The mystery of the ancient Egyptian Boy King Tutankhamun continues to fascinate Egyptologists as a new controversy reveals, writes Nevine El-Aref
This week the ancient Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun is in the limelight once again, with the image of his golden mask decorated with precious stones featuring in many international magazines and newspapers.
However, the current interest in the boy king is not because of his treasured funerary collection, his lineage, or the causes behind his early death, but instead because of the way in which he was mummified.
According to a study carried out by professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo (AUC) Salima Ikram, Tutankhamun was unusually embalmed by priests of the god Amun in an attempt to quash the religious revolution carried out by his father and predecessor the monotheistic king Akhnaten.
The latter had called for the worship of only one deity, the sun god Aten, and the abandonment of the ancient Egyptians’ other gods.
When Akhnaten’s son Tutankhamun came to the throne, he returned Egypt to its traditional religion of worshipping a diverse set of deities at the top of which was the god Amun.
To ensure that this conversion continued after Tutankhamun’s death and to abort any further religious revolution, Ikram suggests in her paper that the priests mummified Tutankhamun’s corpse in an unusual way to make him appear as Osiris, the god of the afterlife and the land of Egypt.
Showing posts with label Penis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Penis. Show all posts
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Saturday, January 4, 2014
King Tut's Mummified Erect Penis May Point to Ancient Religious Struggle
By Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor | January 02, 2014
Egypt's King Tutankhamun was embalmed in an unusual way, including having his penis mummified at a 90-degree angle, in an effort to combat a religious revolution unleashed by his father, a new study suggests.
The pharaoh was buried in Egypt's Valley of the Kings without a heart (or a replacement artifact known as a heart scarab); his penis was mummified erect; and his mummy and coffins were covered in a thick layer of black liquid that appear to have resulted in the boy-king catching fire.
These anomalies have received both scholarly and media attention in recent years, and a new paper in the journal Études et Travaux by Egyptologist Salima Ikram, a professor at the American University in Cairo, proposes a reason why they, and other Tutankhamun burial anomalies, exist.
The mummified erect penis and other burial anomalies were not accidents during embalming, Ikram suggests, but rather deliberate attempts to make the king appear as Osiris, the god of the underworld, in as literal a way as possible. The erect penis evokes Osiris' regenerative powers; the black liquid made Tutankhamun's skin color resemble that of Osiris; and the lost heart recalled the story of the god being cut to pieces by his brother Seth and his heart buried.
Egypt's King Tutankhamun was embalmed in an unusual way, including having his penis mummified at a 90-degree angle, in an effort to combat a religious revolution unleashed by his father, a new study suggests.
The pharaoh was buried in Egypt's Valley of the Kings without a heart (or a replacement artifact known as a heart scarab); his penis was mummified erect; and his mummy and coffins were covered in a thick layer of black liquid that appear to have resulted in the boy-king catching fire.
These anomalies have received both scholarly and media attention in recent years, and a new paper in the journal Études et Travaux by Egyptologist Salima Ikram, a professor at the American University in Cairo, proposes a reason why they, and other Tutankhamun burial anomalies, exist.
The mummified erect penis and other burial anomalies were not accidents during embalming, Ikram suggests, but rather deliberate attempts to make the king appear as Osiris, the god of the underworld, in as literal a way as possible. The erect penis evokes Osiris' regenerative powers; the black liquid made Tutankhamun's skin color resemble that of Osiris; and the lost heart recalled the story of the god being cut to pieces by his brother Seth and his heart buried.
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