It was a century ago in November that Howard Carter opened the tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun. vHe found gold and jewels, furniture, clothing, and the famous gold face mask.
The finding that was extraordinary was a dagger in the mummy's bindings. It was made of iron, before a time when the Egyptians learned to smelt. It could have come from the ancient Hittite Empire but that turned out not to be the case.
The dagger was analyzed with X-rays and found to be made of meteoric iron. The meteorite is known as Kharga. The investigations have continued, and it is considered a possible wedding gift to Amenhotep III by the king of Mitanni. This was bolstered by the fact that the team found the gemstones in the gold hilt had been attached with lime plaster. Although lime plaster was commonly used in Mitanni at the time, Egyptians preferred to use gypsum plaster.
More X-ray activity has been occurring recently. Here's a headline: "Scientists unwrapped the secrets without unraveling the mummies." They used "The Advanced Photon Source" X-ray machine.
What did it see? The preserved remains of what is likely an ancient Egyptian girl about five years old.
"Experts dated this particular mummy back to the Roman era (beginning in 30 B.C.). It was discovered in Hawara, Egypt and excavated in 1911, eventually making its way to the library of the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary on Northwestern’s Evanston, Illinois campus. In 2018, the mummy became the centerpiece of an exhibition on campus, joining a series of Roman-Egyptian mummy portraits, representations of people embalmed within mummies that were excavated from areas near Hawara."
There are many X-ray projects now. We'll never get tired of Egyptian Mummies. They represent a universally fascinating and compelling time in history.
My version of gold - captured reflections of the sunset on water. | 
