MÁSCARA DE TUTANKAMÓN *El Mayor Tesoro Arqueológico del Mundo* || Museo Virtual #4

Believe it or not, I has been preparing this video for more than two years, and it's that look. I got the Tutankhamun mask, an exact replica to the original so that you can learn everything about her in the same way as if you traveled to the Great Egyptian Museum, so in this video I'm going to show you a lot of curiosities that people usually unknow about this famous masks such as for example that his ear is so pierced, that is, it has holes to wear earrings as I show it by here. In fact, this is something that we also find in the ear of the Tutankhamun's mummy which means that effectively the pharaoh earrings and plus inside her grave were found several earrings, some as impressive as these with I show right now on screen and that were used in life by Tutankhamun. But before revealing all these curiosities you must know the incredible history of the mask, that by the way is 54 centimeters tall and it's made up of nothing less than 11 and a half kilos of solid gold also decorated with precious stones, which added to it's history undoubtedly grants the prestige of being the most famous archaeological piece in the world, so the first thing you should know is that the mask was made more than 3300 years ago, specifically was around 1325 BC when the young man Pharaoh died suddenly at the age of 18, in approximately. At that time the royal goldsmiths carried out the enormous task of to elaborate an endless number of precious objects to be buried next to the child Pharaoh and that could accompany him or facilitate his passage to the other life. Of this way in his tomb known as KV-62 were introduced more than 5,000 different pieces, and fortunately his burial place was kept hidden thieves throughout, it being in fact the only grave of a pharaoh in the Valley of the Kings who was not totally robbed by the looters. So, there was an unexpected turn when in 1922 the english archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon found the tomb of the child pharaoh intact, then beginning a series of slow but sure archaeological campaign. In fact, many people believe that the mummy and mask were found in 1922 when the tomb was discovered, however this wasn't the case since due to the meticulous and complicated work, several years had to pass, being specifically on October 28, 1925 when Howard Carter was finally able to find the mummified body of the child pharaoh and contemplate totally fascinated this impressive gold mask. I often imagine how it must have been that precise moment and magical moment in which Howard Carter looked staring into these incredible eyes of shining obsidian, that is, black volcanic rock, an eyes also beautifully decorated with blue gemstones with lapis lazuli. And it was at that precise moment of his discovery when Harry Burton, the official photographer of the excavation took this impressive photograph that I was seeing on the screen right now. A photograph that shows us how the mask was originally and if you look well you might appreciate, for example, that she was wearing a striking necklace, the case of this necklace is very curious since people often unknow its existence because if we visit the mask in the museum we will see that the necklace is displayed independently and not placed as we have seen in the photograph. However, this was an essential part of the mask for thousands and thousands of years, so be careful because the mask is by itself the representation of a necklace specifically a necklace of the "Usej" type, that would be so that you understand all this area down here and inlaid with turquoise lapis lazuli cornelian or vitreous paste and that covers from one shoulder to another ending, if we look closely, with the head of the falcon of the god Horus, following by both the same pattern that the necklace "Usej", as you can see in this necklace of princess Neferuptah very similar to the neklace has represented in the mask. By the way, a similar necklace is also found in the lower part of the famous bust of Nefertiti, and it's that both representations: the bust of Nefertiti and Tutankhamun's mask have a lot in common, in fact there is another very striking attribute that we find in both pieces, you can guess what I mean? It's a curious animal, so you know where we find one both in Tutankhamun's mask and in the bust of Nefertiti?, indeed on her forehead, you can see we can appreciate the representation of a cobra whose body winds through the top of the mask, this data is something that almost nobody knows because it's very difficult to see the mask from above. In the same way, we find it crawling on the crown of Queen Nefertiti, although unfortunately in this case the cobra head broke and was lost forever after the bust fall to the ground in the workshop where he was sculpted in Amarna, as I told you in the video that I uploaded explaining everything about the famous bust of the queen, but to say true in the case of the mask we find the representation of two animals: a cobra and a vulture, both are the symbols of Lower and Upper Egypt respectively, and you'll say: "Ok Rubén, very nice, but what do they really mean? why these two animals are placed here? Well, for its meaning we must resort to something that I love, egyptian mythology, where the vulture was the representation of the goddess Nejbet a goddess whose function was to protect the pharaoh during his birth, his crowning, his party, and his battle, also on the other hand was the goddess Uadyet whose representation was precisely that of a cobra and its function was also the to protect Pharaoh from all the dangers he was exposed to. Another characteristics of the mask that attracts our attention is undoubtedly the beard, this large beard so striking that it has an divine attribute that we find in countless representations throughout the history of Ancient Egypt, in fact even the sphinx of Giza had a colossal stone beard that today we can find in the British museum in London. By the way, regarding his beard, there is a very curious and controversial story that happened very recently in 2014, and is that in the Egyptian Museum from Cairo when they removed the display case to do routine work the mask suffered a severe blow and the beard fell off his chin, at that moment with great nervousness the museum workers tried fix it as quickly as possible by making the tremendous mistake of stick them with an inappropriate glue which caused irreparable damage to the piece, also to top it off, they used too much glue and it looked protruding from the edges of the beard as seen in this photograph, fortunately today the error is half rectified since fortunately the glue could be removed and the mask looks more or less as before this botch, and as expected up to 8 museum workers were brought to trial for damages caused to the mask. At last but not least, we found this impressive and wonderful fringe headdress that occupies much of the mask and what we know as "Memes", this was a very typical headdress in the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt who used it as a symbol of protection and to be identified as a deity, and is that in Ancient Egypt the pharaohs were revered as true gods, for this as you have seen his representations everything that revolves around his figure is full of divine symbols, in fact without going any further, for the Egyptians the same gold was already the flesh of the gods, and in this sense the true meaning of the mask is the divine representation of Tutankhamun, is to say, so that you can understand, it was not a true image of how he was physically but it's about the representation of the child pharaoh turned into a true god. By the way, a great news: very soon I will bring to the channel an exact replica of the mummy of the pharaoh child of Tutankhamun just as I did a week ago with the Ramses II mummy, so if you don't know what is losing because it really is going to be amazing don't forget to be subscribed to the channel and above all, activate the notifications since that way you will receive a notice in as long as the video uploads. And in the meantime, I will be making live videos to least twice a week from my Twitch channel, where I will explain many more things about Tutankhamun, I'll show other replicas that I have, we'll talk about history through the chat, we'll interview experts in these themes, and endless other things, so I also recommend that you follow me on Twitch not to miss my direct and that you get a notification as soon as start a new one. Having say that, thank you so much for being here once again and see you very soon with more information.