He’s one of the most famous faces of ancient Egypt, and yet we may have been wrong to associate him with Pharaoh Tutankhamun. After re-examining the original 1922 discovery, experts are increasingly convinced that the legendary golden burial mask was not intended for the young king, but for a high-ranking woman or child.
As explained by the American magazine Popular Mechanicsthe perforated ears of the mask would have been designed to accommodate earrings. These could only have been made for a woman or child: in this culture, toddlers often wore this type of jewelry, while adult males did not.
“This mask was not designed for an adult male pharaohsays Joann Fletcher, Egyptologist and visiting lecturer in the department of archeology at the University of York (Canada). When the gold was compared, (it was discovered) that the face was made of a completely different gold from the rest.”
A hasty funeral
In fact, traces of welding are “clearly visible on the mask”justifies the researcher. It is possible that the face of King “Tut” was grafted onto the mask of the previous sovereign – the latter would thus have had his ears pierced. According to Joann Fletcher, it could be a woman: the Queen Nefertitimother-in-law of the young pharaoh, whose burial place has never been found. While the theories continue to accumulate on the identity of the true recipient of the gold mask, the last episode of the earrings only reinforces the thesis according to which it was Nefertiti who was the initial “owner” of the mask.
The iconic object stands 30 centimeters tall, is encrusted with precious stones, and features a 5.5-kilogram golden beard (part of a larger 22.5-kilogram gold mask). This beard may have been added after the fact, when the young ruler died unexpectedly at the age of around 19, in 1323 BCE.
Records of the original discovery of Howard Carter were stored at the Griffith Institute at the University of Oxford (UK). Nicknamed the Little King of Egypt, Tutankhamun ascended the throne in 1332 BC at the age of 9, an appropriate age for wearing earrings. However, having grown up during his own reign, he would have stopped wearing them well before his death.
The child king is said to have died of malaria, after suffering health problems throughout his life: he had a broken leg, a split palate, a curved spine and suffered from clubfoot (a congenital malformation of the origin of a twisted foot). These complications could be due to inbreeding: Experts believe his father may have married his own sister, based on DNA found on the mummified bones.
This somewhat sudden death could have led the authorities to rush to put the burial chamber of King “Tut” in order. Furthermore, archaeologists believe that the paint on the tomb was still wet when it was sealed. If those responsible for the young man’s burial needed a mask in a hurry, they could have grabbed an already used mask, thus borrowing from one of the most famous queens in all of Egypt.
Source: www.slate.fr
