Truth behind the mask

EXACTLY 100 years ago, in Egypt’sValley of the Kings – or 99 years and four months ago if we’re being picky – British archaeologist Howard Carter came face-to-face at last with Tutankhamun, the legendary Egyptian boy king.

And yet apparently the experience left him somewhat underwhelmed. According to historian Bettany Hughes, who reflects on it tonight in a new Channel 5 documentary: “He didn’t really feel like he’d got to know Tutankhamun the man.”

To some extent, of course, this was understandable. Tu tank hamun was never likely to be in one of his chattier moods that day, laid out as he was in a golden coffin – as he’d been for 3,000 years – and a teensy bit too mummified for company.

But what Carter really meant was that finding his body, the culmination of what had begun to look like a fruitless quest, still

answered very few questions about the pharaoh himself.

“Even though the shadows have moved, the darkness hasn’t dispersed,” is apparently how he put it, this being 1922 when people still spoke that way. TUTANKHAMUN: WAKING

THE DEAD (9pm) reveals how today’s technology has solved at least some of the mystery – one of its plus points being that you can now point a piece of equipment at what is essentially, with respect, a pile of old bones and, provided you’ve read the instructions and remembered to plug it in, discover fascinating things about the person they once belonged to. Back in 1922, the equivalent equipment would have just shrugged.

Mummification actually helps in this respect. The Ancient Egyptians developed it in the hope of preserving bodies for eternity, but an unexpected spin-off benefit is that it leaves us with far more body tissue to work with. (I say “us” – I can’t say I’m personally that keen).

Travelling to Cairo, Bettany meets up with an old radiographer friend, Professor Sahar Saleem, who’s examined more than 40 royal mummies.

Bettany gets excited just by touching the table on which Tutankhamun’s remains were laid out for his CT scan. “I just have to have a moment and put my hands on here,” she says.

Mind you, that scan did turn out to be quite a big deal, revealing some remarkable detail. Sahar was even able to conclude that the king had a lisp.

“If Tutankhamun would call my name,” she suggests, “instead of Sahar he would say ‘Thahar’.”

We’re told he also had a club foot and a fractured femur and suffered several bouts of malaria.

But what was it that actually finished the poor chap off?

It turns out that it might have been a virus.

So even a mask made of gold is a fat lot of good.