Tutankhamun's reconstructed military relief (Channel 4 TV programme)

[Sharur]

Don't know how many of our UK-based members may have caught the Channel 4 TV programme last Sunday (2013 Nov 10) "Tutankhamun - The Mystery of the Burnt Mummy"; as it hasn't appeared in comments here yet, perhaps not many (the Channel 4 website notes it'll be repeated at 01:10 a.m. on Friday Nov 22, however). "The Sunday Times" for Nov 3 had a useful summary editorial piece based on the programme too.

The main thrust of the programme concerned the likely cause of death for Tutankhamun and what happened to mean his apparently hastily-mummified body became burnt within its wrappings. While interesting elements in themselves, especially the attempted reconstruction of his death, being struck by a chariot wheel at full-tilt while kneeling facing towards the oncoming vehicle, presumably on a battlefield, there were some brief references and shots of a fragmentary ancient Egyptian relief seemingly showing said king in battle, which had been (or perhaps still was in the process of being) partially reconstructed. Second only to being able to play with the computerised autopsy table shown in the programme, I wondered if anyone had come across where this relief reconstruction may have been published - if indeed it yet has been?

Checking around the Internet so far hasn't brought it to light, certainly, with little more in recent times (i.e. subsequent to the programme's transmission) than various reprises of the Channel 4 press-releases regarding the programme.

As a geologist in my youth, I was also fascinated by the idea that Tutankhamun's tomb had survived robbery, when the rest of the Valley of Kings had been denuded anciently, because it was located in the perfect spot to have its entrance covered by a thick layer of silt in a flash flood. The programme suggested it had been swapped for that of the king's usurping successor, his vizier Ay, following Tutankhamun's death, thus ironically guaranteeing the boy king's immortality at Ay's expense! Makes a good story, regardless of its reality.

[Patrick Waterson]

Missed it, sadly.  Apparently the 'spontaneous combustion' theory may be a red herring: see these comments from Ancient Egypt. org:

A comparison of the mummy in 1968 and 1978 with the pictures taken in 1926 revealed some other curious facts. Both the king's right ear and his penis, clearly present in the older pictures, were missing in 1968! Have they, for some obscure reasons, been removed in 1926?

Worse still, it was noted that the mummy's condition had drastically deteriorated! The eyelids, that were neatly preserved in 1926, had collapsed. And where Derry described the mummy's skin as "greyish in colour", it had appeared darker and more charred-looking to the later examiners. This might indicate that over the 42 to 52 years between the first, second and third examination, the mummy has started carbonising and disintegrating. After each examination, the mummy has been put back in its outer coffin and in its original tomb, instead of moving it to a place with a more controllable environment.

One can only wonder how long it will take before the remains of the only New Kingdom king to have been found undisturbed in his tomb, will be reduced to some bones and dust...

The embalming was overdone, which was partly Ay showing off and partly too many cooks spoiling the broth, but the main cause of today's 'charred' appearance seems to be decay since the tomb was opened.

The relief referred to remains elusive.  There may be a clue here, and if so then the man to ask is W. Raymond Johnson, director of the Epigraphic Survey, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.

[Sharur]

Thanks, Patrick.

I checked the Chicago Epigraphic Survey site, but the most recent publication from that seems to have been in 2009, whereas the Archaeology magazine article was published in 2010, when the relief reconstruction attempts were still ongoing, from the notes there. The recent TV programme (unusually) did feature specific credits on-screen when showing the relief images - and from my recollection, they did look superficially similar to those blocks photographed in "Archaeology" - though not having recorded the programme, I can't now recall exactly what the credits said. There's no mention on the Channel 4 website, though I could doubtless watch the programme again online to find out, had I but a faster broadband connection...

The burnt nature of the mummy was apparently established purely through modern spectral examination of tissues removed back in 1968, not the physical appearance of the remains at all, and those seemed to show an excess of carbon attributed to burning. I'm no chemical analyst though, and it's possible such an apparent excess might have other causes than simple burning. There was though a quote cited in the programme from Howard Carter's original excavation notes (oddly still unpublished) which also suggested the soft tissues were unusually brittle and carbonised when found (i.e. they weren't what he'd expected to find from other excavated mummies), which can't have been due to any post-excavation deterioration.

[Patrick Waterson]

True.  Apparently Carter's report indicated that the face and feet were well-preserved but the rest of the body was damaged, almost burned, "through an excessive use of unguents by the embalmers" (quote from secondary source, not Carter), so although deterioration has taken place it was not the root cause.

The 1920s/1930s explanation seems to have been that the 'unguents', applied in excess, had a corrosive effect.  The Channel 4 explanation seems to have centred on actual combustion.  Had combustion taken place one would expect combustion products on the inside of the inner coffin lid: can you remember if there was any mention of this?  (Just curious.)

It looks as if we may have to wait a little longer for news of the relief, alas.  We can however draw certain conclusions about Tutankhamun's final campaign and cause of death from a papyrus found at Amarna (findspot: the 'House of the King's Statue', R43.2) as detailed in PARKINSON, R.B. and L. SCHOFIELD, A Painted Papyrus from Amarna, in: Ancient Egypt, the Aegean, and the Near East. Studies Martha Bell, 401-406. (fig., pl.) and also looked at in SCHOFIELD, L. and R.B. PARKINSON, Of Helmets and Heretics: a possible representation of Mycenaean warriors on a papyrus from el-Amarna, Annual of the British School at Athens, London, 89 (1994), 157-170. (fig., pl. incl. colour).  Oh, and a key passage towards the end of Euripides' Phoenissae ...

[Sharur]

The Channel 4 explanation seems to have centred on actual combustion.  Had combustion taken place one would expect combustion products on the inside of the inner coffin lid: can you remember if there was any mention of this?  (Just curious.)

No, nor so far as I can recall in the outer wrappings, which might suggest it happened partway through the mummification/burial process (if it happened at all). The programme was apparently citing directly from Carter's handwritten notes (in copied format).

The burning experiment, just using linseed oil smeared over bandages, then bundled and wrapped in other bandages, produced a deal of smoke and smouldering of the bandages used, with a linear glow somewhat like that of a cigarette (but over a larger area), with a probe-determined internal temperature like that of a typical domestic oven (I forget the exact values mentioned, but I think it was 200°C+).

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks, Alastair.

At least we have pinpointed the relief in question, though it seems not much has been done, or at least published, on it since 2010.