Mystery Of The Burnt Mummy

Myrddin

So with the Bigfoot Files, having ended, Channel 4 continues the Mysteries theme this Sunday at 8pm, with Mystery Of The Burnt Mummy:

Egyptologist Dr Chris Naunton investigates evidence that the Boy King's mummy was burnt, and uncovers clues that may solve the enigma of what caused the young pharaoh's death

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/tutankhamun-the-mystery-of-the-burnt-mummy

Admittedly I'd not heard of this before, I didn't know Tutankhamun's remains had combusted...

Wibbs

The charred appearance of his body were noted from the get go by Carter. As was the poor mummification. The whole burial was clearly a rush job and a mystery with it. His tomb is built for a much lower level of burial. Rich merchant/preist kinda thing. It was also already built as they hacked feck outa the walls to get his grave goods in. The wall paintings are very basic. Nothing like any other royal burial. The stone sarcophagus is too small as well. They chopped off part of the feet of his external mummy case to get it to fit. The mummy cases themselves are odd. The famous golden mask face is a different face to the one on the case on top of it. Both are clearly for someone else. The really obvious one is the pierced ears on both. Only kids and women wore ear rings, adult men never did. When his death mask was first uncovered the holes were filled and there was a thin layer of gold applied to cover them. Mismatch of materials too IIRC. IE the blue highlights are lapis on some bits and blue glass on others.

As for the burning? Many oils spontaneously combust when left to dry on rags. Ask any painter. Linseed oil is a bastard for it. So the usual mummification dealio was to dry the body for months in natrum(SP) a natural dessicant. Then when dried out they'd lay on the bandages wet with oil and leave them for a while, then the final wrapping. If it was rushed it's possible the oils dried to fast and caused intense heat under the top covers and cases slowly cooking him.

Myrddin

Wow I never knew it was such a hack-job. Bizarre given a Kings status! At the risk of sounding thick here, how do they know it is indeed Tutankhamun, & not a high priest etc (of which the burial stature seems to fit?)?

Wibbs

Oh his name is all over the thing. Even little details like his name change. He was originally Tut Ankh Aten. Aten was the sun god. Tut's da caused a one man reformation, threw out the old gods and made Aten the one true state god(and built a new capital in the desert far from Thebes). When he died, Tut was only 10 or 11 IIRC, but was the rightful heir. Being a kid he would have been easy to bend so the oldtimers could get their old gods back, so at some point he went from Tut Ankh Aten(the beloved of Aten(new god) to Tut Ankh Amun(the beloved of Amun(Amun Ra the old god). Both of his names end up in the tomb.

When he died young, his prime minister took over the role and married Tuts widow(also his sister. Tut and his wife's kids all died as babies and are buried with him) to consolidate his throne. Somewhat of a long drawn out powerplay and religious coup over the course of Tuts life and death. Then he and his dad were written out of subsequent honour rolls of the Pharaohs. "Disappeared" from official like Stalin did to people he didn't like.

They wanted him and his da and their stain on Egypt to look like they never existed. Ironically, because of that he was largely forgotten and that's one reason why his tomb was left largely undisturbed* and why now he's about the most famous Pharaoh of all. Karma bitches.





*Well it was broken into very soon after the burial. It looks like they caught the robbers in the act as they had only made it to one of the first chambers and were taking the small stuff, easily moved and easily sold(bits of jewelry and stuff). The priests then resealed the tomb and there it remained until Carter got lucky. And because he was officially "forgotten", by the time of the mass looting of royal burials a couple of centuries later he avoided that fate too. One theory has it that because his tomb was so small and below the level of the main ones it got covered by rocks and shít from a flash flood(that still occur today) soon after it was sealed the second time. So the looters simply didn't know it was there.

Wibbs

Remembered one other thing about him. His mummy is really weird in another way, namely it's missing internal bits. On the right side IIRC his ribcage is missing as is his breastbone. Most of all his heart is missing. This is incredibly unusual as they believed that the heart was where the "soul" and thought lay and it was paramount for the living.

In their philosophy the soul was made up of a few parts; the name of the person was a biggie, hence they wrote names all over tombs, so that as long as the name was spoken of that part of the soul would live on(and why in the case of some they attempted to erase the name). The second part was the Ba. This was what we'd think of a soul. The self awarw individual. Then there was the Ka. This was the life force.

When you died your Ka would leave your body and the Ba would fly away(your name would stay). Now if they preserved the body this gave both a vessel they could return to. They saw this as a daily process. As the sun rose so would the reanimated dead in the afterlife and when it set they would return to the body to hold safe and be reborn as stars in the heavens. So the whole reason for mummification was to keep this vessel safe forever. For the vilest of crimes the Egyptians threw the condemned into the nile to be consumed by crocodiles as this left them as stateless souls for eternity.

Annnnyhoo... The heart was the most important organ of all as it was the lodestone of this Ka Ba soul force. So they were really careful about it's removal and preservation. They'd then either replace it back into the body or place it in a special sarcophagus of it's own. Basically a sealed ceramic "mummy case" with the name of the person on it.

With Tut, he has no heart and no heart jar. There were other organ jars of his alright, but that one was noted for it's absence. It's most certainly not something a looter would steal. A it would be worthless and B they'd crap themselves on the magic involved and C it would be in the untouched inner chamber anyway. Very curious. So what happened to his heart? Even in a sloppy mummification like his(the cuts to remove organs were really low rent) they'd have to botch it a lot to destroy his heart. Even if his heart was bollocksed they'd have tried to preserve something of it, or do what they did with royal willies, fashion a facsimile from wood. I wonder... Was this a secret attempt on the part of his enemies newly free of his dynasty to deny him his final rest, while putting on a show of doing it correctly for the masses? Though where his ribs went is anyone's guess.

*EDIT* here's another weird one. Hve a look at his mummy(no, not Nefretiti ).



Look at his arms. Now think of how Pharoahs are represented in repose or on thrones. The arms are high carrying the flail of power and the other thing Like this dude;


Tut's are lower and bound that way. After death with contraction of the tendons they'd be more likely to rise towards his head, not the way they are. Another indication they were "robbing" his power? Off to the CT forum I go.

Myrddin

Fantastic stuff Wibbs, fascinating

Wibbs

Thanks M What I love about this guy is that even if his embalmers had puppetmasters who were seeking to deny him eternal life, in his philosophy they failed dismally. Well they succeeded for a few thousand years until we found him again. Now his name, that very important part of his soul as he would have seen it is remembered and spoken on a daily basis in his own language. Hell we're reanimating him here. It's at times like this I wish there was an afterlife, cos if there was there would be a very old, but very young Egyptian reading this goin "Sweeeeet."

Son Of A Vidic

All my years on Boards.ie and I just literally stumbled into this forum by accident . Wibbs your posts were fascinating and very insightful. I could read quality posts like that all day, fantastic stuff.

Myrddin

Completely forgot about this. I'm gonna watch it later hopefully, it's available on 4OD for anyone else who missed it - http://www.channel4.com/programmes/tutankhamun-the-mystery-of-the-burnt-mummy/4od

Myrddin

Just finished it there, fascinating stuff & a lot of it echoed what Wibbs touched on above {hats off again there Wibbs, some great knowledge!}.

Wibbs

Thank christ for that M, or I'd have been exposed for the waffler I am.

Wibbs

You can see more of how rushed a job it was in the original photos

Stuff just piled in


In this pic you can make out where they took a hacksaw to the toes of the mummy case to make it fit

Real hack job.

You can also see how pokey it is as a chamber for a king. Check out just one part of Seti the firsts by comparison and look how much more fancy the paintings are with it.

Myrddin

Wibbs wrote: »

You can see more of how rushed a job it was in the original photos

Absolutely amazing it must have been opening up that tomb, knowing the last people to place those items there were ancient Egyptians over three thousand years ago. Btw, where are al of those pieces? Scattered amongst various museums? Or into private collections?

Wibbs

For a nice change for the times back then most are still in Egypt in the national museum and not in London or Berlin which was more usual. The Egyptians can be twitchy about their heritage because their country was plundered by the west in the past. Greece the same.