Religion
Related: About this forumKing Tut's Mummified Erect Penis May Point to Ancient Religious Struggle
By Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor | January 02, 2014 10:03pm ET
Egypt's King Tutankhamun was embalmed in an unusual way, including having his penis mummified at a 90-degree angle, in an effort to combat a religious revolution unleashed by his father, a new study suggests.
The pharaoh was buried in Egypt's Valley of the Kings without a heart (or a replacement artifact known as a heart scarab); his penis was mummified erect; and his mummy and coffins were covered in a thick layer of black liquid that appear to have resulted in the boy-king catching fire.
These anomalies have received both scholarly and media attention in recent years, and a new paper in the journal Études et Travaux by Egyptologist Salima Ikram, a professor at the American University in Cairo, proposes a reason why they, and other Tutankhamun burial anomalies, exist. [See Photos of King Tut's Mummy & His Burial]
The mummified erect penis and other burial anomalies were not accidents during embalming, Ikram suggests, but rather deliberate attempts to make the king appear as Osiris, the god of the underworld, in as literal a way as possible. The erect penis evokes Osiris' regenerative powers; the black liquid made Tutankhamun's skin color resemble that of Osiris; and the lost heart recalled the story of the god being cut to pieces by his brother Seth and his heart buried.
http://www.livescience.com/42290-king-tut-mummified-penis-explained.html
I think we all need a break.
Oh, and find your own damned picture.
In_The_Wind
(72,300 posts)Lint Head
(15,064 posts)FreakinDJ
(17,644 posts)Xipe Totec
(43,887 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)but I fear it would just fuel the conspiracy theory that we are actually the same person.
struggle4progress
(118,202 posts)cap was undamaged, as was an associated linen shroud. While the mummy of King Tutankhamun does not seem to have actually "caught fire," it is believed to have smouldered as a result of heat released from the oxidation of oils in the linen wrapping-bands, producing some charring of the bands and skin, which correspondingly darkened. The body itself lay under a gold funerary mask, inside three nested coffins, which in turn were contained first in a granite sarcophagus, which itself lay inside four nested "shrines" -- so that oxygen availability at the oil-soaked wrapping-bands should have been quite limited
An important feature of the burial is that it seems to have been quite hasty, perhaps associated with the sudden and unexpected death of the boy-king in a torso-crushing chariot accident: the (damaged and sloppily repaired) red-granite lid of the granite sarcophagus does not match the sarcophagus itself, for example, and there is some evidence that the gold funerary mask was not originally intended for Tutankhamun but was reworked to serve his burial. A natural guess, therefore, is that the oil-soaked linen might also have been applied hastily, and not wrapped tightly enough, so enough air was incorporated to support some subsequent oxidative degradation of the wrappings
The use of dark liquid bitumen as a mummification reagent became common in Egypt during classical antiquity, but such materials were not used for earlier royal mummifications: the preferred "cedar oil" (made from juniper) was actually a golden brown color
the black liquid
okasha
(11,573 posts)originally belonged to Nefertiti. Check out the gold-and-ebony statues of the "hunting Pharoah." They clearly depict a female figure.
struggle4progress
(118,202 posts)it is plausible that some of Nefertiti's goods were part of his household
Igel
(35,268 posts)Roughly cut out and steal the heart. Make the point that the new pharaoh was a dick.
And then leave it to others to try to cover things up. Or perhaps the vandal(s) covered him up and set him on fire.
Unless, of course, we want to integrate fire as somehow deepening the resemblance to Osiris in some way yet unknown.
(Then again, I'm fairly convinced that in 5000 years any outhouses or bathrooms that are discovered will be described as religious centers for ceremonial washings and offerings to the god of the underworld.)
LeftishBrit
(41,202 posts)that there are very many articles that begin, 'King Tut's mummified erect penis'!
struggle4progress
(118,202 posts)what rolls that way when confrontin deep and important world-mysteries, and I am discover it do turn out how that King Tut ain't the only pharoah still busily bein virile whilst dead, which's to say this aren't such an unheard-of-ism here in this case
So I regard that as another inaccuracy in the article
Also I feel it very crucial and significant to point out King Tut most probably ain't impersonatin the green-skinned god Osiris here but are much more likely impersonatin the god Min, who often be representin in paintin or in statuette as havin Min Jr standin up proud and tall, with a pharoanic flail in one hand (and sometimes keepin a firm grip on Min Jr with the other hand)
And although Osiris doesn't really fit the "ancient religious struggle" theme, Min might. At some point in Egyptian history the god Amun apparently began to absorb other gods, most notably Min and Ra. The significant religious dispute in the boy-king's era was the Amun-Aten struggle. Tutankamun's father, originally Amenhotep IV, at some point attempted to convert Egypt to monotheism centering around worship of the sun-disk Aten and accordingly changed his name to Akhenaten. The boy-king's original name was Tutankhaten, but after his father's death, the Amun faction prevailed, Akhenaten was officially purged from the records, and the son's name was changed to Tutankhamen. Thus a mummification of Tutankhamen emphasizing his identification with Amun/Min might have been ideologically significant to the Amun faction