MetaFilter posts tagged with Archaeology and Tutankhamun

Solid Sunlight

Kattullus — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:01:34 -0800

Libyan Desert Glass is strewn over an area of hundreds of square kilometers in the Great Sand Sea, a region desolate even by the high standards of the Sahara. As one account of a recent trip to acquire Libyan Desert Glass puts it: "Out there, death sits on your shoulder like a vulture." While some would have you believe that Libyan Desert Glass is evidence of ancient atomic warfare, it is probably evidence of a massive meteorite or comet explosion nearly thirty million years ago, similar to Tunguska, but much bigger. The stone age Aterian peoples made tools from it, but the remoteness and inhospitality of the Great Sand Sea has ensured that until recent times it has mostly been undisturbed. However, a breast ornament buried in Tutankhamen's tomb has a scarab made from Libyan Desert Glass, the only piece made of the material to have been found by Egyptologists, and how Tutankhamen's jewelers acquired it has remained a mystery. Until now. [Previously]

Revisiting King Tutankhamun's Tomb

filthy light thief — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:06:35 -0800

Ten thousand tourists have tramped above the spot where the latest find has just been made. Other archeologists, looking for the needle entrance to the royal tomb of Tutankhamen in the limestone haystack of el Qorn, came within a few feet of where, after sixteen years of labor, the late Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter found their reward. National Geographic republished the photos (flash gallery) and the text of the 1923 account of the opening of the tomb of King Tutankhamun. If you want to see the images directly, you'll miss the text descriptions, but you can get to the images by editing this URL, where the images are numbered 01 to 20, even though there are only 17 pictures in the flash gallery (images 04, 12 and 17 were excluded). In 2005, Nat Geo posted a narrated and interactive views of the tomb, Tutankhamun's royal wrappings, and a forensic investigation of the remains for the article entitled "King Tut Revealed," plus links to more Nat Geo resources. The National Geographic Channel have also put the a documentary from the same time on YouTube - NGC Presents: King Tut's Final Secrets (92 minutes). For more views on the past from the past, Time Magazine's online archive turns up more odd gems, with such updates as this one from October 5, 1923:

Work in the Valley of the Kings at Luxor proceeded with painstaking slowness incomprehensible to the layman who would prefer to tear the secrets of the ages from TutankhAmen's breast in a day.

And there were a couple of imaginary interviews that invoked King Tut. Also on the lighter side, this bit of insight into the value of young King Tut's wealth:

The combined value of all the objects in the tomb of King "Tut" is put at $15,000,000. Had this sum been invested in safe 6 per cent bonds 3,400 years ago, it would today amount to $4,800, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000.

In 1934, the Curse of the Mummy had the national attention, especially after the death of Arthur Edward Pearse Brome Weigall, Weigall was an Egyptologist involved with the discovery and excavation of King Tutankhamun's tomb, and a vocal believer in (or the one who started) talk of the curse, which was prime material for international newspapers covering anything related to Egyptian discoveries. If all these names and details are running together, this page provides an overview of the discovery, covering the people involved, the curse of the mummy, and the contents of the tomb.

Funky Tut

psmealey — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:19:28 -0800

King Tut's face revealed to the world The face of Egypt's most famous ancient ruler, King Tutankhamun, has been put on public display for the first time.

A strange and wonderful medley

LeeJay — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 22:18:29 -0800

Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation The University of Oxford's Griffith Institute has put together a fantastic digital collection of records documenting Howard Carter's excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun, including ninety-three pages of photographs taken by Harry Burton during the excavation. You can also read Carter's diaries and eyewitness accounts of the excavation.