King Tut Unmasked

On November 4, 2007 in Luxor,Egypt the mummy of King Tut was “put on public display for the first time on Sunday.” It has been eighty-five years since the 3,000-year-old boy pharaoh's golden tomb and mummy was fist discovered in Luxor, Egypt’s famous “Valley of the Kings”. Archeologists removed King Tut’s sarcophagus from his tomb; they carefully removed the white linen that covered his corpse. This revealed his wrinked and dried up face( which was blackened) and body which almost seemed leather-like. King Tut’s mummy was damaged badly and scientists are working on restoring it. By placing the mummy in a portable CT scanner they were able to see that its body was broken into eighteen pieces. They concluded that it was probably due to Howard Carter Carter (who was the first person to discover the mummy’s concealed tomb on November 4, 1922) when he tried to pull off the mummy’s mask. However, Dr. Zahi Hawass who is Egypt's antiquities chief fears that this new discovery will cause increased tourism (approximately thousands of tourists a month) which will lead to Hawass says “"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." It is still unknown of how he died. There are mixed feelings regarding the mummy’s release to museums some believe he should be left alone other’s want to go see his mummy and claim it’s a once in a lifetime experience. I find this discovery fascinating and remarkable it is amazing on how with today’s technology we can discover somewhat of what he looked like and determine how his body was damaged.