hello everybody welcome back to another episode of side projects this one seems to be getting extremely niche but we're talking about the mask of tutankhamen and i have to say a little bit embarrassing when i was a kid i thought like eight years old or whatever i was studying the ancient egyptians at school i thought that the mask of tooting carmen was the size of the sphinx and i was like oh my god that is a lot of gold turns out i was wrong about that and now you're about to learn a whole lot more about it and honestly probably so am i that was embarrassing [Music] the gold death mask of egypt's boy king tutankhamen oh and i also used to think his name was tutankhamun when i was a kid i mean and maybe as an adult yeah i'm not that bright it's one of the most recognizable icons from ancient egypt it was found almost 100 years ago but new things are still coming to light about this enigmatic artwork and the pharaoh it protected for over 3000 years protected from his afterlife demons let's take a closer look at the globally renowned artifact titan carmen is best known for his short-lived tenure as pharaoh ascending to the throne in about 1332 bc at the age of eight or nine he only ruled for about nine years before passing away in unconfirmed circumstances in his late teens usually his short reign would mean he would live on as a historical footnote not having achieved much significance or leaving any direct heirs however it was an archaeological expedition launched in the early 1920s that sealed his position as one of the world's most famous pharaohs archaeologist howard carter had been working with sponsor and egyptophile lord carnavan since 1907. after searching for treasures in egypt's valley of the kings they had unearthed artifacts mentioning the name of tutankhamen but his tomb had not yet been discovered this led carter to suspect that it still lays somewhere close by hopefully not a victim of looting like some of the other tombs after a few years of fruitless excavations they decided to have one last hurrah and in november of 1922 carter finally uncovered the steps to the entrance of the king's tomb it was hidden away at the base of another tomb meaning that it had largely escaped the notice of robbers through the ages once carter broke through to the main chamber and made a small hole to peer through lord carnavan asked if he could see anything and carter replied yes wonderful things there were indeed wonderful things in the tomb most of them made of gold but the crowning glory was the sarcophagus of the boy king himself found inside four shrines inside the burial chamber it took another year before carter and his team were prepared enough to lift the coffin's lid and finally inside the third nested coffin they opened they uncovered the mummy of tutankhamen sporting his now world famous gold mask the mask was removed and sent to the egyptian museum in cairo in 1925 where you can still see it to this day it's a fair bet that you will have seen photos or likenesses of the death mask if not the actual object on one of its several trips around the globe so what's so special about it anyway well for starters it's 22 pounds or 10 kilograms of gold and semi-precious stones gold was significant to the ancient egyptians as it doesn't tarnish and it's also associated with the sun god ra due to its glow didn't carmen's death mask is one foot eight inches 54 centimeters tall not the size of the sphinx and bears the face neck and collar covered shoulders of the pharaoh wearing a nemi's head cloth there's also the symbolic beard which weighs 5.5 pounds or 2.5 kilograms by itself the face of king tutankhamun is made of a slightly lighter gold and silver alloy to make it shine with the headcloth being a darker 22.5 carat shade his iconic heavy eye makeup is made from lapis lazary while his eyes are quartz and obsidian his head cloth is made of gold with blue glass stripes and as the figures of two goddesses in the center the vulture goddess neckbet of upper egypt and the cobra goddess wadjet of lower egypt these two goddesses show that tutankhamun was king over all of egypt and also serve as a protective symbol the highly detailed collar is inlaid with quartz lapis lazuli and green feldspar and curves up to a falcon head at each end representing horus a god highly revered in ancient egypt and associated with pharaohs and kingship a triple string beaded necklace was also found on the mask in the coffin but that is not usually displayed the mask is also interesting from the back with the headdress coming together in the middle to form a neat ponytail there is also an inscription in hieroglyphics bearing a spell from the egyptian book of the dead covering the rest of the gold sheet the spell was to give the king protection and guidance in his journey to the underworld as a work of art by itself the mask is impressive given that it's over 3000 years old and came from the first almost intact pharaoh's tomb discovered in the modern era it's priceless with its status as a valuable artifact you'd think that the utmost care would be taken with it at all times and why you'd be absolutely wrong the fake pharaoh's beard symbolizing the wearer as a divine being was apparently not attached to the mask when carter broke open the tomb in the 1920s in 1944 a fix was made by attaching it with a small wooden dowel and there it happily stayed giving king tutankhamen the gravitas he deserved for several decades then in 2014 when the display case for the mask was being cleaned the beard somehow broke off instead of maybe you know fessing up to what happened or alerting a professional the museum workers panicked and basically tried to just glue the beard back on they ended up doing this a total of four times attempting to scrape off the visible remains of the previous glue remnants each time and causing damage to the priceless artifact incredibly they got away with it for about a year until it became obvious that the beard was looking wonky and the dried glue under the pharaoh's chin became increasingly more noticeable the professionals were finally called in and in 2015 a team made up of german and egyptian restoration experts managed to clean off the glue and reattach the beard using the more traditional ancient egyptian method of beeswax a museum employees including the director and head of restoration were due to face trial over the damage in 2016. it feels a bit harsh doesn't it but there has been no resolution to the case so far good it's just an accident guys [Music] one other notable feature of the mask is that it has large holes in the earlobes these would have been used to hold earrings that would have been made separately but there weren't any in the coffin with two tanker men so what you're thinking wasn't gold jewelry all the rage back in ancient times well yes but according to contemporary artwork adult male pharaohs did not traditionally wear earrings only queens and children did so why were the piercings made on king tutankhamun's mask yes we refer to him as the boy king but he would have been considered an adult at the time of his death also when carter found the mask the holes were actually covered over with thin pieces of gold possibly meaning that the mask had been altered to become more appropriate for the king there are a few other clues that bring the mask's identity into question 2. references to nephi neferuiten now known as nefertiti were found inside the coffins tutankhamen was buried in his name was inscribed over hers making it look like the cough and a mask were originally intended for her the pace itself also adds to the mystery while carter took for granted that it was a lifelike portrait of tutankhamen it was common for pharaohs to be granted the likeness of gods like osiris to ease their passing and grant them ruling states in the underworld it was also so that the spirit of the dead king could recognize his body after death and be reunited with it in the afterlife if this is what king tutankhamen looked like we can all agree that it was a pretty good looking chap in reality though he may have had a few flattering filters on when the artists came up with this image while previous reconstructions of his face had been made in 2014 a 3d computer rendering of king tutankhamun was made using thousands of scans taken of his still-in-situ mummified corpse the result was a clubfoot pharaoh with a weak chin and buck teeth not anything remotely like his famous golden image when you remember that nefertiti was famed for a beauty and there's a definite feminine cast to the mask's features it's another hint that maybe the death mask now synonymous with tootin carmen may not have actually been originally intended for him at all let's just hope that he did manage to recognize himself after death and isn't still floating around somewhere looking for a death mask that looks like him tomb and mask of tutankhamun grant us a clear window into ancient egypt the artifact symbols and details reveal much about ancient egyptians religious beliefs the political status at the time of tutankhamen's death and just their culture in general it shows off the egyptian's artistic prowess and the wealth of the country at the time it took carter and his team a decade to catalogue and legally empty out most of the artifacts of this relatively small tomb leaving us to wonder what might have been in the other much larger tombs that had long before fallen prey to thieves currently there are no plans to let this mask travel out of cairo again but some archaeologists believe that there may still be more surprises hidden in the king's tomb so watch this space so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did smash that like button below don't forget to subscribe and as always thank you for watching