Once again, a small disclaimer. This episode contains descriptions of human remains and the process of mummification.

Please use discretion when listening to this story.

Hello and welcome back to the History of Egypt podcast, episode 152, an unexpected burial.

King Tutankhamun has died and his followers must lay him to rest, his burial and his tomb preserve aspects of these events, and from art and treasures we can explore that story.

This episode is dedicated to Sarah, a long time listener of the podcast. Unfortunately, Sarah contracted the virus that has been raging across the world, so I dedicate this episode to her recovery.

Fortunately, Sarah is doing well. It seems that Sarkmet has blessed her and the lioness does not rage in her household, which is great to hear.

I have not touched on this subject in the show as I generally wished to provide an oasis away from daily life. However, it is important to say,

please take the necessary steps to protect yourself and those around you, where masks get the vaccines and treat your community with the care and respect necessary for our societies.

In ancient Egypt, preventable diseases killed many before their time, and their medical science was insufficient to overcome those challenges.

Today, we have other opportunities. Let's do our best to make that suffering a thing of the past.

To everyone listening, thank you for joining me. I hope you enjoyed the tale.

The year was 1334 BCE, approximately. The two lands, southern and northern Egypt, were in a moment of transition. The Pharaoh, Tudank Amun, was dead. The living Horus was now a corpse, and his soul, or bar, was flying towards the horizon.

On Earth, the living had to reckon with the death of their king. Tudank Amun's advisors, his officials and his servants, had to organize a funeral.

Tudank Amun probably died in early January. His funeral took place in late March or April, and we know that because flowers preserved in the tomb give reference points.

Studying the bouquets and wreaths, scholars can identify the period when this funeral occurred. It seems to be a late March or April event, so that gives us a rough timeline for King Tudank Amun's burial.

We can then work backwards and suggest that he died around early January. That is speculative. Historians work on the assumption that a funeral happened two or three months after the death itself.

Those dates are rough guesses based on other historical records, but you get the idea. If the funeral happened in April, then it is a reasonable guess that Tudank Amun died 60 to 90 days earlier.

That gives us January for the rough date of his passing. Now that Tudank Amun was dead, the priests would need to preserve his body. They would need to purify, desecate and wrap the corpse.

They would need to anoint it, decorate it with amulets and seal it in coffins. Studying Tudank Amun's mummy, scholars can reconstruct the methods of embalming.

How did the priests prepare and preserve the body? Looking at his corpse and working backwards, we can get some ideas.

The mummification would take place in a temple. The priests would lay the body on a table and begin their process.

First, they would shave to Tudank Amun. They removed all of the hair and any lice or insects to purify his corpse. Then, they rubbed the body with oils and ungluents, cleansing the limbs and removing impurities.

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