The ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun's mummy Sunday was put on display for the first time at the king's tomb in Egypt's southern city of Luxor, a witness told Xinhua.
The famous boy pharaoh's mummy was moved to a well-equipped showcase for exhibition from his casket inside his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the witness said, adding that the withered face and feet of the mummy were exposed to viewers while the other parts of the body still wrapped by linen.
The movement of the mummy is part of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities council's plan to protect royal mummies which are exposed to a high percentage of humidity due to the increasing number of visitors of the tomb, according to Zahi Hawass, the council's Secretary General.
He said a climate-controlled glass showcase can protect the ancient boy king's mummy from further damage while keeping it in the tomb in the Kings' Valley in Luxor, Upper Egypt, some 700 km south to the Egyptian capital Cairo.
Tutankhamun's mummy, which had been examined by experts through CAT scanning, was kept in a sarcophagus covered by a gilded coffin inside the tomb while it was unearthed in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter.
Tutankhamun, the king of Egypt's 18th dynasty, ruled the country in 14th century B.C. and died at the age of about 19.
(Xinhua News Agency November 5, 2007)
