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Show THE TOMB OF TUT-ANKH-AMEN The wonder of the world is aroused by the recent discovery of the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen, one of the Egyptian Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty or family of kings. Tut-ankh-Amen lived about 3,500 years ago and may have been one of the Pharaohs who oppressed the children of Israel. His name means "the living image of Amen," the sun god. Across the Nile river from the ancient city of Thebes, now Luxor, and back in the desert about five miles, is a valley burned brown by the blazing sun of centuries. It is known as the Valley of Kings because in its hillsides have been found the tombs of numerous num-erous Egyptian rulers who are believed to have chosen it as their burial place in the vain hope that i-a remoteness would save them from the depredations of tomb robbers. Tucked away in a sandstone cliff, the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen was found after a search of seven years by Howard Carter, a British Brit-ish Egyptologist, who was financed by Lord Carnarvon. Steep winding stairs lead down into a long gallery which opens into an ante-chamber, beyond which is the sepulchral chamber containing the sarcophagus, or stone coffin, of the king. Opening from both the outer and inner chambers are smaller annexes used as treasure rooms. All the rooms were packed with the possessions of the king, for it was the evident purpose to provide him with all necessities neces-sities and luxuries for another future life similar to his natural existence, exist-ence, which ended when he was a young man. There were boats in which he might travel in the world beyond. There were royal chariots plated with gold and studded with gems, kingly beds and a manikin on which the ruler's garments could be fashioned, fine linens and rich raiment, alabaster boxes, vase3 of ointment, jars of perfume, little pots of aromatic cosmetics, mummified meats and other foods, animal statues and hundreds of other objects representing represent-ing the treasures of royalty. Two life-size statues of Tut-ankh-Amen, with the royal cobra inlaid in bronze and gold on the foreheads, guarded the sealed door of the inner room. Vithin this chamber, under a gold-leafed and jeweled canopy, amid heaps of precious stones cut in the form of the scarab, a beetle regarded as symbolic of resurrection and immortality, im-mortality, was the sarcophagus of a mummy that was once a man. The Egyptian belief that the sleep of the di;ad would be undisturbed or 3000 years was fullfilled in the case of Tut-ankh-Amen. Tut-ankh-Ameri, blessed with all the material possessions a man of his time could desire, took his worldly goods with him when he died, hoping in vain to enjoy them in his future life. A modern man is far more wisely content to leave behind him for the benefit of his family a pass book representing a g 'jod sized bank account and a safe deposit box containing ample life insurance policies, the d'-ed to a home arid oilier documents evidencing successful saving and sound investments. |