Speaker: Feel like who?
Speaker: Art editor.
Speaker: Who?
Speaker: Artist.
Speaker: Mr. wood.
Speaker: Art editor.
Speaker: Me?
Speaker: Good either way.
Speaker: It's ambiguous.
Speaker: It works on so many levels.
Speaker: I know that's off to a great start.
Speaker: Welcome to wholehearted weekly art history for all ages.
Speaker: I'm your host, Kyle Wood, and
Speaker: today we're digging into King
Speaker: Tut's tomb.
Speaker: On November twenty sixth, nineteen twenty two, Howard
Speaker: Carter prepared to enter the tomb of a little known pharaoh.
Speaker: Nobody had set foot inside the space for over three thousand
Speaker: years, but as Carter held up his candle, his partner Lord
Speaker: Carnarvon, who had financed the expedition, called out, asking
Speaker: if he saw anything.
Speaker: Carter responded yes, wonderful things.
Speaker: King Tutankhamun, often referred to as King Tut, ascended to the
Speaker: throne at the tender age of nine during the eighteenth dynasty of
Speaker: the New Kingdom in Egypt around thirteen thirty two BCE.
Speaker: Workers hastily completed his tomb as the boy king appeared to
Speaker: have died unexpectedly when he was just a teenager.
Speaker: While there are numerous theories as to how he passed, I
Speaker: am inclined to believe those who say he likely died from malaria
Speaker: or an infection.
Speaker: There were theories that he died in a chariot crash because of
Speaker: the chariots left in his tomb, along with numerous broken bones
Speaker: and the skeleton.
Speaker: However, DNA analysis indicated that Tutankhamun had a severe
Speaker: clubbed foot and other maladies, likely stemming from the
Speaker: verticality of his family tree.
Speaker: Tutankhamun was physically
Speaker: frail, likely in a great deal of
Speaker: pain during his short life, and
Speaker: would not have been capable of
Speaker: riding chariots.
Speaker: The contents of the tomb also indicate Tut's disability.
Speaker: He was buried with one hundred and thirty canes and walking
Speaker: sticks to aid him in getting around in the afterlife.
Speaker: Now, as a ruler, King Tut really was not all that remarkable.
Speaker: Probably his greatest achievement was restoring
Speaker: traditional religious practices.
Speaker: His predecessor Akhenaten, also King Tut's father.
Speaker: I guess Tutankhamun's initial name was Tutankhaten, but he
Speaker: changed it as he took the throne as sort of a signifier that he
Speaker: was getting away from his allegiance to his father, um,
Speaker: who was considered to be sort of a heretical king and, um, sort
Speaker: of symbolically getting back towards the old religions.
Speaker: Akhenaten had undergone some
Speaker: drastic religious reforms,
Speaker: pushing everyone to worship
Speaker: Aten, the sun disk, as the
Speaker: primary god.
Speaker: Tutankhamun restored the
Speaker: polytheistic tradition, bringing
Speaker: back the priests and the temples
Speaker: that had been out of favour
Speaker: during that previous
Speaker: administration.
Speaker: He also moved the capital back to Thebes.
Speaker: He supported the arts and pushed to improve the economy,
Speaker: revitalising trade networks that had suffered under Akhenaten.
Speaker: The thing is, while all of this sounds like he was restoring
Speaker: Egypt to normalcy after the radical reign of Akhenaten, he
Speaker: was still Akhenaten son.
Speaker: So people associated the two of them together.
Speaker: He was likely just going along with his advisors plans.
Speaker: Remember, Tutankhamun was only
Speaker: nine years old when he took the
Speaker: throne, so people like Nefertiti
Speaker: were likely just pulling the
Speaker: strings.
Speaker: When Tutankhamun died young, he left no children as heirs.
Speaker: Military strongmen came in to grab power, and the Pharaoh AoNB
Speaker: worked to erase Tut and Akhenaten from history.
Speaker: Horemheb actually continued
Speaker: Tut's reforms and then took over
Speaker: Tut's monuments, carving his own
Speaker: name over Tut's wherever he
Speaker: could.
Speaker: Ironically, King Tutankhamun became a household name in the
Speaker: twentieth century because he was almost entirely forgotten three
Speaker: thousand years ago, because Tutankhamun wasn't spoken of and
Speaker: essentially erased from history.
Speaker: So shortly after his death.
Speaker: He was quickly forgotten by most
Speaker: Egyptians, including would be
Speaker: looters.
Speaker: As a result, his was the most
Speaker: fully intact tomb to be
Speaker: excavated in the twentieth
Speaker: century.
Speaker: There were about five thousand
Speaker: treasures in the tomb when
Speaker: Howard Carter and his team came
Speaker: in.
Speaker: It actually took them about a decade just to catalogue and
Speaker: carefully remove everything now from the looks of things.
Speaker: While Carter's team was very careful and meticulous, removing
Speaker: everything, the ancient Egyptians had to rush the job as
Speaker: they filled the space.
Speaker: The stone sarcophagus, for
Speaker: example, has some unfinished
Speaker: details.
Speaker: Workers painted on some jewelry
Speaker: pieces that would normally have
Speaker: been carved.
Speaker: The lid was granite, but the base was quartzite.
Speaker: Archaeologists say that something must have happened to
Speaker: the original quartzite lid, and they simply made do with what
Speaker: they had on hand.
Speaker: A granite lid was carved and painted to look like quartzite,
Speaker: but repair work also indicates that the granite cracked during
Speaker: the rushed carving process.
Speaker: Things breaking and being hastily repaired appears to be
Speaker: the theme for King Tut.
Speaker: Probably the most famous
Speaker: treasure from the tomb of King
Speaker: Tutankhamun would be his burial
Speaker: mask.
Speaker: It's twenty two and a half pounds, constructed of gold and
Speaker: precious jewels along stylized beard hung from the chin.
Speaker: But when Carter opened the tomb, the beard had broken off.
Speaker: They inserted a wood dowel rod to reattach the beard.
Speaker: But in twenty fourteen, some museum workers were cleaning the
Speaker: glass case when they accidentally broke the beard
Speaker: off, apparently in a move that seems way too relatable.
Speaker: They just hastily tried to cover
Speaker: their mistake by quickly gluing
Speaker: it back on and hoping nobody
Speaker: would notice.
Speaker: Unfortunately, the beard was
Speaker: slightly off center and people
Speaker: noticed some epoxy residue
Speaker: around where the pieces were
Speaker: connected.
Speaker: In twenty fifteen, a team of
Speaker: preservationists cleaned up the
Speaker: mess and reattached the beard
Speaker: using beeswax, which was kind of
Speaker: surprising to me, but I guess it
Speaker: was in line with ancient
Speaker: Egyptian methods.
Speaker: And why all the significance
Speaker: with the beard, you might be
Speaker: wondering?
Speaker: Great question.
Speaker: Glad I asked myself.
Speaker: The beard, like everything else about the mask, was symbolic.
Speaker: It was intended to connect him to the image of a god.
Speaker: The gold served the same
Speaker: function as Egyptian gods were
Speaker: described as having skin of gold
Speaker: and bones of silver, hair of
Speaker: lapis lazuli.
Speaker: The burial mask was not a
Speaker: naturalistic depiction of the
Speaker: king as he looked in life, but
Speaker: rather an idealized depiction of
Speaker: what he would look like in the
Speaker: afterlife.
Speaker: He wears the nemes headdress, the striped headcloth typically
Speaker: worn by ancient Egyptian pharaohs, and just above his
Speaker: forehead we see the vulture and cobra, symbols of goddesses,
Speaker: watching over him and symbolizing his rule over both
Speaker: Upper and Lower Egypt.
Speaker: While his innermost coffin was made of gold.
Speaker: It did not appear shiny when
Speaker: Carter and his team first
Speaker: encountered it.
Speaker: Carter described the coffin as
Speaker: being pitch black from the hands
Speaker: to the toes, as it had been
Speaker: covered in some liquid for a
Speaker: ritual anointing.
Speaker: In his hands were the crook and flail symbols.
Speaker: The king's right to rule the goddesses Nekhbet, the vulture,
Speaker: and Wadjet the cobra, are spreading across his torso,
Speaker: inlaid in semi-precious stones.
Speaker: Beneath them we can see two more goddesses, Isis and Nephthys,
Speaker: etched in gold.
Speaker: All of these treasures.
Speaker: Because the Egyptian pharaohs
Speaker: spent most of their lives
Speaker: planning for the afterlife from
Speaker: the moment they ascended to the
Speaker: throne, rulers would have crews
Speaker: building tombs guarded by walls,
Speaker: secret entrances, traps and
Speaker: spells.
Speaker: In yet another great bit of irony, the tomb that appears to
Speaker: have been the most hastily constructed also appears to have
Speaker: been the best preserved.
Speaker: Tutankhamun was allowed to rest
Speaker: in peace for well over three
Speaker: thousand years, until Howard
Speaker: Carter came around to dig up the
Speaker: King's remains.
Speaker: And though his reign may have
Speaker: been short, the treasures found
Speaker: in Tutankhamun's tomb have given
Speaker: him an outsized place in the
Speaker: history books and popular
Speaker: culture.
Speaker: If you want to learn a little bit more about ancient Egyptian
Speaker: art, check out the episodes linked in the show notes.
Speaker: And as always, if you enjoy this
Speaker: show, please tell a friend about
Speaker: it or do me a favor and leave a
Speaker: kind rating or review on Apple
Speaker: Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever
Speaker: you're listening.
Speaker: This concludes this week's
Speaker: episode of Who Arted, part of
Speaker: the Airwave Media Podcast
Speaker: Network.
Speaker: If you found this tolerable, please leave a rating or review
Speaker: on your favorite podcast app.
Speaker: You can find images of the work
Speaker: being discussed this week and
Speaker: every week on social media at
Speaker: Wholehearted Podcast, on
Speaker: Twitter, Instagram and TikTok
Speaker: and of course, on the website
Speaker: who Arted Podcast.com podcast
Speaker: done.