Exhibition: The funeral of Tutankhamun

Archaeology Magazine (Eti Bonn-Muller)

With 20-photograph slideshow.

Creating a burial as spectacular as that of the pharaoh Tutankhamun required a vast amount of preparation. The exhibition Tutankhamun’s Funeral at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art shows dozens of artifacts that include leftover materials from Tut’s mummification and provide unique insights into the days leading up to his interment.

Beginning in 1902, retired American lawyer Theodore Davis sponsored excavations in the Valley of the Kings directed, successively, by Howard Carter, Arthur Weigall, and Edward Ayrton. Davis and his crew had a remarkable series of discoveries: the tomb of Thutmose IV (KV43), the tomb of Yuya and Tujya (Tutankhamun’s great grandparents), 19th Dynasty jewelry in KV56, and KV55 (an enigmatic royal burial from the end of the 18th Dynasty).

Of great interest is the discovery by Davis (Ayrton doing the real work) in late December 1907 of a deposit of funerary goods in KV54, a tomb that was started but never completed.