Who Was King Tut 图坦卡蒙法老 Chapter 4 An Early Death

During Amenhotep’s sixteen-year-long rule, the empire did not run smoothly¹. The lands under Egypt’s control had to pay tribute². This meant that every year they had to send riches to the pharaoh. For instance, from Nubia in the south came gold. Lebanon had to send rare cedar³ wood. But the Egyptian army had grown weaker. Tribute had stopped coming in.
Then Amenhotep IV was gone. And King Tut was just a child. How could he be expected to make the empire strong again?
The real power now lay with Tut’s vizier, or chief minister, and one of the army generals. Tut was the ruler in name only. He appeared at important ceremonies and holidays.
If Tut had lived beyond his teen years, perhaps he would have grown up to become a strong and wise ruler. Or maybe he always would have been under the thumb of his advisers⁴.
Perhaps they were afraid that if Tut had more power, he might try to bring back the strange ways of Amenhotep IV. Instead, the temples of the older gods were reopened. And Thebes, not Amarna, became the royal city once again. Tut moved back there with his queen. They may have had children. In Tut’s tomb, along with his coffin⁵, two tiny coffins⁶ were also found. They contained the bodies of two baby girls. It is possible that they were Tut’s children.
King Tut and his wife
What we do know is this: He didn’t leave a son behind to become pharaoh after his death. And even in a time when most people did not live to age forty, Tut still died very young. He was only eighteen or nineteen.
It is not surprising that some historians⁷ have suspected foul⁸ play. Perhaps the vizier or the general decided⁹ to get rid of Tut. (Each of them became pharaoh after Tut by marrying into the royal family.)
In modern times a popular notion¹⁰ was that Tut died from a blow to the head. But in 2005, CAT scans¹¹ were done on the pharaoh’s three-thousand-year-old body. Over two months, cross-sectional images were taken of Tut, from head to toe. (Think of Tut’s body as a loaf of bread, with each image as a slice of bread.) When all the images were assembled, they created a three-dimensional picture of his body, inside and out.
So what did scientists learn?
There appeared to be an injury to his head, but it did not happen when he was alive. Tut’s skull¹² may have been injured when his mummy was found in 1922, so he was not killed by a blow to the head. However, the tests were not able to rule out all other methods of murder. For example, there was no way to tell if Tut had been poisoned. Evidence of poison wouldn’t have shown up on the scans.
The scientists did find out that Tut had a broken leg. It is possible that this injury may have caused an infection that led to his death.
The tests on Tut are over now. His body probably does not need to be examined anymore. The man who headed the testing said, “We should leave him in peace.” Tut was placed in his coffin and returned to his burial chamber¹³.

1 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

2 tribute   

n.颂词，称赞，(表示敬意的)礼物；贡品

参考例句：

• She accepted their tribute graciously.她慈祥地接受了他们的致意。
• Many conquered nations had to pay tribute to the rulers of ancient Rome.许多被征服的国家必须向古罗马的统治者朝贡。

3 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。

4 advisers   

顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• a member of the President's favoured circle of advisers 总统宠爱的顾问班子中的一员
• She withdrew to confer with her advisers before announcing a decision. 她先去请教顾问然后再宣布决定。

5 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

6 coffins   

n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物

参考例句：

• The shop was close and hot, and the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. 店堂里相当闷热，空气仿佛被棺木的味儿污染了。 来自辞典例句
• Donate some coffins to the temple, equal to the number of deaths. 到寺庙里，捐赠棺材盒给这些死者吧。 来自电影对白

7 historians   

n.历史学家，史学工作者( historian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Historians seem to have confused the chronology of these events. 历史学家好像把这些事件发生的年代顺序搞混了。
• Historians have concurred with each other in this view. 历史学家在这个观点上已取得一致意见。

8 foul   

adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规

参考例句：

• Take off those foul clothes and let me wash them.脱下那些脏衣服让我洗一洗。
• What a foul day it is!多么恶劣的天气！

9 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

10 notion   

n.概念，意念，看法

参考例句：

• One common Chinese notion is that the elders ought to be respected.中国人共有的一种观念是长者应受到尊敬。
• He had a sudden notion to visit all his relatives.他心血来潮，突然想去拜访他所有的亲戚。

11 scans   

n.浏览( scan的名词复数 )；审视；（雷达）（屏面上的）光点v.扫描( scan的第三人称单数 )；细看；细查；（雷达）对…进行扫描

参考例句：

• This apparatus scans patients' brains for tumours. 这台仪器扫描检查病人的脑瘤。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Brain scans have confirmed that the disease is in remission. 脑部扫描已经证实疾病得到了控制。 来自辞典例句

12 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

13 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。