Tutankhamen's Face Revealed For 1st Time in History

He is described as beautiful and handsome—a face fitting for a prince. The true face of ancient Egypt's boy king was revealed to the public for the first time in over 3000 years. Young Tutankhamun ruled Egypt from 1333-1324 BC. The boy was made pharaoh at the age of nine. He died at the age of just 19, possibly of a leg wound that became infected. After recent restoration efforts, Tutankhamen's body is resting peacefully again, his body wrapped in strips of white linen. Until now only a few living archeologists and scientists had seen his actual face, but this weekend his ancient body was open for a public viewing.

Tutankhamen became famous with the discovery of his tomb and his many treasures. His world-famous solid gold burial mask weighs 11 kilograms, encrusted with lapis lazuli and other semi-precious stones. The mummy had to be reconstructed after the body was cut into 18 pieces by discoverer Howard Carter in 1922 to gain access to amulets and other jewelery noted Mustafa Wazery, director of the Valley of the Kings.

"What you will see is a beautiful face," Wazery said, "He's a good-looking boy, with a nice smile…"

A silicone representation of the face of the pharaoh was reconstructed in 2005 using images collected through CAT scans of his mummy, which revealed the boy to have a symmetric, handsome features.

Egyptian, Swiss and Italian experts have deduced that Tutankhamen's death was caused by an injury to his left leg, which led to rapid gangrene. Their discovery rejects a previously popular theory that the king had been killed by a blow to the neck.

When the tomb was discovered, the pharaoh's embalmed body was encased in three sarcophagi, one of which was made from solid gold. Tutankhamen, the 12th pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, reigned for 10 years. Theories that he was assassinated stemmed from the fact that he was the last ruler of his dynasty. The pharaoh Akhenaton the Heretic was thought to have fathered the boy king, but his mother is unknown.

The high priest Ay succeeded Tutankhamen for four years - also marrying his widow Ankhesenpamon - and he was followed by the military leader Horemheb, who ruled for 26 years until he ceded power to Ramses, founder of the 19th dynasty.

"The golden boy has magic and mystery and therefore every person all over the world will see what Egypt is doing to preserve the golden boy, and all of them I am sure will come to see the golden boy," Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told reporters before the mummy was moved from its stone sarcophagus and placed into a new climate-controlled case inside his tomb in Luxor's Valley of the Kings.

Posted by Rebecca Sato

Related posts:

Oldest Human Footprint in History Discovered in Egypt
10 Discoveries that Rewrote History

Links:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/11/05/1194117906049.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7077423.stm

Comments

[Juneanne Vergara]

do youu havee anythingg about the "Curse" ?

[Declan Taggart]

It is interesting, however, if you gave this task to another team of scientists, you would get a different result. There are several methods and you'd be surprised about how dissimilar can the results be. Besides, we will never know the skin colour or eye colour of Tutankhamun.