Humans

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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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

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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A century on from the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, CT scans, 3D printers and virtual reality are bringing the world of the pharaohs – and ordinary ancient Egyptians – into sharper focus

Humans

2 November 2022

By Jo Marchant
Ula Šveikauskaitė
A CENTURY ago this month, Howard Carter opened the tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun. Within, he found ornate jewellery, beautiful furniture, fine clothing – and that famous gold face mask. Everything was in keeping with a royal burial from the most prosperous period in ancient Egyptian history. Or almost everything, because hidden within the mummy’s bindings, Carter discovered a dagger that seemed out of place.
The problem wasn’t with its golden sheath. It was with its blade of gleaming iron – a metal the Egyptians didn’t learn to smelt until centuries after Tutankhamun’s death. Carter had a simple explanation. He assumed the dagger was imported, perhaps from the ancient Hittite Empire in Anatolia, where there was an early iron industry. Not until 2016 was it confirmed that the iron originated from much further afield, with the discovery it contains the high levels of nickel associated with meteoric iron. For the Egyptians who wrapped the dagger close to their king’s body, it was a gift from the gods.
What makes this finding significant is the way it was made – through an X-ray analysis performed without damaging the dagger. It is indicative of a new approach to Egyptology that emphasises preservation over destruction. Whether it is studying mummies without unwrapping them or generating virtual landscapes as they existed millennia ago, we can now make discoveries Carter could have barely dreamed about while leaving artefacts intact for future generations.

Scanning a mummy is nothing new: X-rays were discovered in 1895, and a few years later, in 1903, Carter carried the … More

Smartphone data from more than 9 million people in the US reveals that big cities lead to greater socioeconomic segregation despite claims they reduce it

Humans

28 October 2022

By Alex Wilkins
The size and design of cities affect social segregationImage Craft/Shutterstock
People living in large cities are more segregated, and mix less with those from different socioeconomic backgrounds, than people in small towns, according to an analysis of anonymous phone data from more than 9 million people in the US.
A longstanding premise of urban design is that cities encourage interactions between different economic groups, and so lead to less segregation. One of the most common ways to measure this segregation is to look at where people live and their corresponding economic status. … More

New Scientist’s weekly round-up of the best books, films, TV series, games and more that you shouldn’t miss

Humans

26 October 2022

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The Milky Way Smells of Rum and Raspberries writes astrophysicist Jillian Scudder. Her offbeat tour of the universe, with its weird and wonderful facts, will have us looking at the night sky afresh. On sale 3 November.
PETER KRAMER/NETFLIX
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Manifest‘s fourth season continues the uncanny story of airline passengers who landed five years too late. It stars Josh Dallas and Melissa Roxburgh as Ben and Michaela Stone (pictured above). The first half of the season comes to Netflix on 4 November.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
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The Pluto Story is astronomer Ian Robson’s tale of … More

Studies show it is always best to bake your sweet potatoes, rather than boil or microwave them, and there is another trick to take the tubers to the next level of deliciousness, says Sam Wong

Humans

26 October 2022

By Sam Wong
Shutterstock/Piyaset
DELICIOUS meals don’t get much simpler than a baked sweet potato. But a little science can tell us how to maximise this dish’s sweetness and deepen its flavour.
Sweet potatoes are between 1 and 2.5 per cent sugar when raw, but they get sweeter as they cook thanks to the work of amylase enzymes that break down starch into simple sugars. These enzymes are most active at 75°C (167°F).
A study from 2012 found that the sugar content of one type of sweet potato was almost five times higher after baking for 90 minutes, mainly due … More

A young child found in an unmarked coffin in an Austrian crypt was exceptionally well preserved, and his bones and organs show signs of rickets and pneumonia

Humans

26 October 2022

By Christa Lesté-Lasserre
A close-up of the mummified child’s handA. G. Nerlich et al/Frontiers
An infant born into an aristocratic Austrian family in the 17th century died overweight but may have been deficient in vitamin D, according to researchers who conducted a “virtual autopsy” on the mummified body.
Scans of the surprisingly well-preserved body revealed knobbly extensions on the rib joints typical of rickets, caused by lack of vitamin D, as well as thick layers of fat – which probably helped the tissues mummify. The findings suggest the child was overfed and underexposed to sunlight, leading to his death, says Andreas Nerlich at the Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen in Germany.
Nerlich and his colleagues examined the infant’s remains after an unmarked wooden coffin was discovered in a crypt near a castle in Upper Austria. The crypt had constant airflow and a stable temperature, which probably helped dry out the child’s body. “We have here one of the very rare cases where such an aristocratic infant spontaneously mummified – and was available for a scientific investigation,” he says.Advertisement
Radiocarbon dating of the body, combined with records of the crypt’s construction, led the researchers to estimate that the child was buried approximately 400 years ago. Given the infant’s approximate age at death – between 10 and 18 months old – and silk wraps indicative of aristocratic birth, they suspect the child was Reichard Wilhelm, who lived from 1625 to 1626, the first-born son of the Count of Starhemberg.
Based on computed tomography (CT) scans of the body, the researchers confirmed that the child was male, and his bone measurements and tooth eruption were consistent with a child of about a year old.
The infant mummy found in the cryptA. G. Nerlich et al/Frontiers
Scans of his rib bones revealed rachitic rosary, a condition typical of severe cases of rickets. Rickets results primarily from a lack of vitamin D, which the body produces when exposed to ultraviolet sun rays. While his leg bones weren’t bowed – a tell-tale sign of rickets in older children – that may have been because the infant wasn’t walking yet, says Nehrlich. One arm bone, however, appeared slightly bent.
The infant’s lungs were inflamed, suggesting he may have died of pneumonia – a disease known to occur more frequently in children with rickets, he says.
“The combination of obesity along with a severe vitamin deficiency can only be explained by a generally ‘good’ nutritional status along with an almost complete lack of sunlight exposure,” says Nerlich.
It is unclear whether this combination of traits was common, but early infant death rates were generally high compared with today in upper social classes during the Renaissance, says Nerlich.
Journal reference: Frontiers in Medicine, DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2022.979670

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