The face of Tutankhamun reconsidered

I've taken another look at the face of King Tutankhamun and I've decided that the facial reconstruction performed a couple of eyars ago was way off the mark. Looking at the glorious oberbite I blelieve that King Tut may have looked more like this:



ie, Dwayne Dibley, the cat's alter ego in Red Dwarf. Perhaps the other reconstruction is better!

The face of Tutankhamun

This really is one of those “Wow” moments for me: the true face of Tutankhamun was revealed yesterday when it went on display to the general public.. The actual face of the 19-year-old monarch was put on view in his underground tomb at Luxor. Naturally the face is shrivelled and leather-like from the embalming process but the features are clearly visible: King Tut’s face clearly displays the "overbite" which was characteristic of the Thurmosid royal line to which Tutankhamun belonged.

The display comes at the end of a two-year restoration of the mummy itself, which was badly damaged by Carter and his staff when they removed the death mask and other jewels decorating the body. The restoration, supervised by Egypt's head of antiquities, Zahi Hawass, is intended to protect the mummy for the future as there are fears that its condition is deteriorating with mass tourism and the large number of visitors to the tomb. "The humidity and heat caused by people entering the tomb and their breathing will change the mummy to a powder," said Dr Hawass. "The only good thing [left] in this mummy is the face. We need to preserve the face."

The mummy will remain in the tomb indefinitely and tourists will begin viewing the mummy today. The Egyptian tourism industry is hoping to capitalise on the interest and draw tourists to Luxor to see something they couldn't find elsewhere. Dr Hawass put it this way: "Everyone is dreaming of what he looks like. The face of Tutankhamun is different from any king in the Cairo museum. With his beautiful buck teeth, the tourists will see a little bit of the smile from the face of the golden boy,"

Interestingly two years ago scientists carried out facial reconstructions of Tutankhamun based on scans of his skull. This was one of the images produced