Leftover bandages shed new light on King Tut's mummification

Washington, May 20 (ANI): Tutankhamun's leftover bandages are shedding new light on the boy king's mummification.

An exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art shows, Tutankhamun's mummy was bound in custom-made bandages similar to today's first aid gauzes.

About 4.70 meters to 39 cm in length, these narrow bandages consist of 50 linen pieces especially woven for Tutankhamun.

"The linens on the actual mummy were so much decayed by excessive use of resins that the bandages on display at the museum are actually the best-preserved lot of Tutankhamun wrappings," Discovery News quoted Dorothea Arnold, curator of Egyptian art at the Metropolitan museum, as saying.

Herbert E. Winlock (1884-1950), the Metropolitan's curator, wrote in a 1941 account of the embalming material: "When the floor was swept after wrapping the body of a king, naturally, there were quantities of pieces of linen, some of them bandages and some wider bits, gathered up."

The sheets also bore inscriptions with dates on which the linen was woven.

One linen featured an inscription with "Year 8 of the Lord of Two ands, Nebkheperure [Tutankhamun's throne name.]"

Indeed, "Year 8" was the final year of Tutankhamun's life (1341 B.C. - 1323 B.C.).

Winlock said: "Usually bandages to be wound on a body were rolled up to make the wrapping easier."

He identified the ends of some six bandages, still tightly rolled.

However, the most "curious things among the bandages" were 50 pieces of modern-looking gauze - narrow linen tape with finished edges on each side.

"I do not recall ever having seen any ready-made, 18th-Dynasty bandages like them before," Winlock noted.

Arnold said: "According to known later custom, they were used to fix the larger sheets around the body."

Woven especially for King Tutankhamun, some of these expensive linens show the fingerprints of embalmers. (ANI)