King Tut Mummy Moved to Climate-Controlled Luxor Digs
Travel Blog • Joanna Kakissis • 11.08.07 | 2:30 PM ET
Photo by We’ve apparently been loving our favorite Egyptian boy-king to disintegration. Archaeologists in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings removed King Tutankhamun from his stone sarcophagus in his underground tomb last weekend and placed a climate-controlled glass box in his underground tomb, according to the AP. “The humidity and heat caused by…people entering the tomb and their breathing will change the mummy to a powder,” said Egypt’s antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass. “The only good thing (remaining) in this mummy is the face. We need to preserve the face.”
Thousands of tourists visit the underground chamber of King Tut’s tomb every month. When the tomb was discovered in 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter badly damaged the mummy when he tried pull Tut’s famous gold mask.
Tut’s quite popular right now. A traveling exhibit about him drew more than 4 million people during the intitial four-city American portion of the tour. The Egyptian tourism industry hopes the interest will attract more visitors to the Valley of the Kings.
Not that the boy-king is much to look at these days. Visitors peering into the climate-controlled box will see a shriveled leathery black face with buck teeth. But Hawass, the Egyptian antiquities chief, sounds like a proud mother when describing Tut’s mummy: “With his beautiful buck teeth, the tourists will see a little bit of the smile from the face of the golden boy.”
It’s a face that only an archaeologist could love.
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Abhishek 11.08.07 | 3:45 PM ET
I just came back from trip to India, I had an amazing time there and hats off to the travel Company who planned my itinerary, that allowed me to see most of India my allocated period of 3 weeks.In North India I covered Delhi - Shimla - Manali - Chandigarh - Delhi ,then we headed to South India where we visited Kerala & Trivandrum-Kovalam-Kumarakom-Thekkady-Munnar-Cochin . In East India we visted Calcutta - Darjeeling - Gangtok - Bhubhaneshwar - Puri and finally my trip ended in West India after taking a Grand Tour of Rajasthan .
John D 02.01.08 | 5:48 PM ET
Someday I would love to see this for myself!!
What an amazing trip this would be
John Denner’s Official website
http://www.JohnDennerRocks.com