Year 11 Recreation of Tutankhamun’s Tomb 

On Thursday the 19th of March, Mr de Bres took his Year 11 Ancient History class to recreate Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Rowe Quad and to explore what items were found during Howard Carter’s excavation of the tomb. Students brought tape measures and masking tape to measure and mark out the dimensions of each room in the tomb system and created a life-sized floor plan of the structure. They then presented Fact Files documenting the artefacts discovered, including decorative pieces like the Pharaoh’s burnished gold face mask; falcon-shaped pectoral; scarab beetle brooch; ivory head rest; Senet board game; ceremonial chariots; weapons such as bows and arrows and personal items like the Pharaoh’s linen gloves.

Ben was appointed the Director of Antiquities for the day. Chelsea played an integral role in preparing the area to be mapped out, along with Christina, Mary, Luca, Sora and Marley who all taped the dimensions of the rooms on the ground. Some problems we encountered were that the concrete area was not quite big enough to fit the entire tomb’s dimensions and the grassed area made it difficult to put masking tape down in places. As a result the decision was made to reduce the length of the tomb stairway to be representative of 16 steps, rather than the actual length. We also had to use students in the class as distance markers several times when it was necessary to measure a length of over 5m. Despite the slightly challenging circumstances, our class thoroughly enjoyed this educational exercise and learning more about the physical dimensions and exquisite contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Ben Alpert, Marley Donald and Chelsea Hoang (Year 11)