King Tut Essays (Examples)

King Tut's Curse

The Mummy's Curse and King Tutankhamen

When Howard Carter uncovered King Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922, nobody expected that the historical significance of the find would be plagued by the rumor of a curse. King Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor in Egypt on November 4, 1922 (Handwerk, n.d.). On February 17, 1923, after months of excavation, Carter, and approximately 20 other people, gathered at the entrance of the tomb's antechamber and prepared to unseal King Tutankhamen's burial chamber (Dowdy, 2013). Shortly after entering King Tutankhamen's burial chamber, many of the people present began to fall victim to strange and unusual circumstances that led to unexpected death. While much of these circumstances have been attributed to a "mummy's curse," there have been theories attributing these deaths to biological factors.

The concept of a mummy's curse can be traced back to before King…

Their design was no more crude than tile bed I was using" (Fertado). He even slept on the beds that had been entombed over 3,000 years before, showing no ill effects! In fact, Adamson lived to be 82 years old and died in 1982, sixty years after the discovery and with no ill effects from his experience.

Even today, rumors about the curse continue to swirl around King Tut and his tomb. For example, the researchers who discovered that King Tut died from an infected broken bone used a CT scan to evaluate his mummy. eporter Hayes notes, "While performing the CT scan of King Tut, we had several strange occurrences,' Selim said. 'The electricity suddenly went out, the CT scanner could not be started and a team member became ill. If we weren't scientists, we might have become believers in the Curse of the Pharaohs'" (Hayes). Certainly, the scientist…

Other theories are that he died after having been sent into battle. Other scholars state that a hole found in the King's head indicates foul play but experts believe that the hole was made after his death. (Tutankamun: Life and Times)

Another mysterious aspect of the life of King Tutankhamun that still lingers in the modern consciousness is the famous, or rather infamous, curse that is associated with his name. This has been the source of many books and films and has entered into popular culture. The truth about the 'curse of the mummy' may be even stranger than fiction. The curse was aimed at those who uncovered the mummy and it may or not be coincidence that many of those who were present at the discovery and excavation of the tomb died shortly afterwards, often of unnatural causes. These include Lord Carnarvon who died on the 23rd April 1933…

strange how certain figures throughout the history of man become the figures of such intrigue and mystery (Meyerson, 2009). Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne are examples of such figures. These are all men that led full lives and accomplished great things but sharing the same level of notoriety is young man from ancient Egypt who died at 19 accomplishing very little other than becoming Pharaoh. For whatever reason, King Tutankhamen (King Tut) has been the center of much discussion and theorizing since his nearly intact tomb was discovered in 1922. Among the many areas of concern regarding King Tutankhamen has been the cause of his death. Even in ancient Egypt, death at 19 was unusual and for someone so privileged it would be exceedingly so.

There has been no shortage of theories offered to explain how King Tut died. Some have suggested that he was killed falling from…

The first analysis concentrated on the Y chromosome, which would illuminate King Tutankhamun's paternal heritage; the second analysis consisted of genetic fingerprinting," (SCA, cited by Ann). Genetic fingerprinting allowed for a five-generation "pedigree of Tutankhamun's immediate lineage," (Hawass 2010). All of the testing was replicated in an independent laboratory designed specifically for the Family of Tutankhamun Project (Hawass et al.). In addition to the DNA analyses that were performed on the royal mummies, CT scans were also used to help analyze bones.

The results of the DNA analysis revealed the parentage of King Tutankhamun. Akhenaten is the father of King Tutankhamun, not his brother as was previously believed (MalcolmJ). However, Hawass had already hypothesized that Akhenaten was the father of King Tutankhamun. Hawass notes that an inscribed limestone block that he helped piece together led him to question King Tut's heritage. The text printed on the limestone block states that…

All this attention paid to their appearance demanded that a high-quality mirror be used. (Virtual, 3)

Hand-held mirrors were made of a sheet of metal hammered down to less than a millimeter (1/32") thick. They were sometimes decorated with solid gold and inlaid with precious stones. The handles were sometimes a sculpture of a maiden holding a cat, or other object, or with her hands raised to hold the mirror; abstract and symbolic designs were also utilized. The Egyptians felt that makeup and mirrors would be needed in the afterlife, so they were placed in the tombs of the deceased. The bronze on a mirror could not be touched, or it would ruin the shiny surface with the oils from fingers. If the mirror was simply cleaned occasionally with a damp cloth, the valuable and decorative object would last a long time. Some of these mirrors have survived until today,…

Mummy's Curse

he objective of this study is to consider the Mummy's Curse, which involved a series of unexplainable, unfortunate, or tragic events that happened to the individuals who were present at the opening of utankhamen's tomb. King ut's tomb was discovered in Egypt in 1923. Six weeks following the tomb being opened the individual who financed the expedition died suddenly and following his death was the circulation of a rumor about a 'mummy's curse'. However, Lord Carnarvon, the financier of the expedition is reported to have suffered ill health for more than 2 decades before the tomb being opened due to a motor vehicle accident and to have died of pneumonia. Reports at that time stated that at the precise moment that Lord Carvarvon died that the lights in Cairo went out and that his dog howled and died at the same instant as well. Apparently, the newspaper printed…

Economics in Ancient Civilization

It is said that "Rome was not built in a day." Indeed, the Roman Empire was the last of a series of civilizations to emerge in the Mediterranean by the First Millennium, B.C. Precursors to the culture most identified as the seat of estern political economy, the Ancient Egyptians, Etruscans, Greeks, Syrians, Carthaginians and Phoenicians all had contact with the Romans, and eventually were incorporated through territorial expansion of the Empire in Asia Minor, Cyrenaica, Europe, and North Africa. Prior to the Roman period, Europe was primarily occupied by Barbarian tribes; societies where no written language, legal system or alternative mechanism of governance was in place. hen we discuss the advancement of Ancient civilizations, then, it is through the transmission of law, literacy and polity that we find source to retrospect on early economic forms. In Feinman and Nicholas (2004), Perspectives on Political Economies, the difficulties…

Sometimes everyone draws nine bones. Usually, in Dominican rules, if one player is blocked, he cannot play, has to pass, and does not draw from the bone yard; so those 27 bones are completely out of the game. In the variants of different cultures, sometimes the blocked player must draw one bone every time he passes, and in others must continue to draw bones until he has a play. ut that is the game's objective: block the other team's moves, while getting your bones onto the board. It sounds easy, but there is a complicated tango of mathematics and shrew guesswork involved. Dominoes is a game that permits, even necessitates, "card" counting, and it is this dance of four intelligences, drawing on their own wisdom and experience of the game, that makes for the competitive aspect.

Here is the most important thing to know about Dominican dominoes: Never, ever, place…

history of the 1920's, a colorful era of tycoons, gangsters, bohemians and inventors. Areas covered include the arts, news and politics, science and humanities, business and industry, society fads and sports. The bibliography includes fives sources, with five quotations from secondary sources, and footnotes.

The 1920's are commonly referred to as the 'Roaring Twenties', an appropriate title for a decade that did indeed roar out of the Victorian Era. Gone were the corsets and up went the skirt hems as flapper girls bared their legs and speakeasies with bathtub gin dominated the nightlife.

Tycoons became America's royalties while bohemian lifestyles bore the twentieth century's most influential era of art and literature. Inventions brought us into the modern age of convenience and history making events.

The twenties began with a serious but short-lived post-war recession, following World War 1.

Yet, by the mid-twenties, business and industry had created legends that have…

Marfan Syndrome

In 1896, the pediatrician Dr. Antoine Bernard-Jean Marfan described the exceptionally long, slender limbs and physique of a 5-year-old girl, Gabrielle P., in front of the Medical Society of the Hospital of Paris (Enersen). It is unknown whether Gabrielle P. actually suffered from what is now known to be Marfan syndrome, but Dr. Henricus Jacubus Marie eve was recognized as the first person to use the term 'Marfan syndrome' to describe this common genetic disorder.

In the decades leading up to Dr. eve's use of Marfan syndrome to describe a patient's symptoms in 1931, other physicians had begun to document their encounters with this disease with the benefit of radiological images (Enersen). Drs. Henri Mery and Leon Baonneix studied Gabrielle P. anew using this new technology in 1902 and noted a misaligned spine, thoracic asymmetry, long digits, cardiovascular abnormalities, and dislocation of the ocular lens. During the same…

defects that can affect the vertebral column, some clinically serious, others that can be corrected by surgery and still others that denigrates the affected individual's lifestyle to a high degree. Such deformities and maladies as spina bifada, scoliosis and chordoma can all be debilitating on the individual. Due to the complexity of the vertebral column, it is often difficult to diagnosis and treat many of the afflictions that present in many patents. One recent study determined that "due to the sporadic occurrence of congenital vertebral malformations, traditional linkage approaches to identify genes associated with human vertebral development are not possible" (Giampietro, Raggio, Reynolds, Shukla, McPherson, Ghebranious, Jacobsen, Kumar, Faciszeski, Pauli, Rasmussen, Burmester, Zaleski, Merchant, David, eber, Glurich, Blank, 2005, p. 448). Of course, that particular study was conducted almost a decade ago and great strides have been made since that time, but it is still a very difficult maneuver to…