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Some had names like "Slayer of his Foes" and accompanied the pharaoh into battle. Thousands more were hunted as a ritual of bravery and strength. But only one apparently served as an eternal guardian. A French archaeologist says his discovery of the first preserved lion skeleton in an ancient Egyptian tomb demonstrates the exalted reputation enjoyed by the King of Beasts more than 3,000 years ago. "It confirms the status of the lion as a sacred animal," Alain Zivie reports in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Zivie's research team discovered the lion's remains in 2001 as they excavated the...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt plans to X-ray the mummy of Tutankhamun to find out what killed the king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago and died while only a teen-ager. Archaeologists will move Tutankhamun's body from its tomb, which was discovered packed with treasure in 1922, to Cairo for tests which should resolve the mystery over whether he died naturally or was murdered. "We will know about any diseases he had, any kind of injuries and his real age," Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told Reuters. "We will know the answer to whether he died normally or was...

Egyptian scientists have finally lifted the veil of mystery surrounding famed pharaoh Tutankhamun's death, saying he died of a swift attack of gangrene after breaking his leg. "After consultations with Italian and Swiss experts, Egyptian scientists ... have found that a fracture in the boy king's left leg a day before his death was infected with gangrene and led to his passing," Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said Tuesday. "The fracture was not sustained during the mummification process or as a result of some damage to the mummy as claimed by (British archeologist Howard) Carter," who discovered the sarcophagus of...

The first ever facial reconstructions based on CT scans of King Tutankhamun's mummy have produced images strikingly similar to the boy pharaoh's ancient portraits, Egypt's top archaeologist said Tuesday. One of the models shows a baby-faced young man with chubby cheeks and a round chin — with a resemblance to the famous gold mask of King Tut found in his tomb in 1922 by British excavation Howard Carter. Three teams of forensic artists and scientists — from France, the United States and Egypt — built models of the boy pharaoh's face based on some 1,700 high-resolution photos from CT...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A "King Tut is back and he's still black" placard drew the gaze of visitors making their way to view the acclaimed exhibit at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale Saturday. Across from the entrance, about 25 demonstrators donning T-shirts marked with various pro-black slogans held up the placards. Waving the red, black and green African flag, at times moving to the beat of djembe drums on the sidewalk, they asked drivers in passing cars to honk in support of their goal: reminding people not to take the lighter-skinned portrait of King Tutankhamun on display...

Treasure hunter Franck Goddio has spent years bringing the sunken city of Alexandria to the surface. The results of his labors, now premiering in Berlin, reveal incest, fratricide and iniquity. And breathtaking beauty. It's a good thing that the Martin Gropius Building has such high ceilings. It'll need them. The exhibit at the Berlin museum includes 15-ton statues sculpted from rose-colored granite that have spent millennia on the ocean floor. The pieces that will be on display in the exhibit entitled "Egypt's Sunken Treasure," opening to the public on May 13, but ceremoniously unveiled by German President Horst Köhler and...

LONDON: It has been 84 years since Egypt's famed Valley of the Kings revealed its last great riches – the fabulous gold of Tutankhamen's tomb. Now archaeologists believe they have stumbled across one final secret: The mummified remains of the boy king's widow buried 3000 years ago. In a mysterious shaft less than 15m from Tutankhamen's burial ground, US archaeologists found seven coffins. They believe one they have not yet been able to open may contain the remains of Queen Ankhesenpaaten. The tomb – found by accident by Memphis University team leader Dr Otto Schaden – contained seven coffins stacked...

CAIRO: There are diverse aspects to the ancient Egyptian civilization that many of us are fascinated by: the building of pyramids, the tombs that store mummies or hoards of gold, as well as the captivating paintings on the walls. But few of us direct our attention to the ancient Egyptians’ cuisine and their kitchens. The issue would have remained sidelined, even despite of the fact that the walls in temples and tombs are replete with images showing the Pharaohs’ meals as well as the poultry and animals that made up part of their dishes. But when a tour guide’s interest...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptologists think they have identified with certainty the mummy of Hatshepsut, the most famous queen to rule ancient Egypt, found in a humble tomb in the Valley of the Kings, an archaeologist said on Monday. Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, will hold a news conference in Cairo on Wednesday. The Discovery Channel said he would announce what it called the most important find in the Valley of the Kings since the discovery of King Tutankhamun. The archaeologist, who asked not to be named, said the candidate for identification as the mummy of Hatshepsut was one of two...

Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified Mummy Brian Handwerk for National Geographic News July 10, 2007 Egyptologists have uncovered new evidence that bolsters the controversial theory that a mysterious mummy is the corpse of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, husband of Nefertiti and, some experts believe, the father of King Tut. (Photos: Who Was Tut's Father?) The mummy's identity has generated fierce debate ever since its discovery in 1907 in tomb KV 55, located less than 100 feet (30 meters) from King Tutankhamun's then hidden burial chamber. So an international team of researchers led by Zahi Hawass, head of...

Egyptian antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass insisted Tuesday that Tutankhamun was not black despite calls by US black activists to recognise the boy king's dark skin colour. "Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilisation as black has no element of truth to it," Hawass told reporters. "Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa," he said, quoted by the official MENA news agency. Hawass said he was responding to several demonstrations in Philadelphia after a lecture he gave there on September 6 where he defended his theory. Protestors also...

Tutankhamun's true face to be revealed By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent Last Updated: 2:55am BST 22/10/2007 The true face of Tutankhamun, the boy king who ruled Egypt 3,500 years ago, is to be revealed to the public for the first time. Only a handful of experts have ever seen Tutankhamun's true likeness To coincide with the opening of the exhibition of the treasures of Tutankhamun in London next month, Egyptian archaeologists are to put his mummified body on display in Luxor. Only a handful of experts have ever seen the 19-year-old pharaoh's true likeness. Though not the most important of...

LUXOR, Egypt - The face of King Tut was unshrouded in public for the first time on Sunday — 85 years after the 3,000-year-old boy pharaoh's golden enshrined tomb and mummy were discovered in Luxor's famed Valley of the Kings. Archeologists removed the mummy from his stone sarcophagus in his underground tomb, momentarily pulling aside a white linen covering to reveal a shriveled leathery black face and body. The mummy of the 19-year-old pharaoh, whose life and death has captivated people for nearly a century, was placed in a climate-controlled glass box in the tomb, with only the face and...

Cray Supercomputer at Sandia Helps Researchers Discover Origin of Mysterious Glass Found in King Tut's Tomb Released : Tuesday, July 31, 2007 7:26 AM Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. (NASDAQ: CRAY) today announced that researchers running simulations on the Cray supercomputer at Sandia National Laboratories have re-created what could have happened 29 million years ago when an asteroid explosion turned Saharan sand into glass. The greenish natural glass, which can still be found scattered across remote stretches of the desert, was used by an artisan in ancient Egypt to carve a scarab that decorates one of the bejeweled breastplates buried...

Philadelphia - A travelling exhibition on King Tutankhamun drew about 50 protesters in Philadelphia who denounced the popular display as racist. Molefi Asante, a professor of African-American studies at Temple University, led the demonstration on Sunday outside the Franklin Institute, claiming the exhibit has no mention of Africa and that it suggests the ancient Egyptian king was white.

King Tut Died From Broken Leg, Not Murder, Scientists Conclude Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News December 1, 2006 King Tut probably died from a broken leg, scientists say, possibly closing one of history's most famous cold cases. A CT scan of King Tutankhamun's mummy has disproved a popular theory that the Egyptian pharaoh was murdered by a blow to the head more than 3,300 years ago. Instead the most likely explanation for the boy king's death at 19 is a thigh fracture that became infected and ultimately fatal, according to an international team of scientists. The team presented its...

AN American archaeological mission discovered a tomb in Luxor's Valley of the Kings next to the burial place of King Tut, Egyptian antiquities authorities have announced. An excavation team from the University of Memphis made the find five metres from Tutankhamun's tomb, while the mission was doing routine excavation work, said Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Some three metres beneath the ground, the tomb contained five human mummies with coloured funerary masks enclosed in sarcophagi and several large storage jars. The mummies date to the 18th dynasty (circa 1539-1292 BC).

The group found traces of gold leaf bearing animal symbols in the late pharaoah's right kneecap, leading them to surmise that it had fallen off Tutankhamun's raiments and lodged in a hole during mummification. The hole in question appears to have been caused by a sword, they say.

SAQQARA, Egypt (AP) _ Archaeologists have unearthed six 3,500-year-old tombs they believe reveal important details about the structure of government in a period considered Egypt's golden age, the nation's top archaeologist said Thursday. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of the Antiquities, also discussed an exhibit of Egyptian treasures to tour the United States beginning June 30 at Washington's National Gallery of Art. The exhibit is bigger than the blockbuster King Tut show of the 1970s. Earlier this week, archaeologists working on a dig supervised by Hawass just outside Cairo, found the six tombs at the foot of the...

The gilded treasures of Tutankhamun have returned to the United States more than 25 years after the sensational success of their first visit, and this time Egypt intends to cash in on the enduring popularity of the boy king. The comeback museum tour has all of the trappings of a Hollywood blockbuster sequel: a "gold carpet" opening in Los Angeles, a high-powered marketing effort and the potential for a massive box office with tickets as high as $30 each. "I am not going to send any exhibit for free anymore. We took you for a free lunch and dinner a...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The gilded treasures of King Tutankhamun are on their way back to the United States in what could prove a gold rush for Egypt and big business. "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" starts a 27-month tour of the United States in June 2005 that will mark the first return here in more than two decades of the precious artifacts buried with the mysterious boy king. The exhibit is twice the size of the late-1970s King Tut global tour which launched an era of "blockbuster" museum exhibitions. This year's version will charge up to...

The exhibit is twice the size of the late-1970s King Tut global tour which launched an era of "blockbuster" museum exhibitions. This year's version will charge up to $30 per ticket and give corporate backers a share in the profits, heralding a new trend in partnerships between private companies, museums and the antiquities' home countries.

King Tut Exhibit Outrages Activists. Critics Want Busts Depicting Tut As White Removed. LOS ANGELES -- African-American activists criticized the Board of Supervisors Tuesday for allowing a King Tut exhibition at the county Museum of Art, saying that renderings of the boy king as white are inaccurate. The "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs" exhibit opens a four-city, nationwide tour at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on June 16. Among the installations are three busts of Tut II reconstructed from the boy king's mummified corpse. All of the busts, fashioned by three groups of researchers, show...

LOS ANGELES - US black activists demanded Wednesday that a bust of Tutankhamun be removed from a landmark exhibition of artefacts from the Egyptian boy king’s tomb because the statue portrays him as white. The bust that activists object to is a central part of ”Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” the first US exhibition of relics from king Tut’s tomb in nearly 30 years, which opens here Thursday amid Hollywood fanfare. The face of the legendary pharaoh, who died around 3,300 years ago at the age of just 19, was reconstructed earlier this year through images collected...

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) -- Egypt plans to X-ray the mummy of Tutankhamen to find out what killed the king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago and died while only a teenager. Archaeologists will move Tutankhamen's body from its tomb, which was discovered packed with treasure in 1922, to Cairo for tests which should resolve the mystery over whether he died naturally or was murdered. "We will know about any diseases he had, any kind of injuries and his real age," Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told Reuters. "We will know the answer to whether he died normally or...

King Tut's skin color a topic of controversy By Evan Henerson Staff Writer Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - Nobody can be sure exactly what the boy king Tutankhamun looked like. But a group of African-American activists charting the "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibition are certain of one thing: He didn't look white. Following an appearance before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, activists from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Committee for the Elimination of Media Offensive to African People, and the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations plan...

LONDON (AP)--A fiberglass bust that purportedly shows the true face of ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamun went on display Monday at London's Science Museum. The likeness was crafted as part of an investigation into how the teenage pharaoh died more than 3,000 years ago. The fiberglass cast of Tut's head, based on computer models generated from 1969 X-rays of his mummified corpse, shows an attractive round-headed youth with full lips. But it bears little resemblance to the golden funeral mask found in the pharaoh's tomb. The opulent tomb of Tut, who died around 1350 B.C., was found almost intact by British...

The boy King died young and was buried in haste. Now a pair of U.S. gumshoes, armed with modern forensics, is trying to crack an ancient case The tomb of the boy King Tutankhamen created a sensation from the moment it was uncovered in 1922. One of the few royal burial chambers that survived the centuries relatively intact, it was by far the richest — filled with gold, ivory and carved wooden treasures, including what may be the world's most famous funerary mask. But there was also something troubling about the way King Tut was buried — hints and omissions...

Just came back from the King Tut exhibit in LA. I saw the exhibit in '76, and have seen the Tut exhibit in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and have been to the Luxor Museum / Valley of Kings / Valley of Queens / Abu Simbel / etc. My girlfriend never saw any of the Tut exhibits before, so together we represent a wide range of pre-existing knowledge about Tut and about ancient Egypt. We both thought the LA exhibit, soon touring the USA, was a waste of time. The exhibit included no closely Tut-related paraphernalia bigger than a breadbox....

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The results of a CT scan done on King Tut's mummy indicate the boy king was not murdered, but may have suffered a badly broken leg shortly before his death at age 19 - a wound that could have become infected, Egypt's top archaeologist said Tuesday. Zahi Hawass, secretary general if the Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced the results of the CT scan about two months after it was performed on Tut's mummy. Hawass said the remains of Tutankhamun, who ruled about 3,300 years ago, showed no signs that he had been murdered - dispelling a...

Let me put something out there to ponder regarding Jesus Christ - WHO WAS HE? - He was born of the virgin Maya, who was considered the "Queen of Heaven. He was of royal descent. He crushed a serpent's head. - He performed miracles and wonders, healed the sick, fed 500 men from a "small basket of cakes," and walked on water. - He abolished idolatry, was a "sower of the word," and preached "the establishment of a kingdom of righteousness." - He taught chastity, temperance, tolerance, compassion, love, and the equality of all. - He was transfigured on a...

Contact: Allison Byrum a_byrum@acs.org 202-872-4400 American Chemical Society King Tut liked red wine Ancient Egyptians believed in properly equipping a body for the afterlife, and not just through mummification. A new study reveals that King Tutankhamun eased his arduous journey with a stash of red wine. Spanish scientists have developed the first technique that can determine the color of wine used in ancient jars. They analyzed residues from a jar found in the tomb of King Tut and found that it contained wine made with red grapes. This is the only extensive chemical analysis that has been done on a...