King Tut’s Messy Afterlife

I’ve always had a thing for King Tut. I fell in love with the details of the excavation in 1922, starting with the accidental discovery of the stone step right down to the events that were referred to as “the mummy’s curse”, and my life-long obsession has deepened over the years. In 2010, I was lucky enough to travel to Egypt with my husband, and despite the insistence of the tour guide (and various guide books) that Tutankhamen’s tomb wasn’t worth the extra admission fee, that was the one spot I always knew I’d visit when I made it to Egypt.

The tomb itself isn’t that impressive; seriously, it looks like a closet compared to the other tombs we explored in the Valley of the Kings. And I almost cried when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to step directly on the magical staircase, since it was covered in a wooden ramp (probably both for the safety of the tourists and to protect the ancient stone), but once I was actually inside the tomb, I WAS able to stand where my archaeological hero Howard Carter once stood, and I allowed myself to sink into the wonder, trying to imagine what it must have felt like to be the first to lay eyes on the packed tomb almost a hundred years ago.

Far from being packed, the tomb is an empty shell now. In the burial chamber, set down beneath a railing, rests one of the gold coffins that made Carter (and Tut) famous, but the mummy of the boy-king isn’t resting in the coffin. He’s in a climate controlled box, tucked along the far side of the wall near the entrance of the tomb. It still rankles me, actually: I get that preservation is important, and the fact that the mummy is even allowed to rest in the tomb at all is a BIG difference from most of the other kings and queens of Egypt, who populate museums around the world, but it still felt…wrong. He’s there, in the tomb that was supposed to supply all his desires for eternity, but he’s not in the spot where he was interred with prayers and spells so long ago.

It seems to me that for all his fame, poor Tutankhamen has had a rather grim after-life, at least ever since the discovery of the “wonderful things” that filled the tomb. The mummy has been subjected to countless scans and theories, the artifacts have toured the world, and now, the king’s funerary mask has been carelessly damaged and glued back together. Seriously, I can’t make this stuff up.

I’m all for education and conservation, and I deeply value and love the contribution of museums, scholars, and field workers to the world: I’m a sucker for all things ancient, and as these scientists continue to explore the lives and kingdoms of the people who came before us, I’m fascinated by how much we all have in common (and, let’s be honest, I love learning about the magic and ritual practices of the ancients, particularly in Egypt, and I continue to incorporate this information into my own spiritual practices), but I’m starting to wonder when we’ll do more harm than good in the name of discovery. Sure, Tutankhamen is immortal: everyone knows his name, and that fulfills one of the most fervent wishes found again and again in the various texts of the Book of the Dead: to have one’s name spoke after death is to ensure that the spirit lives on. But is Tut happy with his immortality, or is he starting to wish he’d just been left in peace?