Literature Chapter 3 - Discovering Tut: The Saga Continues

This article will help you to learn about the summary, characters and themes in chapter 3, NCERT Class 11 English Hornbill – Discovering Tut: The Saga Continues. It will help you to understand the gist of the story and important phases in this story.

Synopsis

This chapter deals with a story on exploration carried out to find the mystery surrounding King Tut’s death. It gives a brief description of the struggle taken by the team to extract the remains from his coffin. This chapter is a narration of the experience of researchers while exploring his coffin and highlights the process of forensic reconstruction. The story presents the efforts of archaeologists to unravel the mystery of Tut’s death which seemed more like a murder. It is about medical technology being used to investigate such intricate cases.

Character List

• Zahi Hawass – Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. He is one of the members of the team of researchers, and very particular about getting the details right. It also shows that he is extremely focused on this project as he exclaims that he was not able to sleep thinking of the seriousness of this extraction and reconstruction.

• Howard Carter – He is the British Archeologist who discovered King Tut’s tomb in the year 1922. This discovery was sensational as it was successful after years of futile searching. He was not able to separate the body from the other belongings buried along with the Kings body. He justified his action of chiselling away the consolidated material from the body to raise the king’s remains.

• Amenhotep III – King Tut’s grandfather who was a powerful pharaoh and ruled for almost four decades.

• Amenhotep IV – Successor of Amenhotep III. He promoted the worship of Aten and changed his name to Akhenaten. Amenhotep IV also moved the religious capital to Akhetaten. He attacked the Amun, a major God and smashed his idols.

• Tutankhaten – Widely known as King Tut. He was just a teenager when he became a ruler. He also changed his name to Tutankhamun; reigned for about nine years and died unexpectedly. The speculation of his death gave rise to exploration to find the truth. His mummy became the first one to be examined using a CT scan.

Theme

The story Discovering Tut: The Saga Continues, is a description of the exploration conducted by a team of researchers. It gives the account of struggles the team faces to unravel the mystery of the death of a teenage ruler, King Tut. The story highlights the change in the methods of archaeology from a few decades back to the present era of modern technology. It gives you an idea about the kind of exploration conducted in 1922 by Carter when there was no modern method to extract the remains.

It also helps you understand the revolution in the field of archaeology which is due to the modern equipment and sophisticated methods being used to give accurate results. The story helps you to understand the collaborative efforts of all the team members involved in this project. The tomb of King Tut is extracted. You will also understand the concept of life after death, a concept in ancient times was thought that you could carry all your belongings to the new life hereafter. The tomb was thus, filled with belongings of King Tut like razors, necklaces, wines which were for the King to use after death.

The main focus is laid on the process of forensic reconstruction of the remains to find the cause of death and the age when the king died. The modern method of CT Scan is used and King Tut’s body was the first to be put underscan. The scanner picked up images of the King’s body and the anatomy was conducted much to the relief of the team members.

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