Dan Snow's History Hit - Tutankhamun: Life, Legacy and Discovery

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered by Howard Carter almost 100 years ago, and two years later they opened up the stone sarcophagus that held the golden coffin containing the mummy of Tutankhamun. In this archive episode from 2019, Dan gets Dr Tarek Al Awady to take him around the exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery which examined some of the treasures taken from his tomb, many of which were on tour for the first time. Dan and Dr Al Awady discuss Tutankhamun's life and his legacy.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Greetings, everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's History. I hope 2022 is treating you well so far. I'm having a great old time. I'm dragging my kids around the New Forest. We are digging up. Well, we're not digging up anything, actually. We don't have a license, so incorrect. Freudian slip. Misspoke there. I misspoke. We are looking at root plates. When a tree falls over in the forest near me, the great New Forest, called New because William the Conqueror turned it into a forest a thousand years ago. If you're listening abroad, that is what passes for new stuff here in the UK. When trees fall over, they rip up great sods of earth on their root plates.

And in those great masses of earth, you can find things like Roman pottery or even Stone Age nappings, flint chippings. It's wonderful. We're out doing that. It got dark. We had to find our way back with torches. It was a bit of an adventure, I've got to say. I'm toughening up my kids for a lifetime of hunting down history. They're going to love it. In this episode of Dan Snow's History, I'm repeating an old classic from 2019. I talked to Dr. Tarek El-Awadi. He took me around Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh. It was an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London. It's commemorating the 100th anniversary of discovery

of Tutankhamen's tomb, which was in 1922. So it felt like at the start of this year, let's revisit Tutankhamen. Howard Carter, more importantly, the young Egyptian boy working with Howard Carter's excavation team, found the top step of a staircase leading down in the hillside of the Valley of the Kings in late 1922. It turned out to be Tutankhamen's tomb, of course, two years later on January the 3rd. So today in 1924, so 98 years ago today, two years after Howard Carter had opened up that tomb, they uncovered the greatest treasure. They opened the stone sarcophagus containing the solid gold coffin that holds the mummy of Tutankhamun. So today is also a big anniversary, and we thought we'd bring you back this classic conversation from

the archive for you all to enjoy. It was actually recorded in the museum, as you can hear. There's all sorts of weird noises, but it was one of the great exhibitions I've ever been to. It was absolutely lovely. Sadly, its progress around the world was halted by COVID. I wonder where it all is now. It's probably in transit somewhere. I hope it's safe. Anyway, if you wish to listen to back episodes of this podcast, and there's been some good ones. I was thinking the other day, we had Peter Jackson. We've had Gary Oldman. We had loads of Mary Beard, Lucy Worsley. We've got all the good Tony Blair. They're all available on History Hit TV. It's like Netflix for history. We've got the video, the audio. We've got hundreds of history Tony Blair. They're all available on History Hit TV. It's like Netflix for history. We've got the video, the audio.

We've got hundreds of history documentaries made by us and licensed in from other places. So head over to History Hit TV. If you follow the link in the description to this podcast, it'll take you straight there. You get 14 days free. You can check it out. But in the meantime, folks,

here is Dr. Tarek El-Awadi taking us around the treasures of the Golden Pharaoh on this special anniversary. Enjoy! So this is our first gallery here and we are trying to answer one of the most asked questions about the treasure of Tutankhamen. People always ask and wonder why the ancient Egyptians buried all this gold and all this treasure with their dead. For the ancient Egyptians this was not the end of the human being's life. It was just another step to the afterlife, to the eternal life.

Like any traveler going into a journey, he would need to be well-equipped to have everything he might need for his journey. And of course, this was a mysterious journey. No one made this journey before and came back to tell us what he experienced there. So the ancient Egyptian made sure that the king, the dead king, will have everything he might need for the journey. We start from here. This afterlife they saw that it would be dark and it will need sort of lights, you know, to enlighten the darkness of the afterlife.

So they gave the king this beautiful ala pastor, which can, you know, remove the darkness and also a lamb. You look at these wonderful artifacts and you see the love and perfection, you know, put in it. perfection, you know, put in it. It was not just objects given to a dead one to put it in a tomb in darkness. And some of these alabaster vases and things, they had oils in them, didn't they? They had survived over all the years? Of course, all these alabasters, they are containers for many different materials, oils and sometimes very expensive ointments for the king, for the king's body. Now we can't walk past this one.

Yes, the Guardian Statue. Here for the first time this piece of art never left Egypt before. It's unique because this is the only statue which was found inside the tomb of Tutankhamun in life size, in this size. You know, all the statues were smaller and this is one of two. So the statue has a twin. This is one of two, so the statue has a twin. And the guardian, the name guardian came because when Howard Carter entered to the first room called the antechamber, on his right hand, he found these two beautiful statues, you know, standing, looking at each other, as if they are protecting something in between. And when he checked the area, it was the entrance to the burial chamber of the king.

These were showing the way to where the shrine was. Yes, where the entrance to the burial chamber of the king was. And that's why they were named the guardian statue. This one is a beautiful statue. And the magic in the statue is that it doesn't matter from what angle you're looking at the statue. Even if you come very close to the face of the statue, the statue doesn't look at you at all. The reason is the statue is looking at far beyond our world.

It is looking to the afterlife, to the eternal life of the king watching there So has nothing to do with our world. I'm worried about us time. Yeah Astonishing PC is this one of the day beds or the beds? Yes This is one of the beds of Tutankhamun Which was found inside the tomb. And this one is very special because, you know, made out of wood and it's gilded, and here is the head and here is the legs.

And on the back of the bed, you can see figures, depictions of God, this goddess tower it god this and goddess tower it were there on the bed in order to get rid of the bad dreams the nightmares and give the sleeping king only the good dreams and protect him while he's sleeping and tutankhamen was a child when he came to the throne. He was a teenager when he died. How many years did he reign? He became king of Egypt when he was only nine years old and he died at age of 19 years old.

So it was a very short life, but he enjoyed this short life. So it's about three and a half thousand years ago. Does Tutankhamun matter because we have all these extraordinary objects in his tomb, or was he an important pharaoh for what he did politically and socially in Egypt, and religiously in Egypt as well? Well, some scholars, they believe that Tutankhamun was just a minor king in the 18th dynasty because of the short reign. But the fact is he was a very important king in ancient Egyptian history. The reason is he came after his father, the famous Akhenaten, the one who changed Egypt's

long tradition of religion, Akhenaten stopped worshipping all the gods and goddesses, and he closed the temples in Egypt, and he only worshipped one god, Aten, and he moved the capital. This was a huge thing in ancient Egyptian history. After the death of Akhenaten, it was the rule, the job of the young king Tutankhamun to restore the old tradition of the country and reopen the temples. And, of course, there were men behind the king, you know, to help him and to take control of the country. So, he was really important for the time he lived and I think he was not just a forgotten king

And then of course he became the most famous there of all Because of the discoveries that were made in the Valley of the Kings. Yeah, this is true until today the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun is the most important discovery made in the world because this is the only intact royal treasure we have from the 18th dynasty and from the new kingdom, a period we call in history the golden age of ancient Asia. The myth is that the tomb was entirely left alone by tomb robbers and it was found by Howard Carter, exactly has been closed up.

That's not quite true, is it? There was some entrance by robbers and some things were stolen, weren't there? Okay, the story is we do believe that it's the smallest tomb in the Valley of the King for a king. And we do believe that 5,300 objects were just stuffed inside this small place, this small tomb. When Herod the Cursor opened the tomb for the first time,

he had few evidence that the tomb was entered at least twice after the burial of the king. He found two layers of ceiling on the doorways leading to the tombs. He found that some of the artifacts were moved from the actual place, you know, and they were replaced again in a different position. And he found one or two objects laying on the floors without the top. And the last thing was the mirror case, a beautiful mirror case, which we have here on display in our exhibition. Very beautiful. in our exhibition, very beautiful. But when he opened the mirror case,

he didn't find inside the golden mirror of the king. So he believed that the mirror was stolen. But we can explain what happened, because after they parried the king, there will be some investigations, you know, by the guards of the necropolis, by the people in charge of protecting the tombs. So we can expect that they would come and remove the old seal and go inside the tomb in order to make sure that everything is inside.

in order to make sure that everything is inside. But we cannot deny that maybe tomb robbers tried to penetrate inside the tomb of Tutankhamun, but the fact is they didn't have enough time to steal anything from the tomb. And thanks to Ramses V, who came hundreds of years after Tutankhamun and decided to build his tomb above the years after Tutankhamun and decided to build his tomb above the tomb of Tutankhamun because his workmen, they just took the debris from his tomb and throw it in front of the tomb and closing forever the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb. What have we got?

Let's see what have we got here. This is one of the masterpiece, you know, it's just a piece of art. What you see is the statue of God, Ptah. Ptah is a creator God in ancient Egypt, and he is the master, he's the Lord of all sculptors, carpenters, you know, so he is the chief artist in Egypt. And before, you know, the artists in ancient Egypt start or begin with any work,

they had to make some sort of prayers to Petah and mention his name so they make sure that what they are doing will come with perfection. And you can see the perfection in this beautiful statue. Harik, look at this. This is astonishing. Yes. This is the top of a canopic jar. Is this the top of a canopic jar? Exactly. This is the starboard of the canopic jar, and this is one of four coffinets found inside the canopic jar.

So the canopic jar is where the body parts, the entrails of Tutankhamun were placed? Yes, exactly. So when Howard Carter found the so-called treasury room just beside the burial chamber. The first thing he saw is a beautiful anubis shrine and then a golden shrine. When they opened the golden shrine, there inside

was one of the most magical alapaster canopic jars with four heads like this facing each other. And inside he found the four coffinets, each one contained apart from the inside the mummy of Tutankhamun. This one was for the liver of the king

and it had wonderful inscriptions inside from the Book of the Dead, making sure that it will be well protected and it will join the body of Tutankhamun in the afterlife. And the soul will recognize the mummy of the king and he will live forever in the afterlife. and he will live forever in the afterlife. You listen to Dan Snow's history, I'm talking about Tutankhamen, whose golden sarcophagus was seen for the first time in thousands of years today in 1924.

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By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. I remember that the big, well, one possible theory is because Tutankhamen might have died very fast. And some people say say the canopic jars don't look like him and maybe they were designed for somebody else do you believe that? I do not believe that the canopic jars were meant for someone else we have the name of Tutankhamun everywhere and there is no single evidence that the name was placed instead of another name. And also when you look at the features on the stabber, they are very close to the one you see on statues and on everything. But of course we are dealing with a different material, the alapaster. And you know doing the engraving on the alapaster is completely different

than doing it on peat and gold sheets. Tutankhamun was 19. Was that unexpected, he died so young? Does that reflect perhaps the smallness of the tomb? No, this happened suddenly, and no one expected that the king would die. We know for sure after we examined the mummy of Tutankhamun that he suffered from some health problem.

But this even will not lead to a sudden death at very young age. The tomb where Tutankhamun was buried was not originally for him. It was meant for a non-royal person. And we believe that this non-royal person was I, who became a king after Tutankhamun. So he's sort of prime minister, he's vizier. Yes, he's vizier. And after the sudden death of Tutankhamun, and of course, his tomb was not ready. So the decision was made by his successor to remodify the tomb in the Valley of the Kings and bury the king in a hurry because the country needed, you know, a new king.

So we can, when we visit Tutankhamun's tomb, we can see the changes made there, and we can see even the scenes on the walls which was made in hurry. And this is for sure that this tomb was not originally for Tutankhamun, but his treasure, it was made in his royal workshop and belongs to the king. So, these are two pieces were not originally from the royal workshop. They were given to the king. So this is two pieces were not originally from the royal workshop. They were given to the king as a gift from a high official. His name was Senegem and he was very smart guy because the most important thing in Egypt is to have your name you know mentioned forever so he wrote his name down below the statue on the feet and he gave it as a gift from him to the king so he has his name forever in the tomb of his king and so these are wooden shakti so-called yes so shakti is a small figure. Figures, you know, yeah.

And during the new kingdom, they made sure to parry so many figures like this with the king or with the non-royal person for the afterlife work. Because it was, you know, believed that in the afterlife, because it was believed that in the afterlife these figures will do the work on behalf of the owner of the tomb, on behalf of the king. Now we are looking at the most sacred and most precious part in the tomb of Tutankhamun. You know the mummy dressing and the sandals, the golden fingers and toes, the croc and the flail and the scarab on the chest. These are the amulets and the dress of the mummy which were attached directly to the body of the king and all what you see the very fine hieroglyphs the inscriptions here prayers from the book of the dead

good wishes for the king for a safe journey to the afterlife and for a beautiful eternal life. That's what the inscription says. And here we have the Ba, the Ba of Tutankhamen as a bird with a human head, spreading the wings, protecting the mummy of Tutankhamen. And this is the sign of power and repulse in ancient Egypt in the hands of the mummy. And so when Howard Carter was slowly peeling back the layers, that there's the shrines, then there's the famous sarcophagus, the wonderful gold death mask that we know so well. This is the last layer before the mummy itself, is it? This is the last layer before the mummy itself, is it?

Well, Howard Custer found the tomb in November 1922. He only saw the mummy in November 1925. Really? Three years after the discovery. Of course, there was almost one year interruption, you know, from 1924 until 1925 because of some problems with the Egyptian government, you know, disagreements of the plans how to continue the work. But Herbert Carter was very patient patient and he, thanks to his work, to his documentation, which still stands as a model for Egyptologists today, until today, he took care of every piece and he was not in a rush to, you know, find the mummy and find everything on the mummy and that's why we have the objects well preserved.

I mean, you say well preserved. These sandals here look like they are brand new. Yes, exactly. They are thousands of years old. Yeah, and it was very important to have the sandals here. They were on the feet of the mummy, so you can imagine something was there in the tomb for more than 3,300 years and now you are looking at it as if it was made just yesterday. So this is the wishing

cup, one of my favorite artifacts in the exhibition and also one of Howard Carter's favorite artifacts. The reason is that the very fine inscription written on the wishing cup, these are prayers, wishes for the king. It says, may your soul live thousands of years. May your eyes see wonderful things. And Howard Carter just loved the inscriptions and the meaning of the inscription.

He had it in his will that he wanted this inscription to be on his gravestone. And this is what people did. This inscription is now on Howard Carter's gravestone. And this is one of the unique objects found inside the tomb of Tutankhamun. It has the name of... That's his cartouche there, isn't it? Yeah, this is the post names of Tutankhamun.

The throne name, Enesupit, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, and Sarah, son of Gadra, Tutankhamun, My eyes have seen wonderful things, thanks to you. And the wish came true, because Tutankhamun is the most traveled king from ancient Egypt. King Tut traveled many cities, many different countries, and he saw wonderful things. So I believe that the wish came true. So what's this one, Tariq? This is a very special artifact from the treasure of Tutankhamun. We call it the Scarab Necklace, and it has a

Scarab necklace and it has a really beautiful story. You know, the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun started with a 13 years old boy named Hussein Abdul Rasul. You see his photograph behind the showcase. And Hussein Abdul Rasul was the water boy, the one in charge of bringing the fresh water every day in the morning to the workers. One day he was on his way to the Valley of the Kings with his donkey and two jars of water, and he started to prepare an area on the ground to place the jar.

And while he was doing this, he found the first step, the first stone step, which led Howard Carter to the entrance of the tomb. During the work inside the tomb, Howard Carter found this beautiful necklace and he called Hussein Abdul Rasool and he asked his photographer, the famous Harry Purton, to take the photo of Hussein Abdul Rasool with the necklace. And then he gave him a copy of the photograph in a frame as a gift

from Howard Carter to Hussein Abdul Rasool. But after this accident, you know, Hussein never worked again. He, every day, would take his photograph and stand in front of the tomb of Tutankhamun and tell the visitors, I am the one who found the tomb of Tutankhamun. And then people start to ask him questions and he answer and they give him money. He stayed like this the entire life. He died over 80 years old but after him his son is doing the same carrying the photographs of his father, carrying his own photograph and telling the story until today, the story of the discovery of Tutankhamun.

And one day the grandson as well I'm sure. Yeah. So Tarek, I have never even heard of this piece before. This is astonishing. I didn't think we had a depiction of Tutankhamun on this scale. Yes. So this is the colossal statue of Tutankhamun, and it was found not in the tomb of Tutankhamun, but in the mortuary temple in a place called Medinet Habo. It's one of two statues.

This is the most complete one. The other one is in fragments, and this is a quartzite statue, a sandstone statue, and it shows the king in his full royal regalia. We have this wonderful object here, and we end our exhibit in this gallery in order to remind our visitors that King Tutankhamun still lives.

As long as we pronounce his name, the king still lives with us. And of course, Tutankhamun, for more than 3,300 years, his name was forgotten. But after the discovery, his name is the most known name of a king from ancient Egypt among the people all over the world. So let me ask you quickly why the name was forgotten, because he was removed from the list of kings. Yeah. And other temples, other statues and things were smashed, weren't they? Why did his successors want to eradicate Tutankhamun? First, we have to mention the fact that Tutankhamun had a very short life.

You know, he ruled for only nine or 10 years maximum as a king of Egypt. He didn't do lots of buildings, achievements like long-lived kings, Ramses II, Huthmuzid III, Amenhotep III, or King Khufu, but it was very short period, but it was very important in Egyptian history. And his name was forgotten,

not because of his successors raised him from history. It was because of Ramses II only. Ramses II, he was against Akhenaten. He was against the religious Tutankhamun's father. He was against the revolution, you know. He was against this only one cult for only one god. That's why he did not include the name Akhenaten or Tutankhamun among the king list he and his father had in Apeidus temple.

But the statue, the name on the statue, this one, for example, was erased, not because the successor hated the time of Tutankhamun, because it was unfinished work. You know, Tutankhamun didn't have the time to finish the construction of the mortuary temple or finishing even the statue. So the one who finished the statue put his name instead of the king. I see, very cunning. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. That was an extraordinary exhibition. You're going all over the world in joy.

Thank you. Yes, thank you for making it the end of this episode of dan snow's history i really appreciate listening to this podcast i love doing these podcasts it's a highlight of my career it's the best thing i've ever done and your support your listening is obviously crucial for that project if you did feel like doing me a favor if you go to wherever you get your podcasts and give it a review give a rating obviously a good one ideally then that would be fantastic and feel free to share it we obviously depend on listeners depend on more and more people finding out about it depend on good reviews to keep the listeners coming in. Really appreciate it. Thank you.