NCERT Textbook - Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues | English Class 11 PDF Download

 Page 1


3.  Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues
A. R. Williams
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? 	forensic reconstruction ?? funerary treasures
?? 	scudded across ?? 	circumvented
?? 	casket grey ?? 	computed tomography
?? 	resurrection ?? 	eerie detail
He was just a teenager when he 
died. The last heir of a powerful 
family that had ruled Egypt 
and its empire for centuries, 
he was laid to rest laden with 
gold and eventually forgotten. 
Since the discovery of his tomb 
in 1922, the modern world has 
speculated about what happened 
to him, with murder being the 
most extreme possibility. Now, 
leaving his tomb for the first 
time in almost 80 years, Tut 
has undergone a CT scan that 
offers new clues about his life and 
death — and provides precise 
data for an accurate forensic 
reconstruction of the boyish 
pharaoh.
Chap 3.indd   21 12/6/2024   11:37:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 2


3.  Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues
A. R. Williams
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? 	forensic reconstruction ?? funerary treasures
?? 	scudded across ?? 	circumvented
?? 	casket grey ?? 	computed tomography
?? 	resurrection ?? 	eerie detail
He was just a teenager when he 
died. The last heir of a powerful 
family that had ruled Egypt 
and its empire for centuries, 
he was laid to rest laden with 
gold and eventually forgotten. 
Since the discovery of his tomb 
in 1922, the modern world has 
speculated about what happened 
to him, with murder being the 
most extreme possibility. Now, 
leaving his tomb for the first 
time in almost 80 years, Tut 
has undergone a CT scan that 
offers new clues about his life and 
death — and provides precise 
data for an accurate forensic 
reconstruction of the boyish 
pharaoh.
Chap 3.indd   21 12/6/2024   11:37:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
22 Hornbill An angry wind stirred up ghostly dust devils as King Tut was taken 
from his resting place in the ancient Egyptian cemetery known as 
the Valley of the Kings*. Dark-bellied clouds had scudded across the 
desert sky all day and now were veiling the stars in casket grey. It 
was 6 p.m. on 5 January 2005. The world’s most famous mummy 
glided head first into a CT scanner brought here to probe the lingering 
medical mysteries of this little understood young ruler who died more 
than 3,300 years ago.
All afternoon the usual line of tourists from around the world had 
descended into the cramped, rock-cut tomb some 26 feet underground 
to pay their respects. They gazed at the murals on the walls of the burial 
chamber and peered at Tut’s gilded face, the most striking feature of his 
mummy-shaped outer coffin lid. Some visitors read from guidebooks in a 
whisper. Others stood silently, perhaps pondering Tut’s untimely death in 
his late teens, or wondering with a shiver if the pharaoh’s curse — death 
or misfortune falling upon those who disturbed him — was really true. 
“The mummy is in very bad condition because of what Carter did in 
the 1920s,” said Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme 
Council of Antiquities, as he leaned over the body for a long first look. 
Carter—Howard Carter, that is — was the British archaeologist who in 
1922 discovered Tut’s tomb after years of futile searching. Its contents, 
though hastily ransacked in antiquity, were surprisingly complete. 
They remain the richest royal collection ever found and have become 
part of the pharaoh’s legend. Stunning artefacts in gold, their eternal 
brilliance meant to guarantee resurrection, caused a sensation at 
the time of the discovery — and still get the most attention. But Tut 
was also buried with everyday things he’d want in the afterlife: board 
games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, cases of food and wine.
After months of carefully recording the pharaoh’s funerary 
treasures, Carter began investigating his three nested coffins. Opening 
the first, he found a shroud adorned with garlands of willow and olive 
leaves, wild celery, lotus petals, and cornflowers, the faded evidence 
of a burial in March or April. When he finally reached the mummy, 
though, he ran into trouble. The ritual resins had hardened, cementing 
Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin. “No amount of legitimate 
force could move them,” Carter wrote later. “What was to be done?”
The sun can beat down like a hammer this far south in Egypt, and 
Carter tried to use it to loosen the resins. For several hours he set 
the mummy outside in blazing sunshine that heated it to 149 degrees 
* See map on next page
Chap 3.indd   22 12/6/2024   11:37:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 3


3.  Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues
A. R. Williams
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? 	forensic reconstruction ?? funerary treasures
?? 	scudded across ?? 	circumvented
?? 	casket grey ?? 	computed tomography
?? 	resurrection ?? 	eerie detail
He was just a teenager when he 
died. The last heir of a powerful 
family that had ruled Egypt 
and its empire for centuries, 
he was laid to rest laden with 
gold and eventually forgotten. 
Since the discovery of his tomb 
in 1922, the modern world has 
speculated about what happened 
to him, with murder being the 
most extreme possibility. Now, 
leaving his tomb for the first 
time in almost 80 years, Tut 
has undergone a CT scan that 
offers new clues about his life and 
death — and provides precise 
data for an accurate forensic 
reconstruction of the boyish 
pharaoh.
Chap 3.indd   21 12/6/2024   11:37:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
22 Hornbill An angry wind stirred up ghostly dust devils as King Tut was taken 
from his resting place in the ancient Egyptian cemetery known as 
the Valley of the Kings*. Dark-bellied clouds had scudded across the 
desert sky all day and now were veiling the stars in casket grey. It 
was 6 p.m. on 5 January 2005. The world’s most famous mummy 
glided head first into a CT scanner brought here to probe the lingering 
medical mysteries of this little understood young ruler who died more 
than 3,300 years ago.
All afternoon the usual line of tourists from around the world had 
descended into the cramped, rock-cut tomb some 26 feet underground 
to pay their respects. They gazed at the murals on the walls of the burial 
chamber and peered at Tut’s gilded face, the most striking feature of his 
mummy-shaped outer coffin lid. Some visitors read from guidebooks in a 
whisper. Others stood silently, perhaps pondering Tut’s untimely death in 
his late teens, or wondering with a shiver if the pharaoh’s curse — death 
or misfortune falling upon those who disturbed him — was really true. 
“The mummy is in very bad condition because of what Carter did in 
the 1920s,” said Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme 
Council of Antiquities, as he leaned over the body for a long first look. 
Carter—Howard Carter, that is — was the British archaeologist who in 
1922 discovered Tut’s tomb after years of futile searching. Its contents, 
though hastily ransacked in antiquity, were surprisingly complete. 
They remain the richest royal collection ever found and have become 
part of the pharaoh’s legend. Stunning artefacts in gold, their eternal 
brilliance meant to guarantee resurrection, caused a sensation at 
the time of the discovery — and still get the most attention. But Tut 
was also buried with everyday things he’d want in the afterlife: board 
games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, cases of food and wine.
After months of carefully recording the pharaoh’s funerary 
treasures, Carter began investigating his three nested coffins. Opening 
the first, he found a shroud adorned with garlands of willow and olive 
leaves, wild celery, lotus petals, and cornflowers, the faded evidence 
of a burial in March or April. When he finally reached the mummy, 
though, he ran into trouble. The ritual resins had hardened, cementing 
Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin. “No amount of legitimate 
force could move them,” Carter wrote later. “What was to be done?”
The sun can beat down like a hammer this far south in Egypt, and 
Carter tried to use it to loosen the resins. For several hours he set 
the mummy outside in blazing sunshine that heated it to 149 degrees 
* See map on next page
Chap 3.indd   22 12/6/2024   11:37:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Discovering Tu T: THe s Ag A c on Tinues 23
(map not to scale)
AFr ICA
ASIA
 r iver
EGypT
Nile
Chap 3.indd   23 12/6/2024   11:37:06 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 4


3.  Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues
A. R. Williams
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? 	forensic reconstruction ?? funerary treasures
?? 	scudded across ?? 	circumvented
?? 	casket grey ?? 	computed tomography
?? 	resurrection ?? 	eerie detail
He was just a teenager when he 
died. The last heir of a powerful 
family that had ruled Egypt 
and its empire for centuries, 
he was laid to rest laden with 
gold and eventually forgotten. 
Since the discovery of his tomb 
in 1922, the modern world has 
speculated about what happened 
to him, with murder being the 
most extreme possibility. Now, 
leaving his tomb for the first 
time in almost 80 years, Tut 
has undergone a CT scan that 
offers new clues about his life and 
death — and provides precise 
data for an accurate forensic 
reconstruction of the boyish 
pharaoh.
Chap 3.indd   21 12/6/2024   11:37:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
22 Hornbill An angry wind stirred up ghostly dust devils as King Tut was taken 
from his resting place in the ancient Egyptian cemetery known as 
the Valley of the Kings*. Dark-bellied clouds had scudded across the 
desert sky all day and now were veiling the stars in casket grey. It 
was 6 p.m. on 5 January 2005. The world’s most famous mummy 
glided head first into a CT scanner brought here to probe the lingering 
medical mysteries of this little understood young ruler who died more 
than 3,300 years ago.
All afternoon the usual line of tourists from around the world had 
descended into the cramped, rock-cut tomb some 26 feet underground 
to pay their respects. They gazed at the murals on the walls of the burial 
chamber and peered at Tut’s gilded face, the most striking feature of his 
mummy-shaped outer coffin lid. Some visitors read from guidebooks in a 
whisper. Others stood silently, perhaps pondering Tut’s untimely death in 
his late teens, or wondering with a shiver if the pharaoh’s curse — death 
or misfortune falling upon those who disturbed him — was really true. 
“The mummy is in very bad condition because of what Carter did in 
the 1920s,” said Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme 
Council of Antiquities, as he leaned over the body for a long first look. 
Carter—Howard Carter, that is — was the British archaeologist who in 
1922 discovered Tut’s tomb after years of futile searching. Its contents, 
though hastily ransacked in antiquity, were surprisingly complete. 
They remain the richest royal collection ever found and have become 
part of the pharaoh’s legend. Stunning artefacts in gold, their eternal 
brilliance meant to guarantee resurrection, caused a sensation at 
the time of the discovery — and still get the most attention. But Tut 
was also buried with everyday things he’d want in the afterlife: board 
games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, cases of food and wine.
After months of carefully recording the pharaoh’s funerary 
treasures, Carter began investigating his three nested coffins. Opening 
the first, he found a shroud adorned with garlands of willow and olive 
leaves, wild celery, lotus petals, and cornflowers, the faded evidence 
of a burial in March or April. When he finally reached the mummy, 
though, he ran into trouble. The ritual resins had hardened, cementing 
Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin. “No amount of legitimate 
force could move them,” Carter wrote later. “What was to be done?”
The sun can beat down like a hammer this far south in Egypt, and 
Carter tried to use it to loosen the resins. For several hours he set 
the mummy outside in blazing sunshine that heated it to 149 degrees 
* See map on next page
Chap 3.indd   22 12/6/2024   11:37:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Discovering Tu T: THe s Ag A c on Tinues 23
(map not to scale)
AFr ICA
ASIA
 r iver
EGypT
Nile
Chap 3.indd   23 12/6/2024   11:37:06 AM
Reprint 2025-26
24 Hornbill Fahrenheit. Nothing budged. He reported with scientific detachment 
that “the consolidated material had to be chiselled away from beneath 
the limbs and trunk before it was possible to raise the king’s remains.”
In his defence, Carter really had little choice. If he hadn’t 
cut the mummy free, thieves most certainly would have 
circumvented the guards and ripped it apart to remove the 
gold. In Tut’s time the royals were fabulously wealthy, and they 
thought — or hoped — they could take their riches with them. For 
his journey to the great beyond, King Tut was lavished with glittering 
goods: precious collars, inlaid necklaces and bracelets, rings, amulets, 
a ceremonial apron, sandals, sheaths for his fingers and toes, and 
the now iconic inner coffin and mask — all of pure gold. To separate 
Tut from his adornments, Carter’s men removed the mummy’s head 
and severed nearly every major joint. Once they had finished, they 
reassembled the remains on a layer of sand in a wooden box with 
padding that concealed the damage, the bed where Tut now rests.
Archaeology has changed substantially in the intervening 
decades, focusing less on treasure and more on the fascinating 
details of life and intriguing mysteries of death. It also uses more 
sophisticated tools, including medical technology. In 1968, more 
than 40 years after Carter’s discovery, an anatomy professor 
X-rayed the mummy and revealed a startling fact: beneath the resin that 
cakes his chest, his breast-bone and front ribs are missing.
Today diagnostic imaging can be done with computed tomography, 
or CT, by which hundreds of X-rays in cross section are put together 
like slices of bread to create a three-dimensional virtual body. What 
more would a CT scan reveal of Tut than the X-ray? And could it answer 
two of the biggest questions still lingering about him — how did he 
die, and how old was he at the time of his death?
King Tut’s demise was a big event, even by royal standards. He 
was the last of his family’s line, and his funeral was the death rattle of 
a dynasty. But the particulars of his passing away and its aftermath 
are unclear.
Amenhotep III — Tut’s father or grandfather — was a powerful 
pharaoh who ruled for almost four decades at the height of the 
eighteenth dynasty’s golden age. His son Amenhotep IV succeeded 
him and initiated one of the strangest periods in the history of ancient 
Egypt. The new pharaoh promoted the worship of the Aten, the sun 
disk, changed his name to Akhenaten, or ‘servant of the Aten,’ and 
moved the religious capital from the old city of Thebes to the new city 
of Akhetaten, known now as Amarna. He further shocked the country 
Chap 3.indd   24 12/6/2024   11:37:06 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 5


3.  Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues
A. R. Williams
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? 	forensic reconstruction ?? funerary treasures
?? 	scudded across ?? 	circumvented
?? 	casket grey ?? 	computed tomography
?? 	resurrection ?? 	eerie detail
He was just a teenager when he 
died. The last heir of a powerful 
family that had ruled Egypt 
and its empire for centuries, 
he was laid to rest laden with 
gold and eventually forgotten. 
Since the discovery of his tomb 
in 1922, the modern world has 
speculated about what happened 
to him, with murder being the 
most extreme possibility. Now, 
leaving his tomb for the first 
time in almost 80 years, Tut 
has undergone a CT scan that 
offers new clues about his life and 
death — and provides precise 
data for an accurate forensic 
reconstruction of the boyish 
pharaoh.
Chap 3.indd   21 12/6/2024   11:37:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
22 Hornbill An angry wind stirred up ghostly dust devils as King Tut was taken 
from his resting place in the ancient Egyptian cemetery known as 
the Valley of the Kings*. Dark-bellied clouds had scudded across the 
desert sky all day and now were veiling the stars in casket grey. It 
was 6 p.m. on 5 January 2005. The world’s most famous mummy 
glided head first into a CT scanner brought here to probe the lingering 
medical mysteries of this little understood young ruler who died more 
than 3,300 years ago.
All afternoon the usual line of tourists from around the world had 
descended into the cramped, rock-cut tomb some 26 feet underground 
to pay their respects. They gazed at the murals on the walls of the burial 
chamber and peered at Tut’s gilded face, the most striking feature of his 
mummy-shaped outer coffin lid. Some visitors read from guidebooks in a 
whisper. Others stood silently, perhaps pondering Tut’s untimely death in 
his late teens, or wondering with a shiver if the pharaoh’s curse — death 
or misfortune falling upon those who disturbed him — was really true. 
“The mummy is in very bad condition because of what Carter did in 
the 1920s,” said Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme 
Council of Antiquities, as he leaned over the body for a long first look. 
Carter—Howard Carter, that is — was the British archaeologist who in 
1922 discovered Tut’s tomb after years of futile searching. Its contents, 
though hastily ransacked in antiquity, were surprisingly complete. 
They remain the richest royal collection ever found and have become 
part of the pharaoh’s legend. Stunning artefacts in gold, their eternal 
brilliance meant to guarantee resurrection, caused a sensation at 
the time of the discovery — and still get the most attention. But Tut 
was also buried with everyday things he’d want in the afterlife: board 
games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, cases of food and wine.
After months of carefully recording the pharaoh’s funerary 
treasures, Carter began investigating his three nested coffins. Opening 
the first, he found a shroud adorned with garlands of willow and olive 
leaves, wild celery, lotus petals, and cornflowers, the faded evidence 
of a burial in March or April. When he finally reached the mummy, 
though, he ran into trouble. The ritual resins had hardened, cementing 
Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin. “No amount of legitimate 
force could move them,” Carter wrote later. “What was to be done?”
The sun can beat down like a hammer this far south in Egypt, and 
Carter tried to use it to loosen the resins. For several hours he set 
the mummy outside in blazing sunshine that heated it to 149 degrees 
* See map on next page
Chap 3.indd   22 12/6/2024   11:37:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Discovering Tu T: THe s Ag A c on Tinues 23
(map not to scale)
AFr ICA
ASIA
 r iver
EGypT
Nile
Chap 3.indd   23 12/6/2024   11:37:06 AM
Reprint 2025-26
24 Hornbill Fahrenheit. Nothing budged. He reported with scientific detachment 
that “the consolidated material had to be chiselled away from beneath 
the limbs and trunk before it was possible to raise the king’s remains.”
In his defence, Carter really had little choice. If he hadn’t 
cut the mummy free, thieves most certainly would have 
circumvented the guards and ripped it apart to remove the 
gold. In Tut’s time the royals were fabulously wealthy, and they 
thought — or hoped — they could take their riches with them. For 
his journey to the great beyond, King Tut was lavished with glittering 
goods: precious collars, inlaid necklaces and bracelets, rings, amulets, 
a ceremonial apron, sandals, sheaths for his fingers and toes, and 
the now iconic inner coffin and mask — all of pure gold. To separate 
Tut from his adornments, Carter’s men removed the mummy’s head 
and severed nearly every major joint. Once they had finished, they 
reassembled the remains on a layer of sand in a wooden box with 
padding that concealed the damage, the bed where Tut now rests.
Archaeology has changed substantially in the intervening 
decades, focusing less on treasure and more on the fascinating 
details of life and intriguing mysteries of death. It also uses more 
sophisticated tools, including medical technology. In 1968, more 
than 40 years after Carter’s discovery, an anatomy professor 
X-rayed the mummy and revealed a startling fact: beneath the resin that 
cakes his chest, his breast-bone and front ribs are missing.
Today diagnostic imaging can be done with computed tomography, 
or CT, by which hundreds of X-rays in cross section are put together 
like slices of bread to create a three-dimensional virtual body. What 
more would a CT scan reveal of Tut than the X-ray? And could it answer 
two of the biggest questions still lingering about him — how did he 
die, and how old was he at the time of his death?
King Tut’s demise was a big event, even by royal standards. He 
was the last of his family’s line, and his funeral was the death rattle of 
a dynasty. But the particulars of his passing away and its aftermath 
are unclear.
Amenhotep III — Tut’s father or grandfather — was a powerful 
pharaoh who ruled for almost four decades at the height of the 
eighteenth dynasty’s golden age. His son Amenhotep IV succeeded 
him and initiated one of the strangest periods in the history of ancient 
Egypt. The new pharaoh promoted the worship of the Aten, the sun 
disk, changed his name to Akhenaten, or ‘servant of the Aten,’ and 
moved the religious capital from the old city of Thebes to the new city 
of Akhetaten, known now as Amarna. He further shocked the country 
Chap 3.indd   24 12/6/2024   11:37:06 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Discovering Tu T: THe s Ag A c on Tinues 25
by attacking Amun, a major god, smashing his images and closing 
his temples. “It must have been a horrific time,” said r ay Johnson, 
director of the University of Chicago’s research centre in Luxor, the 
site of ancient Thebes. “The family that had ruled for centuries was 
coming to an end, and then Akhenaten went a little wacky.”
After Akhenaten’s death, a mysterious ruler named Smenkhkare 
appeared briefly and exited with hardly a trace. And then a very young 
Tutankhaten took the throne — King Tut as he’s widely known today. 
The boy king soon changed his name to Tutankhamun, ‘living image 
of Amun,’ and oversaw a restoration of the old ways. He reigned for 
about nine years —and then died unexpectedly.
r egardless of his fame and the speculations about his fate, Tut is one 
mummy among many in Egypt. How many? No one knows. The Egyptian 
Mummy project, which began an inventory in late 2003, has recorded almost 
600 so far and is still counting. The next phase: scanning the mummies 
with a portable CT machine donated by the National Geographic Society 
and Siemens, its manufacturer. King Tut is one of the first mummies to be 
scanned — in death, as in life, moving regally ahead of his countrymen.
A CT machine scanned the mummy head to toe, creating 1,700 
digital X-ray images in cross section. Tut’s head, scanned in 0.62 
millimetre slices to register its intricate structures, takes on eerie 
detail in the resulting image. With Tut’s entire body similarly recorded, 
a team of specialists in radiology, forensics, and anatomy began to 
probe the secrets that the winged goddesses of a gilded burial shrine 
protected for so long.
The night of the scan, workmen carried Tut from the tomb in 
his box. Like pallbearers they climbed a ramp and a flight of stairs 
into the swirling sand outside, then rose on a hydraulic lift into the 
trailer that held the scanner. Twenty minutes later two men emerged, 
sprinted for an office nearby, and returned with a pair of white plastic 
fans. The million-dollar scanner had quit because of sand in a cooler 
fan. “Curse of the pharaoh,” joked a guard nervously.
Eventually the substitute fans worked well enough to finish the 
procedure. After checking that no data had been lost, the technicians 
turned Tut over to the workmen, who carried him back to his tomb. 
Less than three hours after he was removed from his coffin, the 
pharaoh again rested in peace where the funerary priests had laid 
him so long ago.
Back in the trailer a technician pulled up astonishing images of 
Tut on a computer screen. A grey head took shape from a scattering 
Chap 3.indd   25 12/6/2024   11:37:06 AM
Reprint 2025-26