Saturday, February 20, 2010

TUT!!

We are going to see the King Tut display today down at the AGO. We went years ago and were crushed in with thousands of others. Hopefully, it will be a little less congested. I did a bit of research to find that our dear Tut had a disability and walked with a cane. Apparently the fact that his mother was also his aunt and his father was also his uncle messed up the genes a bit, and probably severely concentrated the dysfunction in that family.

In the article that I read about Tut's disability they reported, and I'm not really sure why, that he had extremely 'well developed genitalia. Oh, my. Tut Tut as it were. This isn't something I needed to know and now it's something I can never NOT know. King Tut was apparently walked like an Egyptian for a reason.

Now I didn't write this about ol Tut to engage in coarse wonderings like, 'Do Mummies tuck left or tuck right?' No, I'm not I'm going there this time to see the exhibit and to see if the kids disability is mentioned at all in the text about the frail king. Will disability be edited out of the material or will it be front and center.

You can bet, if there are information person's there, I'll be asking the question. So what's your bet ... will he be a closet disabled mummy ... or will he ... be out. And will I be able to resist a peek to see if Mummy's Packing a Rod.

4 comments:

Clay said...

I saw a thing about him on TV the other day. They said he died of a specific kind of malaria, shown by a rash on his cheek and neck.

Amanda said...

Interesting. I remember the most recent information I read said that the scoliosis wasn't actually there in his lifetime and had something to do with what the embalmers did to his body. Because in real scoliosis the bones are different somehow than they were when they did a really good 3d scan instead of an xray. And that the cane was ceremonial like scepters or Victorian gentlemen.

As for cause of death there have been many theories over time but the one I heard was that he injured his leg, probably in an accident while hunting, and died of a massive infection.

Jen said...

My guess is that since the latest findings were only released last week they won't have incorporated it into the display yet, but I could be pleasantly surprised.

We spent way too much time on school trips to the AGO and ROM trying to see any naughty bits that we could...the AGO was considerably more successful than the ROM in satisfying our curiosity. Mummies lost hands-down to a Renaissance collection that we saw at the AGO one year.

Tamara said...

I have this old table-top book about him. I will now think "well developed genitalia" every time I see it. Thank you so much, Dave. Enjoy your visit!