Tutankhamun's Burial Treasures: Lifestyle Objects

Sharif Shoaier: “Now, what have we here?”

Dr Janice Kamrin: “We have Egyptian alabaster vessels for holding perfumes and unguents and a lamp.”

Sharif Shoaier: “Now I've heard that one reason the robbers went into the tombs was that they were after the perfumes as much as the precious materials”

Dr Janice Kamrin: “Well, the nice thing about the perfumes is that you take them out of the vessel and they're completely portable and completely unidentifiable.”

Sharif Shoaier: “U-huh!”

Dr Janice Kamrin: “You don't have to to melt them down, you just take them out and run with it.”

Sharif Shoaier: “No risk.”

Dr Janice Kamrin: “Yeah. The perfumes and unguents were made of various kinds of animal fats and plant extracts and essences. I don't know what kind of oil they used to burn in this particular lamp.

This is a Senet game and there were ritual overtones to that. Normally, you play with two people against each other. But one of the things that the deceased had to do by the New Kingdom, and this shows up in the Book of the Dead, you played against an invisible opponent and you have to win to progress into the afterlife.”

Sharif Shoaier: “So we know how the game was played?”

Dr Janice Kamrin: “Kind of.”

Sharif Shoaier: “Kind of?”

Dr Janice Kamrin: “Kind of. You throw sticks and you have to move your pieces along. I think it's sort of predecessor of Parcheesy or something like that.

More beautiful, or maybe not so beautiful alabaster vessels. This is the one in a form of Ibex, which is a desert animal. You see one of the names of the king on its shoulder. And that horn is actually a real ibex horn, and the second one is missing. And this... This guy is one of my favourite. This is the god Bes. And he protects women and childbirth and women and children. And he is very unusual fellow. He is usually shown as a dwarf with either a human head or with brows with a mane around, so he's the sort of a blend of a dwarf and a lion. And he's often got the tongue sticking out like that.

Tutankhamun was buried with a lot of food and drink. Very important to have supplies for the afterlife. And as far as we can tell, Tutankhamun liked his food.”

Sharif Shoaier: “Now is this going to be enough wine for eternity?”

Dr Janice Kamrin: “Well, this is only a part of his supply.”

Sharif Shoaier: “Ah, a part of it.”

Dr Janice Kamrin: “And of course, it will be magically perpetuated, you don't really have to bring enough for, you know, millions of years.

But what's also fun about these wine jars, is that they are inscribed and they say, for example, the year of the king, the vintage. I mean they serve like a label, like you'd find on a bottle nowadays. It says where it's from, who is the chief vintner. And it also tells you... I think you had asked me earlier where the food came from. The king had estates all over the country. For example, one of these wine jars is, it says that it's year five and it's from estate of the Aten – remember the 'Aten' – which is way at the eastern Egypt delta. They've got some wineyards out there. You know, red wine, they had white wine, they had different qualities of wine.

But he did not seem to like beer. He was not buried with beer.”

Sharif Shoaier: “No beer in the tomb?”

Dr Janice Kamrin: “No beer. I don't think so.”