Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered by Howard Carter on February 16, 1923. In February 2013, it was exactly ninety years ago that the last chamber of Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened. In honor of that fact, a large traveling exhibition was made of the burial chambers and the attributes that traveled all over the world. The exhibition was also on display in Amsterdam during the ninetieth anniversary of the opening of the grave. The tomb itself is located in the Valley of the Kings, which is a World Heritage Site.
Howard Carter
Howard Carter stood before a sealed door on February 16, 1923. It was the entrance to the last chamber of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. At 2 p.m. that day, he removes brick by brick to reach the door. The entrance was sealed. It doesn’t take long before the golden shrine becomes visible. It contains the coffin with the remains of King Tutankhamun. The pharaoh’s mummy and all the treasures that were placed in the tomb after his death come to light after 3,300 years. Four months earlier, Carter discovered the grave. His quest was financed by Lord Carnavon. The tomb is located in the Valley of the Kings, near the city of Thebes. That Carter found an unbroken seal on the door to the burial chamber was special; all royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings had been victims of grave robbery.
Burial chambers
The tomb consists of several rooms:
- Front room;
- Side room;
- Treasury;
- Burial chamber.
The rooms were filled with more than 5,300 precious objects. The deceased pharaoh was given them to assist him in his journey in the afterlife.
The death mask / Source: Jon Bodsworth, Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
- Jewellery;
- Amulets;
- Weapons;
- Chairs;
- Chariot;
- Suitcases;
- Jewellery;
- statues of gods;
- Throne;
- Boats;
- Food products;
- Beds.
Cedar wood and gold
Carter found a cedar shrine so large it filled almost the entire space. Inside the shrine were three more nested coffins. The last chest is made of pure gold and shows the pharaoh with crossed arms and royal headdress. This contained a stone sarcophagus, containing three coffins that also fit together. The last of these three chests was also made of solid gold. In that golden coffin lay the golden death mask on the pharaoh’s mummy. The wrappings around the mummy contained 150 pieces of jewelry and amulets. Funerary rituals from the time of the pharaoh prescribed this. The mummy itself had largely decayed; probably the embalmers had used too much embalming oil.
Amsterdam EXPO
Never before had such a richness been found in a grave. Some of the treasures can be seen in the traveling exhibition Tutankhamun, His Tomb and His Treasures . The exhibition can be seen at EXPO in Amsterdam from November 29, 2012 to May 5, 2013. On February 16, 2013, 14 ninety-year-olds toasted the pharaoh’s death mask. When they were born, Carter saw the death mask for the first time in the tomb he had opened. The death mask is the most famous artifact from the tomb. On this day, ninety-year-olds were allowed to view the exhibition in Amsterdam for free upon presentation of identification.
Burial chambers
The traveling exhibition shows accurately recreated burial chambers. The art treasures remained in Egypt, in Cairo: the mummy is back in the tomb in the Valley of the Kings. What can be seen are indistinguishable substitutes from real ones. The replica objects are made by highly trained Egyptian craftsmen, under the watchful eye of Egyptologists.
Pharaoh Tutankhamun
Pharaoh Tutankhamun died young and ruled briefly, from 1333 to 1323 BC. It was the eighteenth dynasty of the New Kingdom in Egypt. He was about nine years old when he came to the throne and the most important decision during his reign concerned religion. Tutankhamun reintroduced the ancient cults of gods, after a period of worship of one god Aton. The worship of one god was introduced by Akhnaton. The next pharaohs were apparently not so keen on Tutankhamun’s regime: they removed his image and name from inscriptions. Modern examination of Tutankhamun’s mummy revealed that the young pharaoh had several diseases. Malaria, epilepsy and infections are suspected after an open fracture. The latter probably killed him.
Amsterdam EXPO
- Next to Amsterdam Zuid station
- Gustav Mahlerlaan 24
- 1082 MC Amsterdam
- 020-7630599
Traveling
The traveling exhibition was previously shown in:
- Seoul;
- Zurich;
- Budapest;
- Hamburg;
- Barcelona;
- Madrid;
- Cologne;
- Manchester;
- Brussels;
- Paris;
- Malmö.
Death mask damaged
In August 2014, the beard of the solid gold mask broke and anonymous conservators glued the parts together unprofessionally. The mask was reportedly damaged beyond repair. The archaeological treasure was damaged during work on the lighting in the museum. To make the masterpiece of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo visible to visitors again as quickly as possible, ordinary quick-drying epoxy resin was used, which dried to a translucent yellowish color and left space between the chin and beard. to see. In addition, the stickers dropped a blob of glue on the gold mask and removed it with a scraper that left scratches on the valuables.
Then-director of the Egyptian Museum, Mahmud al-Halwagi, said there was nothing wrong.
Sticky beard of Egypt
The Public Prosecution Service of Egypt has taken eight employees of the Egyptian Museum, including four restoration experts and the former museum director, to court over the damage to the world-famous death mask. They did not act scientifically and professionally and tried to cover up their mistakes.
The deception came to light in January 2015. The restoration was completed at the end of 2015 by a team of German experts who spent two months working on it. The 3,300-year-old death mask that Howard Carter discovered in the burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings in 1923 has been put on display again.
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