There exists a strong case for such theorization because the art on the north wall of the boy king's burial chamber depicts him as Osiris. Scholars, beginning with Carter himself, have opined that the use of the black liquid was part of an intentional plan to depict Tutankhamun as Osiris, the god of the underworld, “… dark with the rich soil of the inundation, and the source of fertility and regeneration,” according to renowned mummy expert and professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, Salima Ikram. Some of the finest examples of preservation that serve as a tribute to the ancient embalmers' skill occurred in that era. (Flickr/ CC BY-SA 2.0 )Īll this is quite odd, because the art of mummification had reached its zenith in the illustrious 18th Dynasty. Tutankhamun Mummy Replica, Upper Body and Head. Surely, the tumult of Tutankhamun’s lifetime seems to have followed him into his tomb. The whole burial process seems to have been carried out in a very unusual and slipshod manner. That the mummy seems to have been suspended upside down for a period is also extremely strange the X-rays of the skull show unguents solidified in a level consistent with being allowed to settle for some time. Howard Carter opens the innermost shrine of King Tutankhamen's tomb near Luxor, Egypt. At various places in the tomb, the British archeologist also found lightly wrapped packets of linen “like soot” and “charred powder.” In October 1925, Carter observed, "The most part of the detail is hidden by a black lustrous coating due to pouring over the coffin a libation of great quantity." Upon unwrapping the mummy, he was moved to describe the corpse as a “charred wreck”. Tutankhamun Death Mask was Made for Nefertiti, Archaeologist says.Tomb Hidden by History, Now Revealed: Wet Nurse of Tutankhamun May have been His Own Sister.Spanish Leak Reveals Hidden Chamber in Tutankhamun Tomb is Full of Treasures.In all, it has been estimated that the mummy's skin and wrappings were coated with a staggering 20 liters (5 gallons) of embalming oils―an exceptional amount. Additionally, there exists evidence that this liquid was twice poured into Tutankhamun's skull after the brain was removed. As a result, the mummy was terribly degraded by a chemical reaction caused by these oils and unguents that were intended to regenerate the dead body. We know the most famous puzzle of them all-the abnormal and excessive use of large amounts of a black, resinous liquid that was liberally poured on the coffin and over the body of the deceased pharaoh. The plethora of mysteries that surround the boy king's mummification and royal burial have endured for nearly a century, from the time they were first noted by the assiduous archaeologist, Howard Carter. The tomb of Tutankhamun revealed a wealth of anomalies, beginning with its discovery in 1922, right through the subsequent years of its excavation.
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