Tutankhamun, the secrets of the tomb in infographics

One hundred years ago, on November 4, 1922, the British Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered, in the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt, the entrance to an inviolate royal tomb. In this tomb has been, for more than thirty-two centuries, the mummified remains of an unknown king, Tutankhamun, son of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. This pharaoh, who died before his 18th birthday, at the end of a reign of a short decade, almost instantly became a world celebrity, thanks to the sumptuousness of his “treasure”, that is to say the funerary material supposed accompany him to the afterlife.

A small tomb but full as an egg

Entrée

Carved directly into the limestone of the main wadi of the Valley of the Kings, the tomb of Tutankhamun begins with a staircase of sixteen steps leading to a corridor.

Corridor

7.60 meters long and facing east, the corridor leads directly to the antechamber. Its end was closed off by plastered masonry behind which is the antechamber.

Antechamber

Rectangular room without decoration on the walls and filled with funerary objects. Two life-size royal statues face each other and frame the door leading to the burial chamber.

Annexe

Room where there were, pell-mell, beds, armchairs, containers, statuettes, weapons, model boats, as well as personal objects that belonged to the king.

Burial chamber

Only decorated area of the tomb. The stone royal sarcophagus is surrounded by large gilded wooden chapels measuring almost 5 meters by 3.3 meters which leave little space near the walls (75 cm). The burial chamber would have been decorated after the installation of the chapels.

treasure chamber

The floor of the “treasure” was strewn with boxes of various sizes, topped with model ships. At the entrance, dominating everything, was a painted wooden statue of reclining Anubis. Just behind was a large shrine containing the canopic jars.

Tutankhamun’s tomb is small for a royal burial. The place was probably not originally intended for Tutankhamun, but the tomb of the king, who died just out of adolescence, must not have been ready. Consequence: all the funerary material – more than 5,000 objects that Howard Carter will take ten years to catalog and study – was barely held in the four rooms of the tomb. This one bore the traces of two aborted looting attempts, and the stolen objects had been put back in place in a hurry.

A set of Russian dolls in the funeral home

The tomb of Tutankhamun allows in particular to analyze and understand the funeral ritual linked to the death of the king. The pharaoh’s body was at the heart of a veritable game of Russian dolls since, in addition to the bandages that covered it, it was nested in three coffins, a sarcophagus and four wooden “chapels”.

The four large chapels in gilded wood

Sarcophagus

Its tank is fashioned from a single block of quartzite.

First coffin

Made of gilded wood and plaster, it represents the pharaoh in the guise of the god Osiris holding the symbols of royalty, the crozier and the flail.

second coffin

It is covered with gold leaf encrusted with colored glass paste.

Third coffin

It is made of 110.4 kg of pure gold.

Death mask

Made of solid gold pieces, it is decorated with hard stones, colored glass and Egyptian earthenware.

Mummy

On the body and between the strips, 150 objects were found (bracelets, pectorals, necklaces, rings, finger cots, amulets, beads, etc.).

Mummification, a long and complex process

Mummification allowed the spirit of the deceased to recognize his bodily envelope in order to regain it and be reborn in the other world. The objective was also to prevent the decomposition and putrefaction of the corpse. The process, which lasted ten weeks, was quite complex and required in particular more than 250 kg of natron, a salt which was used to dry out the body.

Read also: Tutankhamun, the star of the pharaohs for a hundred years

Sources : Osirisnet.net ; Cairn ; « National Geographic » ; « Le Monde »

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