Egypt: 'Astonishingly rare' discovery in Tutankhamen burial chamber
A RARE discovery found painted on the walls of King Tut burial chamber exposes the shocking realities of an Ancient Egyptian power struggle.
A rare discovery in King Tut, pharaoh tomb
King Tut was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule at the end of the 19th Dynasty during the New Kingdom. Known as “the boy king,” he inherited the throne at just nine years old and mysteriously died less than a decade later, with his burial rushed and his legacy seemingly wiped, leading many to claim he was murdered. In 1922, Howard Carter discovered King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, but archaeologists would have to wait almost a century to learn more about his rushed burial.
Famed historian Dan Snow revealed some of the evidence of this during his new Chanel 5 series “Tutankhamen with Dan Snow”.
He said this month: “At Tut’s tomb, there’s evidence of the struggle to squeeze everything in.
“You can see a big section of the wall here has been roughly cut out, they had to do that because the workers were desperately struggling to get the panels for the shrines into the very small burial chamber, imagine how difficult that was.
“They had to construct an outer shrine around the other one already in place.
“They also had major problems with Tut’s stone sarcophagus.
He added: “Perhaps that occurred at the same time as they realized the lid didn’t fit on the sarcophagus.
“We know that because look, they’ve had to shave the toes off the outer coffin so the lid could go on nice and snug.
“We know that happened last minute, because Carter, inside the sarcophagus, found all the wood splinters.
“It’s more evidence that tut was buried in a hurry, but why? I’m turning back to his burial chamber paintings for a clue.
“This painting on the wall here depicts the opening of the mouth ceremony for King Tut.”
However, Mr. Snow explained there is a logic behind it all, and a rare painting helps explain everything.
He added: “There he is, his corpse, and his mouth is about to be opened, this important symbolic ritual took place just before Tut was sealed in his tomb.
“It is astonishingly rare that this is depicted on the wall of a royal tomb, usually it is the son and heir of the departed pharaoh who conducts the ceremony.
“But he died childless, so the question is, who’s the painting of?”
“Fortunately we know, his name is above him, it’s Tut’s vizier, his second-in-command, Ay.
“By showing himself performing the crucial opening of the mouth ceremony, Ay is attempting to legitimize himself, because his success was by no means a foregone conclusion.
“There was another powerful contender for the throne and it seems likely that this whole story, the strange circumstances of Tutankhamun’s burial, the rush to get him into the ground, it’s all connected to a power struggle.”
Mr Snow's new documentary comes following the opening of the new exhibition in London: “Tutankhamen: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh.”
More than 150 artifacts have traveled from Egypt to the Saatchi Gallery and will be on display now until May 3, 2020.
For the first time ever, 60 items have left the country, before they return to their permanent home in the new Grand Egyptian Museum next year.
Recently closed in Paris, the exhibition became France’s most visited of all time with an attendance of over 1.4 million.
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