King Tutankhamun has died again!
Posted On: Apr 12th, 2015 at 21:24
Egypt.
The real Tutankhamun?
Here is the perfect example of my love / hate relationship with archaeology and science in general. Science is a fundamental tool which the human race needs, there is no doubt about that, but I have many an argument with people who believe science is the only tool worth using. This view comes from the stereotypical belief that the only two options are religion and science, and if religion is the only other option then non-religious people insist that science is the only truth available. Well that is simply an ignorance of the world around us.
Science has more flaws than I care to mention. In fact, there are so many I would put its followers in the same light as religious believers. When people believe that the laws of something are so perfect, when in fact they are not, then this is nothing more than ‘religious’ belief.
There are a million examples that I could draw on, but of course in this article we are talking about King Tutankhamun, the most famous of Egyptian Pharaohs, but certainly not the most interesting. Between ten and twenty years ago it was the absolute truth, through solid scientific evidence, that King Tut died from injuries sustained after falling off his chariot… Then around ten years ago new scientific evidence absolutely proved that King Tut was murdered due to a blow to the back of his head, the most likely culprit an official named Ay who succeeded King Tut to the throne. This meant an entire new story had to be created around the Eighteenth Dynasty family, starting with Tutankhamun’s father, Akhenaton, and his famous and stunningly beautiful wife, Nefertiti. For the record, King Tut was not the son of Nefertiti but was born of a lesser wife. Anyway, due to the defacing of Akhenaton’s statues and reliefs across Egypt after his death, and the subsequent abandonment of Amarna and return to Thebes, it was assumed, putting it all together, that the Royal house were all bumped off and Ay was the culprit. Poor Ay! Now, I never did like this “scientific fact” because I don’t believe King Tut would have had such a lavish burial if he was murdered and attempts made to eradicate the family from history. That just doesn’t make sense.
Now, here in this article, new scientific evidence has proven that…
Yes, you see the picture.
Scientific truth must always be taken with a pinch of salt. Now, we all know that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius and other experiments prove this and that. This is my love for science. But the other version is my hate for science – the way many scientists say this or that and promote it as fact, which is then taught to our children at school… and then is later completely disproven by a new finding and history lessons need to change again. But it doesn’t just happen with history.
I get a lot of abuse for this viewpoint but I shall not change it until scientists – not science – admit that often their findings are purely subjective guesswork based on loose evidence, and to stop teaching these findings to our children as fact. It should be taught to every child that science changes every day, as does evidence and the mind-boggling, often comical stories that are created to fit that evidence. And often scientists call those with bizarre theories ‘the lunatic fringe’. Pot and kettle? Science is not as objective as it scientists make it out to be. You only have to have the brain capacity of a hedgehog to understand that the scientific observer can never be objective because the human being will always imprint its subjective thoughts to any outcome, to the point that seemingly solid experiments can be altered to fit preconceived ideas, subconsciously or otherwise.
I love this image of King Tut in the article… but no doubt in ten years it will be scientifically ‘proven’ that he was a strong, well-built warrior Pharaoh who conquered the Nubian Kings and the Middle East…
