Philippa Kaur

Beyond King Tut, curated by the National Geographic Society, surrounds visitors with large-scale projections and animations of some of the thousands of artefacts unearthed from the boy king’s tomb

Humans

2 November 2022

By Alexis Wnuk
Tutankhamun’s gold funerary maskTimothy Norris
A HUNDRED years ago, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workers were exploring tombs in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt. They discovered a plastered-up doorway. This was to prove one of the most spectacular archaeological finds of all time: the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Beyond King Tut: The immersive experience, an exhibition curated by the National Geographic Society, features large-scale projections and animations of some of the 5398 artefacts unearthed.
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The main image, top, shows Tutankhamun’s iconic gold funerary mask, looming large on the two-storey gallery walls. Below it are two pieces of the jewellery found in the tomb: a pendant (pictured above) that depicts Horus, the god of the sky who took the form of a falcon; and a collar made of gold and coloured glass (pictured below), with a falcon on each end.
Timothy Norris
A large boat in the centre of the room (pictured below) evokes the ancient Egyptian belief that the dead journeyed by boat to the afterlife.
Timothy Norris
Beyond King Tut is on display at Pier 36 in New York City until 1 January 2023 and touring cities in the US and Canada. The physical objects from Tutankhamun’s tomb are housed in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Beyond King Tut
National Geographic Society

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The story of Tutankhamun and his tomb still amazes us. Palaeopathologist Bob Brier’s new book is an accessible guide to the story, but doesn’t break new ground

Humans

2 November 2022

By Jo Marchant
Tutankhamun’s tomb dazzled Howard Carter when he saw it for the first timeNick Brundle Photography/Getty images
Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World
Bob Brier (Oxford University Press)
WE ARE so familiar with the story of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s 3300-year-old tomb that it has acquired an almost mythical status. On 26 November 1922, Howard Carter, a British archaeologist, broke through a sealed door under Egypt’s Valley of the Kings and poked his candle into the darkness beyond.
Luckily, it can bear repeating, and to coincide with the centenary of the find, … More

The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb was a revelation, but 100 years later new scientific methods are painting an even richer picture of the ancient Egyptians

Humans

| Leader

2 November 2022

Shutterstock/El Greco 1973
IT IS one of those strange quirks of history that Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb exactly 100 years after Jean-François Champollion cracked ancient Egypt’s hieroglyphics. Champollion’s breakthrough in 1822 unlocked the civilisation’s rich written archive, while Carter’s discovery in 1922 offered an unadulterated view of pharaonic opulence.
It is unlikely 2022 will be remembered as a pivotal year in Egyptology, but that doesn’t mean the field is stuck in a rut. As we report on in our feature “How technology is revolutionising our understanding of ancient Egypt”, archaeologists now have the tools of modern science at their fingertips. … More

Dismissing environmentalists with an ‘anti-growth’ label is wrongThe idea that environmentalists are part of the Tories’ imaginary “anti-growth coalition” is grotesque. Conserving the environment and economic progress are not mutually incompatible, says Graham Lawton More

Cracking Egypt’s hieroglyphic code was one of humanity’s greatest feats. A riveting new exhibition at the British Museum celebrates the 200th anniversary

Humans

2 November 2022

By Joshua Howgego
A papyrus containing ancient “spells”The Trustees of the British Museum
Hieroglyphs: Unlocking ancient Egypt
Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery
The British Museum, London. Closes 19 February 2023, then tours to selected UK venues
STEPPING from the British Museum’s bright main atrium into a darkened space, I am confronted by a huge array of cubes. One face of each cube shows a hieroglyph, which you can rotate to find its meaning. I can see all sorts of symbols, from scarabs, owls and hawks to abstract patterns.
It is fun to explore, but also bewildering, with no obvious link between … More

Spotlight on plankton, the ocean’s fascinating, bite-sized creaturesEvery night, plankton take a journey to shallower waters to feed, prompting predators to follow in search of a very small, but tasty, snack. These images are taken from a new book, Planktonia, illuminating their daily ascent More

From the Terracotta army to the Flores ‘Hobbit’, these are the discoveries that experts argue are more significant than the unearthing of Tutankhamun’s resting place

Humans

2 November 2022

By Jo Marchant
Ancient chariots from the Yinxu site in ChinaImaginechina Limited/Alamy
Archaeologists have made many stunning discoveries down the years. These have changed our thinking on how our species became the only humans on the planet, how civilisations arose across the world and how international trade first began.
As the world marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most famous archaeological finds of all time – the unearthing of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt – New Scientist asked archaeologists who work at sites scattered across the world, from Greece to Indonesia, to nominate the discoveries they think are even more significant.
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Mycenae Grave Circle
In the late 19th century, archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a circle of six royal graves at the citadel of Mycenae in southern Greece. He found a hoard of golden treasures from the 16th century BC, including the “Mask of Agamemnon”, which Schliemann believed was worn by Mycenae’s mythological ruler, who fought in the Trojan war. That is unlikely, but the find “revolutionised our comprehension of the Mediterranean”, says Jack Davis at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, revealing the previously unknown Aegean civilisations that preceded historical Greece.
The Mask of Agamemnon, one of the most famous discoveries at MycenaeWorld History Archive/Alamy
Terracotta Army and the ancient site of Yinxu
In 1974, workers digging near the city of Xi’an, China, uncovered a life-size clay soldier poised for battle. Archaeologists soon found an entire terracotta army, guarding the tomb of the 3rd-century-BC emperor Qin Shi Huang. Rowan Flad at Harvard University highlights the site along with Yinxu, the last capital of the Shang dynasty (see picture at the top of the page). This city, which dates to the late 2nd millennium BC and so is much older than the Terracotta army, revealed a golden age of early Chinese culture, including palaces, a flood-control system and inscribed oracle bones – the earliest evidence of the Chinese written language. Both “were true discoveries of things and stories that had been long forgotten”, says Flad.
The Terracotta army began to re-emerge from the ground in the 1970sMelvyn Longhurst China/Alamy
Hand axes of Hoxne
In 1797, antiquary John Frere wrote to colleagues describing sharpened flints uncovered by brickworkers in Hoxne, England. The stones lay 4 metres deep, alongside the bones of enormous, unknown animals and beneath layers apparently once at the bottom of the sea. Frere suggested they belonged “to a very remote period… even beyond that of the present world”. His discovery of what we now know are Palaeolithic hand axes “revealed for the first time the long-term, deep-time human past”, says Mike Parker Pearson at University College London, “challenging the biblical notion that the world was created in 4004 BC.”
Stone Age hand-axes were discovered in Hoxne, England, in the late 18th centuryScience History Images/Alamy
Uluburun
This Bronze Age shipwreck, found off the coast of Turkey in 1982, stands as “one of the great underwater discoveries”, says Brendan Foley at Lund University in Sweden. Once described as “Wall Street in a ship“, it transformed historians’ understanding of the era by revealing an astonishing web of trade contacts. The wreck’s vast cargo represented at least 11 different cultures and included weapons, jewellery, ostrich eggs, resin, spices and copper ingots from as far afield as Egypt, Cyprus and Asia.
A replica of the Uluburun ship wreck, a boat lost in the Mediterranean during a Bronze Age stormWaterFrame/Alamy
The Flores ‘Hobbit’
The shock discovery of diminutive humans who once lived on the Indonesian island of Flores was the “JFK moment” of modern archaeology, says Adam Brumm at Griffith University in Australia, in the sense that scientists in the field still remember where they were when they heard the news. The tiny bones, discovered in a cave in 2003, showed that individuals (subsequently dubbed Homo floresiensis) grew to just over 1 metre tall and lived alongside giant lizards. For Brumm, “it was an electrifying and totally unexpected find”.
Homo floresiensis, an ancient human species that surprised everyoneCicero Moraes et al. (CC BY 4.0)

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