The unbroken seal on King Tutankhamun's tomb, 1922

Unbreakable seal at the tomb of King Tutankhamun, 1922.

This seal was actually the seal of King Tut's fifth shrine. The king was buried in a series of four sarcophagi, which were placed inside a series of five pilgrimages. This unbroken seal remained untouched for 3,245 years. The late discovery of Toot's mausoleum was due to the fact that it was covered by the rubble of Ramses IV which was located directly above its entrance.

While the outermost temple of the young pharaohs was opened not once but twice in ancient times, the doors of the second of the massive gold-wooded temples with royal sarcophagus still bear the Necropolis seal, indicating that the Pharaoh's Mami was untouched and intact.

The tomb of the boy-king was opened in the early 1920s by famed archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter. The tomb contained a more magnificent treasure than any previous discoveries. In the burial chamber of Tutankhamun, Howard Carter removed the outermost temple cover, soon after he discovered three more.

Harry Burton photographed the ornately decorated doors of the second temple during the closing, his simple copper handle tightly tied with a rope. The knotted cord was accompanied by a delicate clay seal featuring Abyss, the ancient Egyptian jackal deity entrusted to the protection of the cemetery.

Even initially, Carter and his financier, Lord Carnarvon, knew that the mausoleum had been compromised, as the outer gate (again not in the Fifth Temple) again contained plaster and seal holes. Furthermore, once they entered the tomb, the disordered state of the material, the loss by many objects and the lack of solid metal work, bedding, glass, oil and unguents all showed that the tomb was looted from antiquity. had gone.

The story is that he also found an ancient clay tablet in ancient times. When he later translated it, the inscription wrote: "Death will slay with its wings which will dissolve the peace of the Pharaoh". It later became the famous "Curse of the Pharaoh", which is really just a myth. The curse, which does not differentiate between thieves and archaeologists, can reportedly lead to misfortune, illness, or death.

Tutankhamen was a very impenetrable king while alive, although because the tomb was located beneath an existing mausoleum and the tomb robbers never found it, it became one of the most valuable archaeological discoveries. Due to its lower position in the Valley of the Kings, the entrance to the mausoleum was sealed with rocks and mud by the flood and the location was lost until Carter was discovered.

Tutankhamen was a relatively minor Pharaoh who died unexpectedly at a young age, so whatever wealth he was buried with (and archaeologists found out) was just a fraction of what he could have been, had he lived his entire life. Had gone to live. So can you imagine the immense wealth that would have been buried with a great Pharaoh like Ramesses II.

How did the rope last 3,200 years without deteriorating?

Rope is one of the basic human technologies. Archaeologists have found two-stranded ropes dating back 28,000 years. Egypt was the first documented civilization to use special tools to make rope. The key to its longevity is not only the rope, but the predominance of the wind in the desert. It dries and preserves things.

Another key is lack of oxygen. The tombs are sealed from the outside. Bacteria can break things as long as they have oxygen, but then they effectively suffocate. It is not uncommon to find ropes, wood carvings, textiles, organic colors, etc. in Egyptian pyramids and mausoleums that would not have survived elsewhere in the world. The desert conditions of Egypt probably made possible the preservation of more organic material than would otherwise have happened.

On the contrary, that is to say, Mayan sites in Central America that are very small, but from which almost no biological material has been recovered. The main difference is the forest versus desert conditions.