Exploring King Tutankhamun's Tomb | Blowing Up History

Today, Tutankhamun is the most famous name of all these ancient kings. But during his lifetime, historians believe he was insignificant. He was a kid, 9, 10, 11 years old. The little known, relatively minor pharaoh. Yet Tutankhamun's tomb transformed his fate. This young boy king became one of the most powerful symbols Kent Weeks has spent 40 years studying the Valley of the Kings. Kent and teams of archaeologists are working to resolve a crucial mystery. How did Tutankhamun's tomb transform the boy king from a minor pharaoh to one of the most celebrated men in history? Kent believes the first clue lies in how the tombs in the valley are decorated. He wants to understand why the imagery in Tut's tomb is so different to those belonging to more powerful pharaohs. Royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, they all follow pretty much the same standard rules, contain the same standard scenes. But the tomb of Tutankhamun is unusual. Kent heads to a different tomb, belonging to the great king Seti II, to investigate how royal tombs are traditionally decorated. Although it was common for early Egyptian pharaohs to build pyramids, by the time of Seti II, rulers preferred to be buried underground. It was around 26, 2700 BC that pyramids were used as the burial place of Egypt's pharaohs. These tombs are 1,000 years more recent than that. Pyramids are no longer in vogue as royal burial places. But the pyramid symbol, the symbol of the sun god, continued to be a potent emblem of protection. And that's one of the reasons this valley was chosen as the burial place of pharaohs. That mountain looks like a pyramid. Here, you could have the pyramid shape, the symbol of the sun god, hovering protectively over the pharaoh's burial. Kent makes his way down into Seti II's tomb. Inside, he forensically records every square inch of the carvings adorning the walls. Many of these artworks show scenes from the important religious text, The Book of the Dead. Their primary objective was to ensure the safe passage of the pharaoh from this life into the next. This was a major concern to Egyptians. When a pharaoh died, can we be sure the pharaoh is going to have a safe journey into the afterlife? All of the texts, all of the scenes in these tombs are designed to serve those simple functions. In ancient Egyptian beliefs, the journey to the afterlife begins as the sun sets. The pharaoh takes the route of the sun as it passes down into the underworld. Armed with spells from the walls of the tomb, he faces many challenges, including a lake of fire and a giant serpent. Most Egyptians would then face the most rigorous test, to have their heart weighed against the feather of truth. But the pharaoh was thought to be exempt. When he reaches the end, a parade of gods welcomes him to the afterlife. He is transformed into the sun god, and the sun can rise again. With the spells and prayers on the walls of the tomb acting like a guidebook for the pharaoh, the ancient engravers couldn't make a single mistake. When you look at these relief carvings, even something as straightforward as columns of hieroglyphic text, the first thing I think that strikes a person is the care, the attention to detail. The birds are meticulously shown. You can identify species of birds from the way they're depicted. The care is important because these texts are important. Most royal tombs are just as extensively decorated, with incredible attention to detail. But surprisingly, the tomb of Tutankhamun, the most famous tomb in the valley, is far less impressive. Tutankhamun's tomb is just four small chambers, each no more than 14 feet wide. At the heart of the tomb is a sparsely decorated burial room, modestly painted and with no carvings. Hidden in the walls, mysterious niches once held sacred statues, a shabti, to come to life as the pharaoh's servant, and the jackal god of the dead, Anubis. Tutankhamun's burial chamber is filled with magical decoration. But beside it, the rest of the tomb is left bare. This simple tomb is unlike any other royal tomb in the valley. All of these things conspire to make Tutankhamun's tomb unlike any other in the Valley of the Kings, and we can't be sure why. Today, Kent has a rare opportunity to study the religious texts inside Tutankhamun's burial chamber up close. He searches for clues that might explain why they're not as elaborate as other pharaohs. Kent works with a team carefully conserving the delicate decoration. Lori Wong has found mysterious anomalies in the way the ancient walls have been painted. If we notice here, at the very base of the wall, you can see that there's drips running down. Throughout this tomb, we have drip marks. So it suggests this very fast fluid action in terms of the application of the painting materials. Also, what's really unusual is that in this small burial chamber, each wall has a slightly different painting technique. It's unusual because one would expect in a small burial chamber that the painting technology would be the same from wall to wall. Kent has found something else strange about the imagery in the chamber. In other tombs, long corridors were filled with column after column after column of religious texts. Here, we have just a few highly abbreviated scenes. Kent has spotted an illustration of the pharaoh's journey through the underworld, but it's been dramatically simplified. We have 12 baboons shown here, each in a rectangle, each of them representing one of the 12 hours of the night through which the deceased pharaoh has to pass to achieve immortality. The key scenes are all there, but the artwork is nowhere near as elaborate as the carvings found in Seti's tomb. The absence of detail in the religious texts is unusual by any standard. Kent believes the drip marks and abbreviated religious decoration can only mean one thing. People were operating under a time constraint here, and that accounts for a lot of the painting, the absence of detail in the religious texts on the wall, the highly abbreviated form of the Book of the Dead. Time was of the essence. For whatever reasons, political or religious or what have you, they did want to get it done quickly.