The Mystery of Tutankhamun

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun's mask in 1925, so I hope we can have an enjoyable conversation today. Ms. Yamahana, when did you first become interested in Egypt?

One catalyst was when I went to the United States at the age of 16. I attended a local school, but I couldn't speak any English at the time, so I was placed in a remedial class. There, I was given an assignment to choose any one book I liked from the library and write a report on it. The first book that caught my eye was one about Tutankhamun.

So that's what sparked your interest in Egypt.

I was interested at the time, but not to the point of being completely absorbed. However, a little while later, I ended up taking a summer course at Ohio State University. In the Western history course, there was a lecture titled "The Battle of Actium." It had no connection to Tutankhamun, but it was the final, decisive naval battle between Cleopatra, Mark Antony, and Octavian.

The Western history professor for that course spoke about events from thousands of years ago as if they had happened yesterday. He was an incredibly skilled storyteller, and I was instantly drawn into the era of Cleopatra and ancient Egypt.

It sounds like it was a fateful encounter.

Then, before returning to Japan, I spent my graduate school years in Chicago. At the time, there were no experts around me involved in the study of Cleopatra, but I still wanted to do something related to Egypt, so I began my research on ancient Egypt, which continues to this day. Now, my research focuses on archaeology, particularly on arts and crafts such as glass.

My first encounter with ancient Egypt was when I was in the first grade of elementary school. At the time, there was a documentary series on NHK called "Legacy for the Future" that had a special feature on Egypt, including the pyramids and Tutankhamun. Watching that was one of the triggers for me.

I also loved hero shows and watched things like *Ultraman*, *Kamen Rider*, and *Giant Robo*. I wonder if Tutankhamun looked like a hero to me, too. I mean, Giant Robo's face is basically Tutankhamun, isn't it? (laughs).

They look exactly alike.

"What on earth is this?" I thought. As a child, I misunderstood and thought there might have been a hero in ancient civilization. That's what got me interested.

So your admiration for heroes led you to ancient Egypt.

After that, my father happened to buy me a book from a local bookstore, "The Secret of King Tutankhamun" from Kodansha's Aoi Tori Bunko series. I was completely hooked and read it over and over again.

Around that time, Professor Sakuji Yoshimura, who would later become my mentor, started appearing on television. On Nippon TV's Thursday Special, there was a weekly series about building a one-tenth scale pyramid. I was glued to that as well, and my friends and I would pretend to pull stones by tying ropes to them. It feels like that silly boy just never grew up and kept chasing after Egypt, and this is the result (laughs).

Listening to you both, I was searching my own memories, and one trigger for me was a reference book called "High Top" from Obunsha, which was popular when I was in the sixth grade. A page about ancient Egypt featured the Pyramid of Khufu, and the moment I saw it, I thought, "This is it!" That's what sparked my interest in Egypt.

So the pyramids were your starting point.

But there was a preliminary stage before that. In my elementary school library, there was a section called "The Afterlife You Don't Know About," which had books on things like spirit photography. From there, I became interested in the concept of "human thoughts and feelings," and that interest blossomed when I was in the sixth grade.

So you had a strong interest in human thoughts and feelings?

Not in a negative sense, but I always wondered about things like leaving one's feelings behind in this world, or what it means to have strong feelings, good or bad, for someone. It was then that I saw the Pyramid of Khufu in "High Top" and felt it was a condensation of human thoughts and feelings. That's when I was suddenly drawn to Egypt.

My specialty is Egyptian mythology and religion, and in my classes, I talk to students about Egyptian identity. Egyptian mythology is packed with various elements, including some similar to those in Mesopotamia or even Japan. By making these comparisons, we can begin to understand the identity of the Egyptians and how they perceived themselves.

Furthermore, Egypt has a wealth of materials left behind, such as crafts, ruins, artifacts, and architecture. Unraveling the thoughts and feelings embedded in them is what motivates me now.

As Ms. Tazawa mentioned, one of the attractions of ancient Egyptian civilization is the vast amount of available material. By reading the texts, we can understand how the people of that time viewed the world.

In the case of Egyptology, it's mandatory for archaeologists to learn the script as well. In other regions, it's common for those who study texts and those who study material culture to be in separate fields.

Egyptology has a lot of overlap in that area, doesn't it?

Egypt has many murals, and the text and images depicted on the walls complement each other to convey meaning. To understand their worldview and spirituality, you have to be able to read the script.

If you were to approach it with standard archaeological methods without knowing the script, the meaning would be lost.

You wouldn't be able to decipher the intentions of the people from that time.

Exactly. I think that's part of its charm and what makes it so interesting.

There are some researchers involved in West Asian studies who don't go to the sites. A teacher I know who runs a culture school was apparently asked by a student, "Professor, how many times have you been to the sites?" and I was struck by her reply: "That's a tough one. I've never been, not even once." It seems there are quite a few like that.

But with Egypt, you can't understand it unless you go.

Going to the actual sites is truly important, isn't it?

That's right. In Egypt, the shape of the crafts, the shape of the ruins, the shape of the iconography—it's all a form of writing. And everything has a hidden memory. So to understand it, you really need to go to the sites and think, "What kind of place is this? What did the ancient people think in a place like this?"

He's famous now, but Tutankhamun was a rather unusual king, wasn't he?

He was a king of Egypt's New Kingdom period, the most prosperous era of ancient Egyptian civilization. His father was Akhenaten, who is known as the king who carried out a religious reformation, changing the worship of a myriad of gods to a monotheistic belief in a new sun god, the Aten.

However, it was only the monarchy that believed in this single god; the common people continued to worship the traditional gods, so it can't be called a complete monotheism.

So Tutankhamun was the pharaoh (king) who appeared after his father, who had done something so revolutionary.

However, partly because of that, the names of Tutankhamun and Akhenaten were erased from the king lists. In the order of succession, it goes from Tutankhamun's grandfather, Amenhotep III, to his father Akhenaten, then Tutankhamun, and his successor, Horemheb.

However, in the king list from the time of Ramesses II, who ascended the throne about 110 years after Tutankhamun, the names of the kings between Amenhotep III and Horemheb are erased. For this reason, Tutankhamun was also an unknown king for a long time.

He was erased from the records.

However, artifacts bearing Tutankhamun's name were found in 19th and 20th-century excavations. For example, Tutankhamun's name was found inside the cartouche (royal name frame) on a ring, so it was known that such a king existed, even though he wasn't on the king lists.

It was after his tomb was found that he became famous, right?

The discovery of his tomb made him the most famous pharaoh. Now, we are learning a lot about the people connected to Tutankhamun as well.

There are various theories about Tutankhamun's cause of death, aren't there? Like that he had a blood disease.

It's also said that he might have had malaria. But at that time, malaria was common, so it wasn't unusual.

We know from the mummy that he had a clubfoot, but that's genetic, right?

Yes, it's genetic. Recently, it's been suggested that he might have fallen from a chariot. The theory is that a leg wound then became infected, causing his condition to worsen.

And wasn't the mummy's heart missing?

That's right. Normally, it would be left in.

Especially for the royal family, the mummy would have been made according to strict customs, so it's unlikely it was removed by mistake.

But he died young, at 19, didn't he? So maybe they rushed things because of that. What are your thoughts on that?

Looking at the floor plan of Tutankhamun's tomb, it seems the tomb itself wasn't originally made for him. This is because there are clear signs that the tomb was expanded.

In other words, it makes more sense to think that a tomb originally prepared for another noble was modified for Tutankhamun's burial.

It was because of his sudden death that the tomb was a rush job.

We know it was made in a great hurry because there were many spots left on the murals. It's said that because the walls were sealed before the paint had completely dried, the humidity became extremely high, causing mold-like spots to form.

It's just like a bathroom. Sealing it while there was still moisture caused mold to grow.

That's why, not just for Tutankhamun, but royal tombs are sometimes closed to tourists. This is because the breath and sweat of visitors can increase the humidity inside, leading to mold growth or bacterial proliferation.

Because they were in such a hurry, it's possible the mummification process was also rushed. Maybe the heart was removed by mistake due to the haste. But that seems unlikely.

The reason for leaving the heart is that the ancient Egyptians believed the heart, not the head, was responsible for thought and speech. We now know that the brain controls the body's movements, but the Egyptians believed the heart was in charge, so it had to be left.

The fact that it's missing is a great mystery, isn't it?

When talking about Tutankhamun, we can't leave out the story of his discoverer, Howard Carter.

Of course. Tutankhamun's existence was known from small artifacts and such, but around the time Carter arrived in the Valley of the Kings, an American businessman named Theodore Davis held the excavation rights, so Carter couldn't get in.

However, just as World War I was about to begin, Davis ran out of money and left, declaring that the Valley of the Kings had been completely excavated.

Among the tombs Davis excavated is the tomb of King Horemheb, whom I mentioned earlier. Davis published a book titled "The Tombs of Horemheb and Touatânkhamanou," which combined the excavation report of this tomb with a report on Tutankhamun's tomb.

The "tomb of Tutankhamun" he referred to in this book was a very small pit, hardly a tomb, that contained artifacts of the king as well as items belonging to his vizier, Ay.

But Carter thought differently.

Yes. A short distance from the royal tombs, a pit was found containing tools used for Tutankhamun's mummification and items used in his funeral—what is technically called an embalming cache.

So, he reasoned that since there was clear evidence of a funeral, there must be a more substantial tomb. And just as the funding from his patron, Lord Carnarvon, was about to run out, he set his sights on the tomb of Ramesses VI.

It was truly a miraculous timing.

Yes. In front of the tomb of Ramesses VI, there were huts where workmen had rested. The space beneath them had been overlooked, as it was thought impossible that huts would be built on top of a tomb. But Carter believed that was exactly where Tutankhamun's tomb was. And he found it.

It's amazing he found it. He wasn't originally an archaeologist, was he?

He was an artist. His father was an artist, and he learned to draw from him. By chance, he was approached by Professor Percy Newberry of the University of Liverpool and was taken to Egypt at the age of 17.

At that time, photographic technology was not as advanced as it is today, so they would bring along specialized draftsmen to make copies. When surveying in Egypt, various artifacts, including murals, would be discovered, and it was crucial to record them accurately.

So he was both an artist and a recorder.

Carter's records are incredibly precise. At excavation sites, we always record in our field notes what was where and what shape it was, but he drew diagrams with a precision I feel I could never achieve. It's astonishing.

They are truly precise.

It's impossible with just archaeological training. He drew with the eye of an artist. Not only that, but he also photographed everything and meticulously took notes on each item, which is why we are now able to study so many artifacts.

Tutankhamun himself is a mysterious figure, but his mask is also full of mysteries.

That's right. There are many mysteries, especially concerning the glass used in the mask. Glass first came to Egypt during the reign of a king about six generations before Tutankhamun. Before that, glass existed in West Asia, around Mesopotamia, but not in Egypt.

Egypt was a latecomer when it came to glass, so they didn't know how to make it. However, since Egypt was a gold-producing country, they exported gold to other regions and obtained glass in exchange.

So glass was that important.

There have been several golden masks in Egyptian history, but among them, the craftsmanship of Tutankhamun's mask is of the highest standard.

It was made by forging, hammering and stretching the gold, and it was 1.5 to 3 millimeters thick. A 10-gram pure gold ingot in circulation today is about 1.8 millimeters thick, so you can get an idea by comparison. Various decorations were applied to this thick gold plate.

Glass is used in the headdress and collar sections, and scientific analysis has shown it to be glass with a blue colorant added.

So a variety of techniques came together to create just one mask.

That's right. Also, the purity of the gold is different between the face and other parts. And apparently, it's only different on the surface. The face part is not uniform, ranging from 18.4 to 23.2 karats, while the headdress is 23.5 karats, meaning it's almost pure gold.

The mask we see in images today is very beautiful, but it was in a terrible state when it was discovered. The golden mask was placed on the mummy, and outside of that was a solid gold coffin weighing about 110 kilograms. A black resin had hardened between the mask and the coffin.

Carter painstakingly removed it using something like a scalpel, and in total, there were two bucketfuls of it.

That's a mind-numbing task. Also, the large necklace and scepters that were originally on the mask when it was discovered have now been removed.

Therefore, the impression you get from the mask today is quite different from the mask at the time of its excavation. The excavated mask was adorned with all the items the king needed for his journey to the afterlife, but the current mask has had its symbolic royal ornaments removed.

It's like an icon created in the 20th century. Once excavated and put on display, it's detached from its original context, and that new image takes on a life of its own, so that for people, the golden mask equals Tutankhamun.

That's right. Once an image is established, it's hard to change.

Also, if you look at Tutankhamun's mask from the inside, you can see its structure clearly. It's constructed by joining the front and back parts right down the middle. This is called soldering, where a little copper is mixed in to fuse the gold pieces together. There are other golden masks from different eras, but they are just the face and front of the head hammered out from a single sheet of gold. That's why I believe Tutankhamun's mask is the most elaborate piece of goldwork in ancient Egyptian history.

It's a truly complex construction.

Regarding the production process, first, the front and back parts of the mask are hammered out from gold sheets and then soldered together. After that, the surface decorations are applied. The part we still don't fully understand how to make today is the blue glass of the striped headdress. The headdress has a very complex shape, with some sharp, angular bends. However, the blue glass is continuous, without any breaks at the corners.

There are several hypotheses. One is that the grooves of the golden mask's headdress were filled with glass powder and then heated in a kiln. However, there's a problem with this... the melting point of glass is higher than that of gold, so the gold would melt before the glass completely melts. Even if you add substances to the glass to lower its melting point, the molten glass would drip due to gravity and wouldn't maintain a uniform thickness. But the blue glass on the mask is a uniform thickness of about 8 millimeters.

Another possibility is to create a plaster mold of the same size as the mask, fill the grooves of the headdress with powdered glass, and melt it in a kiln. However, glass will crack if not cooled slowly, so it would take several weeks to complete.

It takes that long?

After the glass inside the plaster mold has cooled sufficiently, the mold is broken to extract the glass. The surface of the extracted glass is rough, so another theory is that it was polished until shiny, and then the finished glass decoration was attached to the golden mask. However, this is also practically impossible.

Despite being such a mysterious figure, Tutankhamun is very popular in Japan, isn't he? In 1965, the Tutankhamun exhibition was held at three venues in Tokyo, Fukuoka, and Kyoto, attracting about 2.93 million visitors in total. The Tutankhamun exhibition held in 2012 at the Ueno Royal Museum and the Osaka Tempozan Special Exhibition Gallery also drew about 2.08 million visitors.

The "MYSTERY OF TUTANKHAMEN" exhibition currently being held in Yokohama Minato Mirai (until December 25) is also popular, isn't it? It features incredibly detailed replicas. They are so well made, I'd love to have one (laughs).

He's popular not just in Japan, but worldwide. I mean, a tomb like this is just unbelievable. It's amazing enough that it contained over 5,000 grave goods, but for it to have remained almost completely unlooted... and these are things from about 3,400 years ago. The technology used is also incredibly advanced. The fact that there are so many incredible items is what keeps people endlessly fascinated, don't you think?

As someone who studies hieroglyphs, I feel there are actually many similarities with Kanji culture, but for the general public, it's so far removed from their daily lives that perhaps its remoteness makes them want to know more.

Also, when you compare the eras, this period in Japan was the Jomon period, so there might be a feeling of "Wow, it's amazing that people could make things like this back then."

There might be a kind of respect as well.

If Mesopotamia had yielded artifacts this amazing, it probably would have been just as popular. But there aren't many finds like this, are there? First of all, there isn't much color. Egypt, whether it's murals or anything else, is just so vibrant.

Well, gold is captivating.

It's human instinct, you could say.

Even the personal ornaments and jewelry—they're of a quality that wouldn't look out of place in a jewelry shop today, don't you think?

The latest exhibitions are truly amazing, aren't they? You never get tired of looking at them.

I think that's not just about Egypt, but also a trend in modern museums. The most important thing is inclusivity.

It's about being a universal museum, so we strive to create exhibits that are accessible to people with visual or hearing impairments.

They are becoming enjoyable for a wider range of people.

There's an app called UD Talk, which can automatically transcribe audio to text or read the transcribed text aloud. It's very convenient, and recently, when I hold workshops, some people use UD Talk to listen to my commentary.

Another common practice is to create replicas of artifacts with a 3D printer for visually impaired visitors to touch. To go back to the mask, for example, they can feel that there's no seam here, and things like that. All these details are reproduced, so I believe we can communicate in a way that allows people to experience what has been presented before on a much deeper level.

It sounds like we can enjoy a wider variety of exhibits.

And the fact that there are so many artifacts is a big deal. Tutankhamun alone has 5,000 items, so I think Egyptian exhibitions have enormous potential for the future.

Speaking of 3D, I had the opportunity to study Tutankhamun's chariot. With technical cooperation from JICA, the Grand Egyptian Museum, one of the world's largest museums, is being built near the pyramids in Giza, Egypt (with some permanent exhibitions opening from October 16, 2024). As part of that work, I was allowed to study the chariot.

That's an incredibly valuable experience.

Originally, the purpose was to conduct a diagnosis for conservation and restoration before transferring it from the old archaeological museum. As an expert on Tutankhamun, I was allowed to participate in the examination of the actual object.

Actually, there's something strange about this chariot. If you look at the surface of the body, there are traces of something having been attached. And not just traces, but there are also holes in some parts.

That's intriguing.

In fact, a sunshade was found along with the chariot, but Carter, the excavator, said it was something Tutankhamun used for shade when resting somewhere and that it was unrelated to the chariot.

However, what intrigued me was that this sunshade was trapezoidal when viewed from directly above. If it were a sunshade for resting, there would be no need for it to be trapezoidal.

True.

"Why is this trapezoidal?" To solve this mystery, I went to the Griffith Institute at the University of Oxford and was shown the actual original drawings made by Carter. There were detailed notes written all over them, and upon checking, I found that the connection between the chariot and the sunshade was indeed very strong.

When the bodies of the chariot and the sunshade were combined and viewed from above, it became clear that the poles attached to the sunshade fit perfectly into the holes. Based on this, I explained it to the head of the Grand Egyptian Museum at the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, and I was finally allowed inside the glass case to examine it closely and prove it.

That's an amazing exchange.

However, due to the condition of the chariot, it wasn't possible to actually attach it to its original position.

So what we did was, with the help of Professor Takeshi Oishi's team, who specialize in computer vision at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo, we performed a 3D scan. Based on that data, they joined them in virtual reality. The result showed that the two fit together perfectly. In other words, what we thought was a sunshade was actually the chariot's canopy.

That's very interesting.

The Grand Egyptian Museum will have its true opening when the Tutankhamun gallery opens, which is scheduled for July 3 of this year. There's a room with monitors inside, and we plan to screen a presentation about this discovery there. I really hope many people will get to see it.

It's not just about the exhibits; I believe there is great significance in preserving and restoring the objects and technologies of the time.

Once a technology is lost, it's incredibly difficult to recover. Through my own research, I believe it's very important to somehow preserve craft techniques that are on the verge of being lost. For example, if there are no successors, preserving them through various recording media is crucial.

That's very true. At first glance, it may seem like we know a lot about ancient Egypt, but in reality, there's still so much we don't understand.

I'm currently conducting research at a site called Saqqara, which is part of a World Heritage site. Even looking at satellite images, only a very small part, such as the pyramids and large mastabas (tombs), has been investigated. In Japanese academia, as in other fields, up until a certain point after the war, the focus was on absorbing and learning various information from Europe and America. But from now on, I want to go to the sites myself, or if there are collections in museums, to actually get my hands on them, observe them closely, and fill in the missing pieces.

It's not just for my own interest; I want the younger generation to experience for themselves that the mysteries of ancient Egypt can be solved.

Ms. Tazawa and I are the same age, and there are many Egyptologists of our generation in Japan. We really want to pass on this fascination to the next generation. It's quite challenging in reality, but while continuing our research, we want to educate the next generation. I hope to engage in various activities that can serve as a catalyst for that.

I'm at a museum, not a university. I have goals as a museum professional and hopes as a researcher for the future.

As a museum professional, I want to broaden the base of Egyptology. When we hold Egypt workshops at the museum, we get a huge number of applications. So, even if it's not about Tutankhamun, there are many interested people, and with the variety of teaching materials available for hieroglyphs now, even children come.

We have two types of workshop courses, one for adults and one for children, but now there are even children who can join the adult course.

That's amazing.

As their interest grows, middle and high school students start coming too. When their interest deepens further, they always ask, "Where is a good place to study Egyptology in Japan?" Back when we were students, it was more or less all about archaeology, but now there are experts in various fields.

I hope to guide as many of these children as possible and help nurture the next generation.

Without a new generation, research can't advance.

As a researcher, I want to interpret the world of the ancient Egyptians as someone steeped in Japanese culture. As Mr. Kawai said, especially when we were students, Egyptology was an imported field of study.

If I may speak frankly