Why Was King Tut's Tomb Prepared in Such a Rush?

ordinarily there was a very clearly articulated process for burying the king and making sure that everything was perfect it appears that this was not the case for Tut one of the interesting features of these walls and the paintings is these strange sort of spotty marks these black patches that you see all around the walls are in fact organic they are mold this mold appears nowhere else in the Valley of the Kings at first conservation experts worried that in this otherwise dry environment the mold was being caused by the breath and sweat of countless tourists but a study of Howard Carter's original photographs revealed that this could not be the case and it gives experts an insight into events over 3,000 years ago to the precise time of young Tut's burial it seems that his tomb was sealed before the paint on the walls had dried the supposition is that the walls had some residual humidity from the painting that was still there when the tomb was sealed in this case if the paint was still wet you very much have this sense that everything was done as quickly as possible conservation expert Adam Lowe and his team recently took high-resolution photographs of the burial chambers paintings at a resolution of up to 100 microns they reveal details as small as the tip of a human hair including the individual brushstrokes of ancient craftsmen seen close up the brushstrokes do seem to have been painted in a hurry you can see here there are clearly traces of brush marks that are clearly done like this so they're not done like this the application of the ochre color is done very fast with bigger brushes I mean that's a very fast mark answer my estimate is that it wouldn't have taken a team of skilled painters much over a week to paint Tutankhamun's tomb painting a king's tomb normally took years of work so why was Tut's tomb prepared in such a rush Egyptian kings normally had their tombs built and decorated long before they died but Tut's mummy reveals he died unexpectedly around the age of just 19 according to ancient tradition only 70 days can elapse between the moment of the King's death and the sealing of his tomb

Channel: Smithsonian Channel

Views: 434,208

Rating: 4.8272209 out of 5

Keywords: TV online, watch, pharaoh, tomb, burial, Facts, Valley of the Kings, Death, mold, Egypt, rush, fast, free tv streaming, brush, Tutankhamun, Documentary, King Tut, channel, stream TV, organic, expert, chamber, ancient Egypt, tourists, video, Episodes, free tv, paint, middle east, smithsonian, craftsman, free videos, Africa, high resolution

Id: AjHOy5ky3Is

Length: 3min 32sec (212 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 21 2016