19 August 2008

King Tut's Pecs



Classes haven't started yet, but I have my first assignment as a graduate research assistant. I was the only person to answer the call to help a professor move offices, so I got to meet Dr. C, who then emailed me with a request to find out how many pectorals were found in Tutankhamun's tomb. Of course I was happy to get an assignment and thought it would be pretty easy. Of course it wasn't.
Howard Carter found the tomb of Tutankhamun in November 1926. Or maybe it was 1922. Anyway, Tutankhamun was the Pharaoh who succeeded the Heretic King Akenaten's disastrous (according to many) reign of terror. Ok, not terror. I just like saying that. Akenaten decided that the sun god Aten was the only god and shut down (shutting out power to) all the temples to the other gods. I might post more later about this period of time. It was interesting. Christians LOVE to claim that this was the very first example of monotheism. As if monotheism is the be-all end-all of religion (which is highly debatable and rests on some very shakey assumptions about evolution and "progress"). And as if Akenaten's worship of the Aten is somehow an early version of Yaweh/Jehovah/Christian god worship (which it is definitely NOT).
But I digress.
My assignment was to count the number of pectorals and let her know how many there were. Dr. C said that reports conflict, where some sources say 26 and others 27.
After hours and hours of work, I was able to definitively say that I still don't know.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Intersting...very interesting. I look forward to more posts.