Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century

Despite a century spent marveling at the 3,300-year-old tomb of Tutankhamun, the public’s knowledge of the late 18th Dynasty-reigning boy king’s modern history has often been obscured—until now. In this compelling chronicle, Riggs, Tutankhamun excavation expert and visual culture professor at Durham University, unearths complex truths behind Tutankhamun’s 20th century rebirth. With skill, she examines what little we know about the tomb occupant archeologist Howard Carter discovered in November 1922, the way scholarship has excluded Egyptians from Egyptology’s own history and how Egypt has deployed Tut as a cultural ambassador over the years. Along the way Riggs recounts how encounters with the long-dead pharaoh have shaped lives, including her own (Tutankhamun inspired Ohio-born Riggs’ Egyptology studies at Brown University and Oxford and her academic career). All of this results in a sensitive exploration of how culture, politics and other forces have influenced our understanding of both Tutankhamun and the world.
 
—Dianna Wray