan offered new

INVESTIGATION clues on his life and death.

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