The Shadow King

THE

SHADOW

KING

THE

SHADOW

KING

THE BIZARRE AFTERLIFE

OF KING TUT’S MUMMY

JO MARCHANT

DA CAPO PRESS

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

Copyright © 2013 by Jo Marchant

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

Designed by Pauline Brown

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marchant, Jo.

The shadow king : the bizarre afterlife of king Tut’s mummy / Jo Marchant.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-306-82134-9 (e-book) 1. Tutankhamen, King of Egypt. 2. Tutankhamen, King of Egypt—Death and burial. 3. Mummies—Conservation and restoration—Egypt. 4. Egypt—History—Eighteenth dynasty, ca. 1570–1320 B.C. 5. Forensic sciences. I. Title.

DT87.5.M34 2013

932.014092—dc23

2012041912

Published by Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

www.dacapopress.com

Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Dora and David Wood

CONTENTS

Prologue: An Archaeological Adventure

CHAPTER 3: Opera of a Vanished Civilization

CHAPTER 6: Palm Wine, Spices, and Myrrh

CHAPTER 8: Secrets from Blood and Bone

CHAPTER 10: Living Image of the Lord

CHAPTER 11: Evil Pyramids and Murderous Mold

CHAPTER 12: Sliced, Diced, Brought Back to Life

CHAPTER 14: Fingerprints, Forensics, and a Family Tree

CHAPTER 15: DNA Down the Rabbit Hole

CHAPTER 16: Spare Ribs and Hand Kebabs

Chronology of Ancient Egypt

Acknowledgments

Illustration Credits

Notes

Index

Photos following page

SOMETIMES THE MOST MUNDANE-SEEMING TASK can set you on a journey that you didn’t expect. In the summer of 2010, flicking through the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA), I found something that did just that. Squeezed between papers on routine medical topics from diabetes to Down syndrome were five short letters about the mummy of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. They were barely noticed by the rest of the world. But they started me on an adventure that led from forgotten archives in rainy London to the heat of the Egyptian desert, and ultimately to this book.

Like so many others, I’ve always been fascinated by ancient Egypt: the wonders of an advanced civilization, the romance of the pyramids, the pharaohs’ fierce determination to live forever, and of course those perfectly preserved mummies that bring us face to face with the distant past. Tutankhamun—a young king found intact in his tomb surrounded by the greatest ever haul of ancient treasure—is the most powerful draw of all.

Scientific studies of the king’s mummy have kept him in the news, providing a string of intimate insights into his life and the cause of his untimely death. Ninety years after the discovery of his tomb, King Tut is more famous than ever. The star of countless books, feature films, and documentaries, his golden mask is instantly recognizable and his tomb is visited by millions.

In February 2010, JAMA published the most dramatic study yet. As part of the King Tutankhamun Family Project, led by Egypt’s top antiquities official, Zahi Hawass, researchers carried out sophisticated scans and DNA tests of Tutankhamun and other royal mummies from his time—the rich and powerful Eighteenth Dynasty, which ruled more than three thousand years ago.

It was a groundbreaking study, full of new information about the pharaohs. Among other things, the scientists quashed decades of speculation about the identity of Tutankhamun’s father. They also reversed the view of Tutankhamun as an active king, as suggested by chariots, weapons, and sporting equipment found in his tomb, and recast him as an inbred genetic weakling. His parents were apparently brother and sister, and he had a range of inherited deformities, including cleft palate and clubfoot.

The same day the paper was published, the Discovery Channel broadcast the story of the research in a glossy documentary called King Tut Unwrapped. The findings, which Hawass described as “the last word” on Tutankhamun—made news headlines around the world. At last we knew the truth about a life lived 3,300 years before.

Then I saw the letters. Written in the calm, cutting language that is scientists’ code for utter disdain, they took the JAMA study apart. Experts from different fields and from prestigious institutions around the world criticized nearly every aspect of the research, from Tutankhamun’s family relationships to the analysis of the bones in his feet. In particular, geneticists at one of the world’s foremost ancient DNA labs in Copenhagen complained that from everything we know about Egyptian mummies, it is highly unlikely that any ancient DNA survives inside them. The latest results, they feared, were caused by contamination of the mummy samples with modern DNA.

The letters got little or no press coverage. But I was intrigued. Was the study by Hawass’s international team really so full of holes? Could the entire family tree be based on a mistake? And if these scientists were right, what do we really know about Tutankhamun?

To find out, I called the authors of the JAMA study and of the letters, as well as a range of other experts. I found that when it comes to Tutankhamun’s mummy, very little is as it seems. One letter plunged me straight into a bizarre and bitter argument that has long split the field of ancient DNA. Another revealed an ongoing debate over whether Tutankhamun had female breasts. A third introduced me to the mystery of an anonymous mummy found dripping with gold, which over the years has been identified as everyone from Tiye, one of Egypt’s most powerful queens, to the biblical prophet Moses.

In every case, the science was clouded in argument and uncertainty. But none of this was making it through into the bestselling books and documentaries about King Tut. I looked back at previous studies and found that this disparity between reporting and reality is nothing new. It seems that Egyptology, as sold to the public, is sometimes not so far from show business.

Over the years, we have been presented with a range of different stories about this frail mummy. There’s Tut the murder victim. The inbred cripple. The sickly youth who succumbed to malaria. The active king who died at war, or in a chariot accident. The hunter who was mauled by a hippo. Not to mention the black-magic artist who laid a deadly trap for those who would invade his tomb more than three thousand years later.

Worryingly often, science studies are reconstructed and packaged for the cameras—with researchers routinely acting out their roles after the event—while contested or ambiguous results are shaped into dramatic new discoveries. But what’s really going on behind the scenes? To find out, I decided to set out on an archaeological investigation of my own.

I have a PhD in genetics, combined with over a decade’s experience as a journalist. I used both sets of skills to trace the secret history of Tutankhamun—not the ancient pharaoh, but the modern mummy.

Investigating the mummy’s story, and talking to the scientists involved about their experiences, made me realize how much more there is to their work than the glib headlines we see on television. Deciphering the clues left in a three-thousand-year-old mummy has pushed these researchers to their limits. From the 1920s until today, they have stretched the technology available to them and struggled with hellish conditions, media pressures, and political unrest. They have been brought to Tutankhamun’s mummy by interests in everything from deadly fungi to dinosaur DNA, and their results have been used to probe questions from the origins of civilization to the truth of the Bible. Never far away is the allure of treasure—the ancient, buried kind, and the sort that goes straight into the bank.

From the mummy’s brutal first autopsy in 1925 to the multimillion-dollar profits and political turbulence surrounding today’s high-tech studies, the fate of Tutankhamun has been entwined with the development of Egyptology as a field, and of Egypt as a nation. What started as a classic archaeological treasure hunt—perhaps the most famous ever—has become a tale of cutting-edge science debates and modern-day politics, from the war on terrorism to the Egyptian revolution.

Within this story, I found plenty of mysteries to delve into. What is a piece of Tutankhamun doing in a drawer at the University of Liverpool? Why did fears for national security cause the Egyptian authorities to cancel a plan to DNA test his mummy? Who are the two mummified fetuses, embalmed with great care, found stuffed into an ill-fitting wooden box in Tutankhamun’s tomb? Why is everyone so interested in the pharaoh’s penis? And above all, can peeling away the layers of myth and misconception that surround the mummy bring us any closer to understanding the ancient king himself?

The Shadow King is the result of my two-year adventure on the trail of Tutankhamun’s mummy. I’ve done my best to bring the people and situations I encountered—from the distant past to the present day—to life. I’ve given sources and references for as much as I can without making the text unreadable. But even where there’s no citation, every word and phrase is based on extensive research—including interviews, academic papers, unpublished manuscripts, videos, diaries, private correspondence, contemporary newspaper accounts and visits to the relevant locations.

Tutankhamun isn’t on his own, however. He has a whole family of royal relatives, whose mummies are on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Their stories are enmeshed with his. They have been subjected to the same scientific tests, and have triggered almost as much speculation. They too were discovered in the most dramatic of circumstances, and they too are now household names to millions—starring characters in the soap operas of modern Egyptology documentaries.

I cannot tell Tutankhamun’s story without telling theirs too. So we start this adventure not in 1922 with the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, but in the hot Egyptian summer of 1881, just before one of the most bizarre and unexpected archaeological finds of all time.

ÉMILE BRUGSCH WAS OUT OF BREATH, and nervous. The slight German curator was used to tending antiquities in Egypt’s first national museum, a chaotic and desperately crowded establishment in the bustling Cairo port of Bulaq. Now he was scrambling up a remote desert path in the foothills of Thebes with little idea of his destination and a shoulder sore from the weight of a loaded rifle.

Along with two trusted colleagues from Cairo, Brugsch was following a dark, wiry figure in a white galabiya robe, who led them wordlessly along the valley floor. His name was Mohammed Abd el-Rassul. He had brought with him a group of local workmen, and Brugsch eyed them anxiously as he walked, aware that they had every reason to kill him and his friends if given the chance.

Centuries after Egypt’s rulers built their huge pyramids at Giza, near Cairo, the seat of power moved south to Thebes. Some of the richest and most mighty kings in Egypt’s history built a series of impressive temples, palaces, and tombs by the river here. The east bank of the Nile was for the living, hosting among other things the densely populated city of Thebes itself and a sprawling temple complex a couple of miles away at Karnak. The west bank—where Abd el-Rassul led the curator on that stifling July day—was for the dead, with a string of memorial temples and desert cliffs dotted with tombs.

Brugsch’s guide headed uphill toward Deir el-Bahri, a natural amphitheater in the rock that’s bounded by steep cliffs. The air was oven hot and the soft sand underfoot made for a tiring, monotonous walk. As the group reached the foot of the cliffs, the path turned sharp right and they saw a small nook, shaped like a chimney, almost hidden in the rock face. At its base was a deep shaft, around ten feet across, with jagged, roughly cut sides that were covered in treacherous-looking rocks and boulders.

“There,” said Abd el-Rassul, as Brugsch stepped forward to peer down the hole. The secrets it held were about to change the field of Egyptology forever.