'An incredible moment'The mummy of Tutankhamun went on public display on Sunday for the first time. Nevine El-Aref reports on the boy king's latest journey, from golden sarcophagus to plexi-glass case
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The last tourists may have been leaving the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank in Luxor but the area in front of the tomb of Tutankhamun remained far from deserted. Instead of the tranquillity that usually descends on the area in the evening it was a hive of activity. TV crews trailed masses of equipment, journalists milled and photographers held their cameras at the ready. The reason? For the first time since Howard Carter discovered the tomb in 1922 the mummy of Tutankhamun was being prepared for public display.
Inside the subterranean burial chamber Egypt's archaeology supremo Zahi Hawass, accompanied by four Egyptologists, two restorers and three workmen, were slowly lifting the mummy from the golden sarcophagus where it has been rested -- mostly undisturbed -- for more than 3,000 years. The body was then placed on a wooden stretcher and transported to its new home, a high- tech, climate-controlled plexi-glass showcase located in the outer chamber of the tomb where, covered in linen, with only the face and feet exposed, it now greets visitors.
"It is amazing. It has magic and mystery and when you look at the face you feel it is the face of the golden king," Hawass told reporters.
"Tutankhamun would be happy that we are preserving his mummy," Hawass insisted, pointing out that the climate-controlled showcase will prevent any further deterioration of the boy king's mortal remains.
Hawass first saw the mummy three years ago when it was exhumed for CT-scans and it was, he says, in very poor condition. As they attempted to remove the funerary mask and more than 100 amulets that adorned the mummy, Carter and his team wreaked havoc. The pelvis was separated from the trunk and the arms and legs detached. It was divided into 18 separate pieces. Hot knives and iron bars were used to remove amulets and other jewellery. Carter's team then attempted to reconstruct the body they had dismembered, reassembling the parts in a sand tray, and attempting to reattach the hands and feet with resin. In 1968, when the mummy was re- examined, it took days to return the fingers to their original position.
Tutankhamun's tomb attracts an average of 5,000 visitors a day, and the humidity and heat they generate in the confined space of the burial chamber constituted an ongoing threat to the mummy of their host inside his gleaming anthropoid sarcophagus.
"Removing the mummy to a climate-controlled plexi-glass showcase like those used to display the royal mummies in the Egyptian Museum will not only help preserve the mummy but will allow visitors to see the real face of the Pharaoh," says Hawass.
Tutankhamun's move coincides with the 85th anniversary of the discovery of his tomb, and comes days ahead of the opening of the "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibition in London.
"I was fascinated when I first saw Tutankhamun's face in 2005," Hawass recalls. "It was very personal... an important moment in my life."
Gamal Mahgoub, head of the Restoration and Preservation Department at the SCA, describes the move as a dream to come true. The mummy was, he says, in a very critical condition. Its linen wrappings had deteriorated and cotton had become embedded in the corpse. "It took almost a whole day to clean the mummy and exchange the 1926 cotton shroud. The linen wrappings have also been cleaned."
Sample tissues have been taken from the mummy which will now be studied in order to best determine how it can be restored.
Tutankhamun ruled Egypt between 1361 and 1352 BC, and died at the age of 19. The 1922 discovery of his intact tomb stunned the world, sparking a tidal wave of interest that continues unabated. Hardly surprising, then, that tourists who were in the Valley of Kings when his mummy was moved were disappointed to discover that they would have to wait another day before they, too, could come face to face with Tutankhamun.
American visitor Jeffery Martin, with three more days left in Luxor, was busy rearranging his schedule. "I was most keen to see the Pyramids when I came to Egypt but now the highlight will be seeing Tutankhamun."
Mahmoud Radwan, who guides tourists through the Valley of Kings, is equally thrilled. Now he has a star attraction and predicts it will be good for business.
"The face is amazing," reports Mashi-Fou Yung, a Japanese tourist who was among the first to enter the tomb the day after the mummy had been moved. "I felt that he was greeting visitors with a smile."
"Seeing Tutankhamun's mummy was an incredible moment," said Marja, an Italian tourist. She heard that the mummy had been moved out of its sarcophagus on one of the satellite channels at her hotel and immediately decided to revisit the Valley.
Pina Taranko, an American visitor, thought "it would be really neat to be one of the first to see his face but we are on a tight schedule so there is no way to do it."
Collin McAskill, a British friend of Hawass who was in the Valley by chance, hosted a gala dinner for everyone who worked to make the event a success, during which he predicted that revealing Tutankhamun's face would be the greatest event of the year.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/870/eg10.htm