Mission Code Name: Saving Isis  

During Howard Carter's 1922 archaeological dig in Egypt, he uncovered the long, lost tomb of King Tutankhamen. Once he found the tomb, the next task would be to extract the King's sarcophagus. If he thought that locating the tomb was one of the hardest obstacles to overcome, he was wrong. Carter discovered that removing the sarcophagus from the burial chamber of the tomb might be even more difficult than anticipated. The passage way to the burial chamber was sealed off and with a wall, on which a magnificent mural depicting the Goddess Isis, was painted. The only way Carter believed that he was going to bypass the wall and be able to enter the chamber where the sarcophagus was, would be through the mural. So he  a huge chunk out of the wall so he and his team could get into the chamber on the other side. The dimensions of the sarcophagus were too large to move through any other passage way, so the mural was sacrificed. That was 1922 and this is 2009. With all the new technologies that exist today, there has to be way to save the Isis mural, but how? Mission code name: Saving Isis, should it be accepted, would be to devise a way to save Isis from destruction and still obtain King Tut's sarcophagus.

Two of my peers and I, Elliot and Jenna, accepted our mission. We assigned each group member a role. I was assigned as the bookkeeper. Since we are college students and know very little about archeology, we had to research about it. As per my role, I had to locate books about archaeological tools and techniques that could help us go around the Isis mural and still reach King Tut's burial chamber. We first needed a picture of layout of the tomb and the dimensions before we could begin conceptualizing a plan. Using the book Tutankahamun: The Last Journey by William MacQuitty, on page 15, I found a detailed layout with the dimensions of the tomb, with which we reviewed possible entry points to the burial chamber. We examined how high the ceilings were and the width of the sarcophagus, so we could find a way to remove it. Now that we had the dimensions of the tomb and primitive ideas about how to accomplish our mission, we needed to investigate archeaological tools to use. I located a book called A History of Egyptian Archeology by Fred Bratton to see why Carter entered the burial chamber through Isis and did not look for another way in. My group investigated his decision to go through Isis, which his reason seemed to be that the body of the King as the most important object to find and not the Isis mural (Bratton 166). My group was not going to repeat his mistake because we know how important the mural is.

For us not destroy Isis, I found a book called Excavation by Steve Roskams, that outlines archaeological tools to remove artifacts. Using this book as a guide to find the most effective tools and our layout of the tomb, we began our work of saving Isis. We would start out in the Antechamber and begin with drilling a hole large enough to see into the adjacent room. Once seeing that it was safe to proceed and the angle on which to enter, my group decided to start cutting a passage way from the store room wall and use a Hymac that would remove the soil most effectively, so we could continue to maneuver in the cramped space (Roakams 94). Using this method we would get close enough to the wall to start to use shovels and drills. Also using this same book, we decided to use and Electronic Distance Measuring maching or EDM for short, to make sure we landed precisely in the store room (Roakams 100). Once the proper location of entry was ensured, we would continue to dig through into the store room. Continuing to use Roskam's book that I found, we learned that to keep our trench in tact we would have to use shoring techniques to make sure the tunnel did not collapse on us (Roakams 104). The passage way width had to carefully measured to make sure the King Tut's sarcophagus and it could not get smaller so the shoring techniques would keep the passage way the proper size. This passage way would allow us a much easier time bringing King Tut out, without damaging him. We also saved Isis from destruction by creating this passageway.

Also in another book I found, A Century of Excavation in the Land of the Pharaohs by James Baikie, we found out that King Tut was in multiple encasements and not just a single one (80). We would have to remove him from some of his encasements to safely remove him from the tomb and not need a crane to lift him, because with all those encasements, his sarcophagus must weight a few tons. After we remove Tut, we could come back for the rest of his encasement, if we so desired. Though through more research, I found out in the book King Tutankahamun: The Treasures of the Tomb by Zahi Hawass that there was a large treasure with the sarcophagus and in the store room that would could be easily taken out through our passagway as well (73-157). After executing this whole plan and removing all the teasures, we would have successfully removed King Tut from his burial chamber and Isis would still be intact and our mission would be complete with added bonuses.

Our mission could not have been successful, without me locating all the necessary books. I was pretty busy being the bookkeeper, because I even had to find books for our alternate plans that we did not use. My other group members then utilized the books I found to strategize a way to save Isis and write their projects. One of my group member, Elliot, wrote about our final plan that can be viewed here and my other group member, Jenna, wrote about the alternate plans that devised and her project is viewable here. Sadly, even though our plan would save Isis, Carter did not have the same tools that we were going to use and instead destroyed the mural. I wish we could go back and time when Carter discovered the tomb and inform him about how disadvantageous it would be to destroy the Isis mosaic and could help him find an alternate way in. If he used our method, Isis would still exsit today. This means our mission was successful and this message will now self-destruct.

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