Tutankhamun in Geneva

This week I ventured to Geneva which is in the west, French-speaking part of Switzerland. I went there because I had seen online that they were having an expo on Tutankhamun. While the artifacts were all fake, they were replicas of everything that was found in Tut's tomb when it was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. Perhaps someday I will make it to see the real artifacts, but until then this was fascinating!

The tomb of King Tut (as he is commonly known) is the only pharaoh tomb to be found that was almost intact - meaning it had not been badly looted as many of the other tomb's in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

Tutankhamun became pharaoh of  Egypt at a young age (9 or 10). He died at age 19 apparently from getting run over by a chariot. This cause of death was just announce today believe it or not. For more on that visit: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/solved-the-mystery-of-king-tutankhamuns-death-8919262.html.

He was buried in a series of 4 gold-leafed wooden boxes. To the left is the inside of the largest one. On the bottom of the shrine is shown the footprint of the other 4 gold-leafed boxes, the stone sarcophagus, and the outer golden coffin.








To the right is a picture of the 2 of the other 3 gold-leafed shrines.

These are details of the design work on the gold-leafed shrines. It is quite impressive!

The first coffin is made entirely of gold. Although you can't see the top, it has the "eternal" face of Tutankhamun on it. I say eternal face because he really didn't look like this. Above is the face from the second coffin.


To the left is the open third coffin which contain the remains of Tutankhamun. He wore the golden mask that is now so famous as well as many other jewels.

To the right is the coffin of one of King Tut's daughters. He had 2, both of which were stillborn therefore leaving no heir.


To the left are small coffins that contained the vital organs of the pharaoh. These were the heart, lungs, stomach, and intestines. The heart is missing from King Tut. It is thought that the heart was too damaged to preserve (according to the article above). Each of these coffins was then placed inside a stone tube as shown on the right. This also had the face of the pharaoh. These tubes were placed inside another stone box which was then place inside a gold-leafed box seen in the background.



The burial, the tomb, and the artifacts were all so the pharaoh could journey to the afterlife. He was buried with cloths, shoes, his throne, ships, weapons, and food that was all to help him during his eternal life in the afterlife.

In general he was buried with very expensive thing many of which were made of gold.

 

I also made a quick stop to look at the United Nations. I couldn't see much with the security and fences and the like. I was disappointed that none of the country flags were flying. But I took a picture anyways and moved on.

Finally I made my way to the Patek Phillipe Museum. It showcases time-pieces from the 1500's through today. I was quite interesting to see how watches have evolved. I wasn't allowed to take anything into the museum with me. I was "buzzed in" at the door. You can see the door man in the picture. They also had security throughout the museum walking around to spy on everyone. Obviously this mean no pictures. If you are really curious to the insane intricacy of some of these watches, here's the link : http://www.patekmuseum.com/main.asp