Reviewed by David M. Kinchen

Tutankhamun: The Story of Egyptology's Greatest Discovery (Andre Deutsch, 64 pages, $29.95) is the lavishly illustrated latest addition to the already groaning shelves of books about a king who died at the age of 19, after about ten years on the throne of Egypt.

Author Jaromir Malek has written a very accessible book for the average reader, but the facsimile items enclosed in transparent pockets bound into the book make it useful to the more experienced student of the pharaohs. The items -- sketches, notes, maps, diagrams of the tomb by British archaeologist Howard Carter -- help bring back the world of 1922, where, on Nov. 26 Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarvon opened the tomb and found more than 5,600 objects. Perhaps the most famous was the gold head mask -- which is not reproduced on the cover of this book, but which is included inside. Most books have the famous mask -- perhaps the most familiar item of ancient Egypt -- on the cover.

I saw the King Tut exhibit at Chicago's Field Museum in 2006 and was disappointed -- as were many visitors -- to find that the mask was not among the more than 130 items on display. The Egyptian government won't let the mask out of the country, which makes sense since it could become an object of desire to a truly dedicated thief. The gold mask -- illustrated here along with the book cover -- WAS included in a late 1970s show at The Field.

Tutankhamun ruled from 1341 to 1323 B.C. in the Eighteenth Dynasty. He was 19 when he died -- not from a blow to his head as some conspiracy theorists have alleged -- but perhaps  from an infection brought on by a broken leg. Nobody knows for sure. The tomb contained disassembled chariots (there's a photo of two men examining one of them) lending credence to the theory that I read somewhere that the young pharaoh loved to race about Memphis in his favorite chariot and may have sustained a broken leg in a chariot crash. Strictly theoretical!

The book cover illustration -- there is no jacket -- the book opens up like an old-time LP opera album -- is of a beautifully carved and painted wooden likeness of Tutankhamun that was found in the tomb. Inside, there's a photograph made in 2005 showing how the young king might have looked, based on the well preserved mummy. The photo has a distinct resemblance to the wooden "mannequin" found in the tomb's antechamber.  He was a relatively short young man, at five feet six inches, but most people were short in those days, so he might have been average or even above average in height.

The 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb created a worldwide frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt, spawning movies, books -- plenty of books -- and an interest in archaeology that continues to this day. Malek provides a useful background on ancient Egypt, including an account of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which provided a key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Malek, keeper of the archives at the Griffith Institute at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, has produced a book that would make a wonderful birthday or holiday gift to anyone -- particularly young people -- interested in the subject. The book is beautifully printed, in China, and is designed to make it easy and enjoyable to understand.

Jaromir Malek is an Egyptologist and Keeper of the Archives at the Griffith Institute at the Ashmolean Museum. The Ashmolean is one of the world’s leading Egyptological archives and houses the personal papers of Howard Carter. Malek has written numerous articles and a number of books including The Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt (with John Baines); Egyptian Art; ABC of Egyptian Heiroglyphs; Egypt: 4000 Years of Art; In the Shadow of the Pyramids: Egypt During the Old Kingdom and The Cat in Ancient Egypt.

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