The Mysteries Surrounding Tutankhamun and His Tomb Artifacts

In 1977 the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibit hit the United States with the force of a tsunami and, like many people, I traveled to the nearest museum exhibiting this outstanding collection of Egyptian relics. At the New Orleans Museum of Art, I devotedly read each description and marveled at the extraordinary collection of King Tutankhamun’s artifacts in front of me. A few years later, I visited the Valley of the Kings where Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.

I was on a plane two months ago and looking for something to distract me from the boredom of hours confined to an airplane economy seat. I halfheartedly selected a documentary film on Tutankhamun, even though I thought that I already knew a lot about the subject. To my surprise, I was enthralled with the presentation and the use of modern technology to discover more information about this 18th Dynasty New Kingdom pharaoh’s family, reign, health, mummy, tomb, and grave goods. I was shaking my head in agreement with the documentary, King Tut’s Treasures: Hidden Secrets, and comparing the information with everything I had learned since 1977. Then, at the end of the documentary, one of the scientists appearing in the film, Dr. Christian Eckmann, presented his conclusions about the origin of the death mask of Tutankhamun. My mouth fell open as I gasped in disbelief. My discombobulation about Dr. Eckmann’s remarks spurred me to investigate Tutankhamun and his tomb artifacts for myself; the following column is the result.

Tutankhamun’s Family

For years, there had been speculation about the familial relationships of Tutankhamun. In 2010, DNA testing was used to create his family tree. It showed that he was the son of the heretical pharaoh Akhenaten and Akhenaten’s biological sister, whose name is not known, though she is customarily referred to as the Younger Lady. Royal incest was the usual practice in pharaonic marriages. The idea was that, by marrying members of one’s own family, the pharaohs could keep their bloodline unpolluted and help limit the number of heirs to the throne.

Tutankhamun’s Reign

In 1332 BC, Tutankhamun became pharaoh at about the age of nine. He married his half-sister, Ankhesenpaaten. They had two daughters, but the children did not survive. One was miscarried at around five months, and the other was born closer to term, but suffered from spina bifida, scoliosis, and Sprengel’s deformity. Their mummified bodies were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. He ruled for ten years and died at the age of nineteen in 1323 BC. Tutankhamun was revered in his time for his return to the old gods and his abandonment of his father’s single god, Aten. But today, this unimportant pharaoh is a marvel to us because of the mostly undisturbed state of his tomb, which gives us a small inkling of the magnificence of the tombs in which other Egyptian pharaohs must have been buried.

Tutankhamun’s Medical Problems

Tutankhamun’s many physical problems are attributed by most researchers to inbreeding. Inbreeding happens when two closely related organisms produce offspring. When the parents have very similar genetic profiles, their deleterious genes (genes that reduce the fitness of their offspring) can be doubled. Inbreeding often causes undesirable physical or mental conditions in the offspring. If one parent chooses a partner with no familial relationship, the chance of a similar genetic profile is greatly reduced, and the risk of negatively affecting their offspring is diminished. Another term for “inbreeding” when used in reference to people, a term with legal and religious significance, is “incest.”

Most researchers believe that the practice of incestuous marriage and the inbreeding that occurred is what caused Tutankhamun to be born with a clef palate, slight scoliosis, and a club foot. His left foot was twisted inward and downward, which made it difficult for him to walk. This helps to explain the 130 canes and walking sticks that were found in his tomb. At the time of his death, Tutankhamun’s left foot had developed necrosis, the death of some of the bone tissue. Although this is a very painful condition, it is not thought to have been the cause of his death.

Another factor that impacted the health of Tutankhamun was malaria. Various strains of malaria are endemic to the area in which Tutankhamun lived. Through DNA testing of the different malarial parasites found in Tutankhamun’s mummy and organs, researchers found that the young pharaoh had endured multiple bouts of malaria throughout his life. This included the most virulent strain, Malaria tropica. There was no cure for malaria at that time, and so infected people endured recurring attacks of the illness. Malaria tropica is known to weaken the sufferers’ immune systems; it put additional stress on Tutankhamun’s body.

In 2005, CT scans were used to perform a virtual autopsy, and a compound fracture of Tutankhamun’s left thigh bone was discovered. It takes a lot of blunt force trauma to break a femur, the strongest bone in the body. Tutankhamun’s bone pierced the skin, and, even with the Egyptians’ exceptional knowledge of the human body and advanced (for the period) medicine, some scientists speculate that a massive infection leading to gangrene probably occurred. As this severe injury showed no signs of any healing, scientists believe it occurred just before his death. Based on this evidence, most scientists conclude that the infected compound fracture, the chronic malaria, and a compromised immune system all played a part in the death of Tutankhamun.

As mentioned before, there is no written narrative of Tutankhamun’s death, but we can speculate what might have happened. Among the grave goods in Tutankhamun’s tomb, archeologists found six disassembled chariots of various sizes. This large number of vehicles suggests that chariot riding and perhaps hunting were favorite pastimes of Tutankhamun. Also found in the tomb was an ostrich fan. The handle of the fan states that the ostriches were captured on a hunt by Tutankhamun and that the feathers from these birds were used to make the fan.

In 1320 BC, the chariot was the ultimate “high-speed thrill ride” of its day. It was a symbol of power and could achieve the astounding velocity of twenty-five m.p.h. As the ruler of a wealthy country, it is not hard to envision Tutankhamun as a young man wanting the best and fastest vehicles available. Riding in a chariot is an exercise in balance and strength; a driving accident is one of the ways that blunt force trauma could have occurred. Taking into account Tutankhamun’s lame foot with its painful necrosis of the bone, it is easy to picture his chariot hitting a rock or depression while traveling at a high speed and the pharaoh being thrown out of the vehicle. Any bone, even a femur, can be broken if hit with enough force. This is just speculation, but, with no record of what happened, it is not inconceivable that something like that occurred.

Tutankhamun’s Mummified Body

The state of mummification of Tutankhamun’s body is a mystery that puzzles scientists today. The preparations for the preservation of his body were deplorable compared to other royal mummies. First and most important, Tutankhamun’s mummy has no heart. This is a very disturbing and significant indicator that something went terribly wrong. He is the only Egyptian pharaoh who was not buried with his heart intact. Egyptians considered the heart to be the center of a person’s intelligence and emotions. It was believed that after an Egyptian died he would go before Anubis, the jackal-headed god, to have his heart weighed to ascertain whether he would begin his eternal life or be eaten by the crocodile-headed goddess Ammut. Egyptians believed that performing good deeds during one’s lifetime lightened a person’s heart and helped ensure success in attaining an afterlife. Having no heart meant that Tutankhamun would have no opportunity to experience an afterlife. That was unthinkable to the Egyptians of his time.

Another unusual aspect of Tutankhamun’s mummification process is the way in which his internal organs were removed. Routinely, the stomach, liver, intestines, and lungs were taken out through a small slit on the left side of the body. Then they were cleaned and packed in natron (a mineral salt) to dry out. Once dried, they were wrapped in linen and placed in canopic funerary jars. In the case of Tutankhamun, the slit is long and made from his bellybutton to the side of his body. Could this be an amateurish effort to begin the embalming process by someone who was unskilled in the procedures? We know that the decomposition process of a dead body normally begins with the abdominal organs. If Tutankhamun died away from home on a hunting trip and out of the reach of skilled embalmers, could this be the explanation for this bungled disembowelment?

An additional disconcerting aspect of the mummification process of Tutankhamun’s body was in the manner of the use of resins and other oils. Normally, after the natron was removed from the desiccated corpse, the body was rubbed with oils to preserve the elasticity of the skin, and resin was smoothed over the surface to help preserve and impede the growth of bacteria. Then linen bindings were carefully wrapped around the body before it was placed in its sarcophagus.

For Tutankhamun’s mummy, much too much resin and oil was used. In fact, it was poured into his skull, into the cavity of his abdomen, and into the crannies around the body in the sarcophagus. Why his embalmer did this, we do not know. Our conjectures are pure speculation. Maybe his body continued to decay because of some unknown circumstances? Or perhaps it was to make Tutankhamun look darker, so that he would more resemble the god Osiris? Who can say? This gluey mass of resin and oil explains why Howard Carter had such a problem when he removed the body from the sarcophagus in 1925.

Tutankhamun’s Tomb

The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered on November 26, 1922, in the Valley of the Kings, when a workman unexpectedly uncovered some stairs leading down into the ground. When the debris in the stairwell was removed and the sealed door breached, the magnificent tomb of Tutankhamun was revealed.

Most researchers agree that Tutankhamun’s tomb was too small for an Egyptian pharaoh. The tomb looks to have been originally a crypt made for a queen or another royal figure, not a pharaoh. One explanation for this has been that Tutankhamun died unexpectedly at the age of nineteen, and so no tomb had been prepared. That could be, but the custom for Egyptian kings was to start building their tombs when they ascended to the throne, which makes this explanation unlikely. Tutankhamen had been pharaoh for ten years, and one would think that his tomb was being built during those ten years.

A furtive whisper coming to us through the intervening centuries suggests that Tutankhamun was relegated to a minor site after his death by his successor, Aye. A letter was found from Tutankhamun’s wife to the then-reigning Hittite king in which she asked him to send his son to her so that she could marry him. In the letter she said a servant was trying to take over and marry her. A Hittite prince was sent, but he was killed on his way to the queen. Some archeologists believe that Aye made a power play for the throne, killed the Hittite prince, married Ankhesenpaaten, and confiscated Tutankhamun’s large, well-decorated tomb as his own. What happened to the queen after her marriage to Aye? We do not know. This is all just ancient chatter, but some say that there is a kernel of truth in most gossip.

Another indicator of the speed at which the tomb was prepared is the simplicity and large size of the images used to decorate the walls. Normally the murals would have been complex and detailed. They would have shown the pharaoh living in the afterlife doing the many things he liked to do. In Tutankhamun’s tomb, the wall space was limited, and so were the murals.

Evidence that Tutankhamun’s tomb was prepared in a hurry is also found in the 3,300-year-old mold on the wall murals. One wonders how this could have happened. As we know from our daily life, mold needs moisture in order to grow. The only way mold could have grown in this very hot, dry climate is if the tomb had been shut and sealed before the paint had a chance to dry. As far as I know, this is the only Egyptian tomb that has ancient mold growing on the walls.

Other evidence of the hasty tomb preparation includes the disassembling and reassembling of the cow and lion beds. These beds were too large to be carried into the tomb, so they were taken apart and then put back together again inside the tomb. Those carrying out the task were in such a hurry that they mixed up the pieces and put the bedframes of the lion bed with the headboard and the footboard of the cow bed and vice versa. We know this because the writing on the frames does not match the writing on the head and footboards. Considering that a pharaoh was the sacred emissary for Egyptians to the gods and that his tomb was an important part of that journey, how could such an error not be corrected, unless another consideration was even more important? The conclusion that must be drawn is that time constraints were more important than the condition of the tomb, so speed and expediency won over tradition and religious considerations.

Tutankhamun’s Grave Goods

The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo has reported that about one-fourth of the grave goods in Tutankhamun’s tomb did not belong to him. Some researchers have suggested an even higher percentage. Grave goods in his tomb were borrowed or reused from other peoples’ tombs or burials. Several items were taken from his older sister, Meritaten, who had married their father. There is a statue of a figure standing on a panther which is supposed to be Tutankhamun, but it has breasts. The chest that holds the canopic jars has Tutankhamun’s cartouche reworked over Meritaten’s. In a pile of his jewelry is a bracelet in which the cartouche was not even altered; it is Meritaten’s. Another box has the cartouche of Tutankhamun written over that of Queen Neferneferuaten, the royal name of Queen Nefertiti.

There were other examples of purloined or borrowed objects. About 400 little statues or ushabtis were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. Traditionally, the ushabtis were made in the image of the pharaoh, and their role was to be servants to the king in his afterlife. But many of the ushabtis in Tutankhamun’s tomb have very different appearances. They look nothing like each other or Tutankhamun. Several appear to have been taken from other tombs.

Tutankhamun’s Burial Boxes and Sarcophagi

Traditionally, pharaohs were buried in three gradually larger sarcophagi (coffins) that lay within a granite box. The granite box in turn lay within four nested, wooden boxes. The three sarcophagi fitted one inside the other like Russian matryoshka dolls. Each box had a lid, and each lidded container fit entirely inside the next larger box. The four wooden boxes were carved with hieroglyphics and gilded.

For Tutankhamun’s remains, four gilded, wooden boxes formed the outermost perimeter of his tomb. One of the golden boxes used for Tutankhamun had been taken from another pharaoh’s tomb. The reworking is quite easy to see because, while the original gilding on the box has a reddish-gold color, the reworked cartouches were all done in a bright, yellow-gold. A pink granite shrine box rested inside the four outer wooden boxes. The pink granite shine box contained a sturdy, wooden, planked platform that held the sarcophagi inside it off the floor.

Three sarcophagi were nested one inside the other and placed on the platform in the granite box. The innermost coffin was the smallest. It held Tutankhamun’s mummy and was made of solid gold. It had precious stones embedded on its surface, as well as engraved spells. Its shape was in the form of the god Osiris, his hands folded over his breast and holding the Egyptian crook and flail. Inside this innermost casket, the mummy of Tutankhamun was wearing a gold death mask, and gold bands with reworked cartouches surrounded the body.

The next larger coffin was made of wood and was also shaped in the form of the god Osiris. It was highly colored, gilded, decorated with precious stones, and engraved with spells to protect the pharaoh. This second casket has a very different appearance compared to the innermost gold casket and the third outer casket. It is thought to have been taken from Nefertiti’s tomb. (Nefertiti was Tutankhamun’s stepmother and the primary wife of his father.) Next is the outermost coffin. It was also shaped like the god Osiris with his hands crossed on his breast. It is made of wood, gilded, and carved with hieroglyphs.

These three nested coffins were placed on the bed inside the granite shrine box. When the ancient Egyptians tried to put the granite lid over the nested sarcophagi, the toes of the outermost wooden casket would not allow the lid to be placed on top. The workers chopped off the toes so that the lid could be closed. Howard Carter found the wooden chips inside the granite box.

The Origin of Tutankhamun’s Burial Regalia

As mentioned above, the mummified body had a gold death mask placed around the head, and gold bands wound around the body. Tutankhamun’s gold bands were borrowed from another pharaonic personage, probably Nefertiti. Tutankhamun’s father, Akhenaten, had made her a co-ruler during his reign. When he died, the machinations and power moves are not easy to follow, but most archeologists think that Nefertiti was the regent at the beginning of Tutankhamun’s reign. She subsequently disappeared from the historical record, so most people think that she was either killed or died soon. Nefertiti’s tomb has not been found, but it is believed to be near the tomb of Tutankhamun. Some speculate that most of Tutankhamun’s personal burial regalia and sarcophagi were taken from Nefertiti.

Tutankhamun’s Gold Death Mask

The death mask is the object that set me off on this quest. It is labeled #60672 in Howard Carter’s excavation log, and it is identified as the gold death mask of Tutankhamun … or is it really his? In the documentary I viewed on the plane, German conservator Christian Eckmann examined the mask in an attempt to answer this question: Was this mask borrowed from someone else, or was it made for Tutankhamun in the seventy-day interval after his death and before his burial? (Egyptian custom was to bury pharaohs seventy days after their deaths.)

Dr. Eckmann opined that the mask was a good likeness of Tutankhamun, even though the CT scans and the digital facial reconstruction showed the pharaoh to have buck teeth. Dr. Eckmann concluded that the mask was indeed made in seventy days for Tutankhamun. The main supporting evidence he used for this conclusion was that, if the mask’s maker had heated up the mask’s gold in order to remodel it from one visage to another, the inlay and stones would have cracked and burned. Dr. Eckmann examined the mask and saw that all of the inlay was in good shape, so he concluded that it was specifically made for Tutankhamun.

I very much disagree. Not every researcher has taken courses in metalsmithing, repoussé, and the chasing of metals, as I have. Based on my own experience in those areas, I believe that Dr. Eckmann’s conclusion was based on fallacious reasoning. When I looked at pictures of the inlay on the mask, I saw that the pieces were not bezel set (like a cabochon stone in a ring). Admittedly, the last time I looked at the mask was behind a glass case in 1977, but I would guess that the mask’s carnelian, lapis lazuli, quartz, obsidian, colored glass, and turquoise were inlaid on the mask using some kind of fixative, or glue. Such substances are easily removed. The mask maker probably gently heated up the mask until the fixative slightly softened, and then he effortlessly removed the inlay from the mask. As any good craftsman knows, removed parts should be laid out carefully in the same order in which they are taken out so that it will be easy to return them to the correct places on the piece.

Could the mask have been reworked to show another pharaoh’s face? Once the inlay was removed, it could have been done very easily. After a craftsman worked the metal, he would have had to heat it up again. This heating process is called “annealing.” When hammering on a piece, a metalworker is physically moving the molecules of the metal, which puts stress on them. The molecules can only move so far before they become work hardened. If the craftsman continues to manipulate the work-hardened metal, it will break or crack unless this stress is relieved. The only way to remove the stress in the metal is by annealing it. The temperature needed to anneal the piece depends on the composition of the metal. Once the correct temperature is achieved, the metal molecules realign themselves and become more malleable. For nonferrous materials, the craftsman lets the metal cool, and the piece is then ready for more physical manipulation. (When metalsmithing with ferrous material such as iron or steel, the smith generally forges the metal while it is red hot.)

For years I have heard that some researchers think that the mask was originally made for Nefertiti. I had also thought that this was probably so, because the ears had holes for earrings. From my research, I understand that, in ancient Egypt, earrings were worn by children and women but not by adult Egyptian males. When Carter removed the mask from the sarcophagus, the ear holes were filled with a white substance (stucco?) and gold disks were placed over the holes. If the mask was originally made for a woman, having the dead lady wear earrings would have been in keeping with the customs of the day. However, if the mask was made specifically for Tutankhamun, why have the mask bear ear holes that had to be covered up?

Another reason that I think the mask might have been reworked at some point, but not necessarily to make it resemble Tutankhamun, is because of the pharaonic beard. I first thought that, if a mask originally made for a female was to be repurposed for a male, a beard would have had to be added by soldering or riveting the beard onto the chin. But when I discovered that Akhenaten had made Nefertiti a co-pharaoh, I remembered that Hatshepsut and some other female pharaohs had pharaonic beards on some of their official statues since the beard was a symbol of a pharaoh. So that’s the clincher for me: maybe Nefertiti also had a beard on her death mask, which made it doubly easy for the switch to be made with no remodeling necessary.

One last piece of evidence that the mask was taken from someone else was the cartouche on the inside of the mask. One researcher determined that it had been reworked and that Tutankhamun’s name had been engraved over the name Nefertiti. Another researcher identified the name of Tutankhamun’s older sister, Meritaten, under Tutankhamun’s name. Still another said that it was never reworked. Looking at the preponderance of the evidence, my opinion is that the cartouche was reworked with Tutankhamun’s name, a not uncommon practice for ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

As I mentioned at the start of this column, I agreed with the information I heard on the documentary until the researcher opined about Tutankhamun’s death mask. My own experience in metalsmithing and jewelry making leads me to a different conclusion on that point. I firmly believe that Tutankhamun’s mask was probably originally intended for someone else but was afterwards repurposed for him.

In Conclusion

The tomb of King Tutankhamun is an extraordinary treasure by any measure. Unless we find a first-hand report that explains all of the amazing events of that time, we probably will never know what really took place. Although a couple of robberies had occurred in Tutankhamun’s tomb before Howard Carter and his team rediscovered it, the majority of the grave goods were intact when they opened the tomb. The extraordinary significance of this tomb is that it is an unexpected time capsule of life in ancient Egypt. It is even more valuable than a tomb built and equipped for a single pharaoh would be because it presents us not only with Tutankhamun’s grave goods but also with artifacts from several other royal personages. If these various artifacts of different origins had not been placed in Tutankhamun’s tomb, we would never have had the opportunity to see these treasures from several diverse ancient royal Egyptians.

Epilogue

My journey into the mysteries of Tutankhamun and ancient Egypt is finished for now. My initial questions about the origin of the death mask have been answered to my satisfaction. Will there be more information to come in the future? Without a doubt, I believe that this will happen. Every day new, innovative technologies emerge. Fresh chapters are waiting to be written on the mysteries of Egypt’s past.

For those of us who are always enthralled by this ancient culture, there is good news out of Egypt. A billion dollar museum is being built with 5.2 million square feet of space. It is located about 1¼ miles away from the pyramids of Giza. All of Tutankhamun’s artifacts are to be moved there and will then be located in one place. They will take up about one-third of the display area. Not only is this building to be a museum, but it will also have seventeen working laboratories for analyzing, restoring, and conserving Egypt’s ancient artifacts.

Here are some interesting websites for readers who want to read more about this fascinating topic.

“King Tut’s DNA tests reveal a twisted family tree” – fox19.com

“King Tut Mysteries Solved: Was Disabled, Malarial, and Inbred”
– news.nationalgeographic.com

“King Tut’s Chariots: Ferraris of Ancient Egypt” – seeker.com

“Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul” – en.wikipedia.org

“Mummification in Ancient Egypt” (PDF) – jaimegeografiaehistoria.files.wordpress.com

“Tutankhamun” – en.wikipedia.org

“Tutankhamun: Great golden face mask was actually made for his mother Nefertiti, research reveals” – independent.co.uk

1922 photograph of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Harry Burton – griffith.ox.ac.uk

“Tutankhamun’s tomb (innermost coffin and death mask)” – khanacademy.org

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