King Tutankhamuns tomb hid a 3,000-year-old secret ritual, scientists reveal

Experts believe they have uncovered the secret of an ancient Egyptian ritual inside King Tutankhamun’s tomb.The legendary pharaoh’s tomb was discovered in 1922, filled with thousands of priceless artifacts — some of which experts now believe were previously overlooked.Dr.

Nicholas Brown, an Egyptologist at Yale University, claims that some of the treasures found in the king’s resting place could be clues to ancient burial rituals.He believes that clay trays and wooden staffs positioned near Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus were important parts of the “Osirian funerary rite,” which relates to Osiris, the god of the underworld, which Tutankhamun himself pioneered. The trays and four 3-foot-tall wooden staffs were placed about five feet from the head of King Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus.“Originally, these clay troughs were believed to be stands for the emblems found nearby and in close association to them,” he wrote in a recent study published in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.“However, closer examination of the religious and archaeological context of the artifacts enables another interpretation of their function.”Brown believes the clay troughs were used as libation offerings in a ritual drink pouring as an offering to a deity in memory of the dead. Water from the Nile was likely poured into them because of the belief that the water’s purity could help revive the body of the deceased.  The wooden staffs may have played a central role in ritually “waking” Tutankhamun. “I’m pretty convinced that what we’re seeing within Tutankhamun’s burial chamber is probably the earliest iteration of this ritual that we can see in the archaeological record,” Brown told New Scientist.Archaeologist Howard Carter’s early 1920s discovery of his tomb remains one of the most significant findings in history due to the trove of treasures and valuable insight into the royal family’s lives and rituals....