A. R. Williams

Notice these expressions in the text. Infer their meaning from the context. ³ forensic reconstruction ³ funerary treasures ³ scudded across ³ circumvented ³ casket grey ³ computed tomography ³ resurrection ³ eerie detail He was just a teenager when he died. The last heir of a powerful family that had ruled Egypt and its empire for centuries, he was laid to rest laden with gold and eventually forgotten.

Since the discovery of his tomb in , the modern world has speculated about what happened to him, with murder being the most extreme possibility. Now, leaving his tomb for the first time in almost years, Tut has undergone a CT scan that offers new clues about his life and death — and provides precise data for an accurate forensic reconstruction of the boyish pharaoh. A N angry wind stirred up ghostly dust devils as King Tut was taken from his resting place in the ancient Egyptian cemetery known as the Valley of the Kings*. Dark-bellied clouds had scudded across the desert sky all day and now were veiling the stars in casket grey .

It was p.m. on January . The world’s most famous mummy glided head first into a CT scanner brought here to probe the lingering medical mysteries of this little understood young ruler who died more than , years ago. All afternoon the usual line of tourists from around the world had descended into the cramped, rock-cut tomb some feet underground to pay their respects.

They gazed at the murals on the walls of the burial chamber and peered at Tut’s gilded face, the most striking feature of his mummy-shaped outer coffin lid. Some visitors read from guidebooks in a whisper. Others stood silently, perhaps pondering Tut’s untimely death in his late teens, or wondering with a shiver if the pharaoh’s curse — death or misfortune falling upon those who disturbed him — was really true. “The mummy is in very bad condition because of what Carter did in the 1920s,” said Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, as he leaned over the body for a long first look.

Carter—Howard Carter, that is — was the British archaeologist who in discovered Tut’s tomb after years of futile searching. Its contents, though hastily ransacked in antiquity, were surprisingly complete. They remain the richest royal collection ever found and have become part of the pharaoh’s legend. Stunning artefacts in gold, their eternal brilliance meant to guarantee resurrection , caused a sensation at the time of the discovery — and still get the most attention.

But Tut was also buried with everyday things he’d want in the afterlife: board games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, cases of food and wine. After months of carefully recording the pharaoh’s funerary treasures , Carter began investigating his three nested coffins. Opening the first, he found a shroud adorned with garlands of willow and olive leaves, wild celery, lotus petals, and cornflowers, the faded evidence of a burial in March or April. When he finally reached the mummy, though, he ran into trouble.

The ritual resins had hardened, cementing Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin. “No amount of legitimate force could move them,” Carter wrote later. “What was to be done?” The sun can beat down like a hammer this far south in Egypt, and Carter tried to use it to loosen the resins. For several hours * See map on next page (map not to scale)