From the circular main hall of the Sackler Library in Oxford, an unassuming corridor leads to a staircase that takes you down below street level. Through a door marked "archive", office ceiling tiles and fluorescent lights stare down on a cheap blue carpet and a row of grey rolling stacks.
The hum of the air-conditioning lets slip that this ordinary-looking room is hiding something special. The temperature is held at 18.5C (65F), several degrees cooler than the sunny July day outside, while a humidifier keeps the moisture level tightly controlled. For those grey stacks contain the forgotten secrets of the most famous find in Egyptology, if not all of archaeological history: the tomb of Tutankhamun.
This is the Griffith Institute – arguably the best Egyptology library in the world. One of its most prized collections incorporates the notes, photographs and diaries of the English archaeologist Howard Carter, who discovered Tutankhamun's resting place in 1922. The only intact pharaoh's tomb ever discovered, it contained such an array of treasures that it took Carter 10 years to catalogue them all. Yet despite the immense significance of the discovery, the majority of Carter's findings have never been published, and many questions surrounding the tomb remain unanswered.
Jaromir Malek is the soft-spoken keeper of the archive whose own Tutankhamun project is nearing completion. By making all of Carter's notes available online, Malek wanted to ensure that the public would have access to the full extent of the discovery – and to spur Egyptologists into finishing the job of studying the tomb's contents. He has ended up creating a model that other researchers hope will transform the field of archaeology.
The effort has taken even longer than Carter's gruelling excavation. It began in 1993, when Malek says he realised that fewer than a third of the artefacts from Tutankhamun's tomb had been properly studied and published, a situation he describes as "unacceptable".
A total of 5,398 objects were found in the tomb, covering every aspect of ancient Egyptian life, from weapons and chariots to musical instruments, clothes, cosmetics and a treasured lock of the royal grandmother's hair. A few, like Tutankhamun's gold burial mask, are instantly recognisable, but many are not well known, even to experts.
Part of the reason is that Carter died in 1939, just seven years after his excavation ended, and before he could fully publish his findings. "He started working on the final publication, but he was physically and mentally exhausted after a very hard 10 years," says Malek. By all accounts a difficult man to work with, Carter had no collaborators left to continue his work when he died. And while the artefacts themselves are held in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, Carter's notes were donated to the Griffith Institute, where they have lain largely undisturbed ever since. ...
King Tut returns to NY for last leg of U.S. exhibit
Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:38pm BST
By Walden Siew
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - More than 30 years after King Tut's last visit to New York, the golden boy is back.
"Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," which opens Friday and runs to January 2, contains more than 130 rare artifacts, twice the number of treasures shown in the 1970s exhibit.
It includes items used for royal burial practices and daily life in ancient Egypt, King Tut's viscera coffin, containers for the boy king's mummified liver, his chariot and an exhibit explaining new DNA and medical techniques that may unlock more discoveries about the Pharaoh's royal family and how they died. ...
Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:38pm BST
By Walden Siew
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - More than 30 years after King Tut's last visit to New York, the golden boy is back.
"Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," which opens Friday and runs to January 2, contains more than 130 rare artifacts, twice the number of treasures shown in the 1970s exhibit.
It includes items used for royal burial practices and daily life in ancient Egypt, King Tut's viscera coffin, containers for the boy king's mummified liver, his chariot and an exhibit explaining new DNA and medical techniques that may unlock more discoveries about the Pharaoh's royal family and how they died. ...
The Tutankhamun Exhibit
Jewelry and Ornamentation
It is evident from the tubular projections at both ends that the beetle, or scarab, was attached to a larger ornament, and the damaged condition of the projection at the back end suggests that the missing part was torn from the scarab by the ancient robbers. What is surprising is that they should have discarded an object that contained so much gold. The blue inlay on the back was first identified by Carter as lapis lazuli, and it seems to show all the characteristic markings of that stone, but in the brief description of the scarab in his card catalogue the material is said to be glass. The inlay is, however, composed of several small pieces fitted together; such a method of construction would not be suitable for glass, which could be molded to the shape of each cloison, but it would be the most convenient way of using lapis lazuli. ...
Jewelry and Ornamentation
It is evident from the tubular projections at both ends that the beetle, or scarab, was attached to a larger ornament, and the damaged condition of the projection at the back end suggests that the missing part was torn from the scarab by the ancient robbers. What is surprising is that they should have discarded an object that contained so much gold. The blue inlay on the back was first identified by Carter as lapis lazuli, and it seems to show all the characteristic markings of that stone, but in the brief description of the scarab in his card catalogue the material is said to be glass. The inlay is, however, composed of several small pieces fitted together; such a method of construction would not be suitable for glass, which could be molded to the shape of each cloison, but it would be the most convenient way of using lapis lazuli. ...
