Discovering tut saga continues

class 11 cbse chapter : discovering tut NCERT

1. Discovering Tut: The Saga Continue s          –  A. R. Williams   MADE BY:   Khyati Dave Oorvi Chitkara Komal Pandey CLASS: XI SCHOOL: Parevartan School

2. z ABOUT THE AUTHOR  A.R Williams or Ann Williams, a former senior writer for  National Geographic  Magazine and online news. It was during this time  that she discovered the various wonders of the world, for almost three decades. Her specialization is in the field of Archaeology, about which she writes features about places varying from Egypt to as far as Alaska. These appear as a monthly piece for the Ancient Worlds section of the  National Geographic  Magazine. She also writes about any new discoveries that take place.

3. z GIST OF THE STORY  This chapter deals with a story on exploration carried out to find the mystery surrounding King Tut’s death. It gives a brief description of the obstacles that the team had to go through with in order to extract the remains from his coffin. This chapter is a narration of the experience of researchers while exploring his coffin and place emphasis on the process of forensic reconstruction. The story presents the efforts of archaeologists to unravel the mystery of Tut’s death which seemed more like a murder. It is about medical technology being used to investigate such complicated cases.

4. z Character and character sketch Zahi Hawass  – Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. He is one of the members of the team of researchers, and very particular about getting the details right. It also shows that he is extremely focused on this project as he exclaims that he was not able to sleep thinking of the seriousness of this extraction and reconstruction. Howard Carter  – He is the British Archeologist who discovered King Tut’s tomb in the year 1922. This discovery was sensational as it was successful after years of futile searching. He was not able to separate the body from the other belongings buried along with the Kings body. He justified his action of chiselling away the consolidated material from the body to raise the king’s remains.

5. z Amenhotep III  – King Tut’s grandfather who was a powerful pharaoh and ruled for almost four decades. Amenhotep IV  – Successor of Amenhotep III. He promoted the worship of Aten and changed his name to Akhenaten. Amenhotep IV also moved the religious capital to Akhetaten . He attacked the Amun, a major God and smashed his idols. Tutankhaten  – Widely known as King Tut. He was just a teenager when he became a ruler. He also changed his name to Tutankhamun; reigned for about nine years and died unexpectedly. The speculation of his death gave rise to exploration to find the truth. His mummy became the first one to be examined using a CT scan.

6. Summary in detail The chapter ‘Discovering Tut; the saga continues tells us about the Egyptian ruler, Tutankhamun, more commonly known as Tut. He had ruled for 9 years , whilst he was still a teenager, before his mysterious death. His tomb was discovered in 1922 by British archeologist Howard Carter. About 80 years later, he was moved from his resting place for a CT scan to find out more about him. To find out more about him, wasn’t an easy process. He was stuck in his tomb because of all the hardened resin which were found in his tomb with other items of everyday use which were kept there for Tut to use in his ‘afterlife’. This included bronze razor, clothes, wine etc. To remove the hardened resin, carter tried keeping the tomb in the scorching heat of the sun but it didn’t work. He had to tell his men to detatch him with the help of tools which might damage the mummy. As a result, most of Tut’s major joints were broken. On January 9, 2009, when he was taken for the scan, the scanner broke down and stopped working because some sand had gotten into it’s fans. The fans were later replaced and tut’s body was taken back to his original resting place.

7. Important questions Q1. What happened on the night of the scan and what made people think that it was a curse? Q2. Mention briefly, the history of Tut’s family. Q3. If you could find out more about Tut and his life, what would you like to know and why? Q4. If you were in Howard Carter’s position, what other method would you try to get Tut’s mummy separated from the resins?