King Tut face to face with public
LUXOR, Egypt - King Tut’s buck-toothed face was unveiled Sunday for the first time in public - more than 3,000 years after the youngest and most famous pharaoh to rule ancient Egypt was shrouded in linen and buried in his golden underground tomb.
Archaeologists carefully lifted the fragile mummy out of a quartz sarcophagus decorated with stone-carved protective goddesses, momentarily pulling aside a beige covering to reveal a leathery black body.
The linen was then replaced over Tut’s narrow body so only his face and tiny feet were exposed, and the 19-year-old king, whose life and death have captivated people for nearly a century, was moved to a simple glass climate-controlled case to keep it from turning to dust.
“I can say for the first time that the mummy is safe and the mummy is well preserved, and at the same time, all the tourists who will enter this tomb will be able to see the face of Tutankhamun for the first time,” Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said from inside the hot, sticky tomb.
“The face of the golden boy is amazing. It has magic and it has mystery,” he added.
Hawass said scientists began restoring the badly damaged mummy more than two years ago. Much of the body is broken into 18 pieces - damage sustained when British archaeologist Howard Carter first discovered it 85 years ago, took it from its tomb and tried to pull off the famous golden mask, Hawass said.
But experts fear a more recent phenomenon - mass tourism - is further deteriorating Tut’s mummy. Thousands of tourists visit the underground chamber every month, and Hawass said within 50 years the mummy could dissolve into dust.
“The humidity and heat caused by … people entering the tomb and their breathing will change the mummy to a powder. The only good thing [left] in this mummy is the face. We need to preserve the face,” said Hawass, who wore his signature Indiana Jones-style tan hat.
The mystery surrounding King Tutankhamun - who ruled during the 18th dynasty and ascended to the throne at age 8 - and his glittering gold tomb has entranced those interested in ancient Egypt since Carter discovered the hidden tomb, revealing a trove of fabulous gold and precious-stone treasures and propelling the once-forgotten pharaoh into global stardom.
He wasn’t Egypt’s most powerful or important king, but his staggering treasures, rumors of a mysterious curse that seemed to plague Carter and his team - debunked by experts long ago - and several books and TV documentaries dedicated to Tut have added to his intrigue.
Archaeologists in recent years have tried to resolve lingering questions over how he died and his precise royal lineage. In 2005, scientists removed Tut’s mummy from his tomb and placed it in a portable CT scanner for 15 minutes to obtain a three-dimensional image. The scans were the first done on an Egyptian mummy.
The results ruled out that Tut was violently murdered - but stopped short of definitively concluding how he died around 1323 B.C. Experts, including Hawass, suggested that days before Tut’s death, his left thigh was badly broken, an apparent accident that may have resulted in a fatal infection.
The CT scan also provided the most revealing insight yet into Tut’s life. He was well-fed and healthy, but slight, standing 5 feet, 6 inches tall at the time of his death. The scan also showed he had the typical overbite characteristic of other kings from his family, large incisor teeth and slightly misaligned lower teeth.
The unveiling of Tut’s mummy comes amid a frenzy of international publicity for the boy king. A museum exhibit traveling the globe drew more than 4 million people during the initial, four-city American leg of the tour. The exhibit will open later this month in London, and it will make a three-city encore tour in the U.S. beginning with the Dallas Museum of Art.
The Egyptian tourism industry hopes to capitalize on that interest and draw tourists to Luxor to see Tut’s mummy.
The tourists will begin viewing the mummy today, Hawass said. The mummy will remain in the tomb indefinitely - unlike other Egyptian royal mummies, who are displayed in museums.