Egyptian radiologists who performed the first-ever computed tomography (CT) evaluation of King Tutankhamun’s mummy believe they have solved the mystery of how the ancient pharaoh died. The CT images and results of their study were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Ashraf Selim, M.D., radiologist at Kasr Eleini Teaching Hospital, Cairo University in Egypt, was part of an international team of scientists that studied the 3,300-year-old mummy of King Tut in Egypt. Using a mobile multi-detector CT scanner, the researchers performed a full-body scan on the king’s remains, obtaining approximately 1,900 digital cross-sectional images.

"We found the mummy was in a critical stage of preservation," said Dr. Selim. "The body was cut into several parts with some missing pieces."

With the help of the CT images, researchers estimated King Tut’s age at death to be between 18 and 20 years. His height was 180 centimetres or approximately 5 feet 11 inches. The researchers discovered a possible premortem fracture to the femoral (thigh) bone. While they cannot assess how the injury occurred, the findings suggest that the injury may have been an open wound that became infected and ultimately fatal...

Radiologists attempt to solve mystery of Tut’s demise, EurekAlert, USA, November 27, 2006.

cf. Clues in King Tut's CT scan, Ronald Kotulak, Seattle Times, Washington, USA, November 28, 2006.

cf. Boy king may have died in riding accident, Ian Sample, The Guardian, UK, November 28, 2006.

An inscription has been found by archaeologists conducting excavations in the Lower City of Amathus that provides new information about Cypriot society in the Ptolemaic period, a statement from the Antiquities Department said yesterday.

The inscription was found on the floor of the interior doorway connecting two rooms and is as old as 3rd century BC. Although it is quite worn, it consists of 12 verses and is one of the longest texts from the Hellenistic period discovered in Cyprus. This inscription with arithmetic in Greek may refer to land portions given by the Ptolemaic General. It appears that it was laid in the floor in secondary use. Once the inscription is studied further, it is expected to provide more information about that period.

Another noteworthy find was a large gold cross that must have belonged to a high ranking official of the early Byzantine period (7th century AD). It was discovered in the complex of rooms with few fragments of paintings on the walls, and a lot of coins were found on the floor in the same room with the cross. The official may have resided in the room or in the entire complex.

Apart from the above, the movable finds also consisted of plaster interior architectural fragments with plant and geometrical motifs, vessels, lamps, copper objects, Hathoric capital and a pithos jar found in the southeastern corner of a room on the main avenue leading from the Amathus West Gate to the Agora. Also an almost life-size head depicting Alexander the Great was found in the room with inner arch, but its features were almost worn away.

The dig lasted six weeks and this was the last season of the second series of excavations carried out by the Department of Antiquities in the Lower City of Amathus. Overall conclusions will be published in separate volumes in the near future. Following the necessary conservation work, the excavated remains will be open to the public.

New clues about Ptolemaic past, Tatiana Yalamova, Cyprus Mail, Cyprus, November 27. 2006.

It may be a decade or more before this city’s monumental Museum Island finally shakes off the twin legacies of World War II and East Germany’s Communist regime, but with the reopening of the Bode Museum, this cultural park in the former East Berlin has taken another step toward recovering its place as one of the world’s great centres of art.

With the restoration of the Alte Nationalgalerie, or Old National Gallery, in 2001, two of the island’s five museums are now in fine shape. After an eight-year, $209 million refurbishment, the Bode probably has never looked better since its inauguration as the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in 1904.

Occupying a triangular plot overlooking the Spree River on the northern edge of the island, the museum is once again a true palace of art, welcoming visitors into its vast neo-Baroque entrance hall with an equestrian statue and leading them through naturally lighted galleries with marble floors and wood-panelled ceilings.

True to the ethos of its founding director, Wilhelm von Bode, who believed in mixing art collections, the museum is also now presenting Byzantine art, 15th- to 18th-century sculptures, and coins through the ages as well as a selection of Renaissance paintings and decorative arts. And it is doing so with a majestically spacious installation...

Thus, along with restoring Museum Island, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which owns the 17 museums, is gradually reorganizing the collections, which last year meant moving Egyptian art, including the famous bust of Princess Nefertiti, to the Altes Museum...

German Museums Move Closer to Reunification, Alan Riding, The New York Times, New York, USA, November 27, 2006.

cf. Re-opening of the Bode Museum on Berlin's Museum Island, Bode Museum, Germany, October, 2006.