A few weeks back, on November 4th 2024, the world celebrated the 102nd anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb. I’ve celebrated the occasion on this blog once before with a review of the movie The Pyramid by Gregory Levasseur, and disliked the movie enough that I figured I might want to pick something a little more factual this time around.

After probing the depths of Ancient Egyptian related content on Amazon Prime, I came across Tut’s Lost City Revealed. I’ll admit that my expectations for this documentary were not very high. The imagery on the title screen looks a bit “ancient aliens” for my taste, with Tut’s infamous death mask sort of photoshopped onto the shape of a pyramid with an eclipse filling the background. It practically shouts conspiracy theory, but a quick google search showed interviews from Zahi Hawass, a seemingly credible and renowned Egyptian archaeologist.

Also, my other option was a show called TUT’S TOXIC TOMB!! I crossed my fingers and hit play on Tut’s Lost City Revealed . . .

Which I found to be a pretty informative and enjoyable documentary.

It centers around the discovery of an ancient industrial district, called Tehen Aten (the dazzling Aten) not far from Tut’s burial chamber. When King Tut was discovered back in 1922, he was surrounded by some 5,000 grave goods including 81 pairs of shoes, some jewelry and many other items which have helped archaeologists piece together a glimpse of what ancient life might have been like for the boy king. However, it was never clear where all the items came from, or who made them. With the discovery of Tehen Aten, Zahi Hawass believes we have the answer to that mystery, and that we finally have a better glimpse into the lives of Ancient Egyptian artisans and commoners during King Tut’s admittedly short reign.

I found the progress of the excavation fascinating, and how they were able to tie discoveries from the dig to other known discoveries from other sites in order to date the city to Tut’s rule. One of the most striking mysteries about this “lost city” is its serpentine, or wavy brick walls, which seem to run all around the city. They do not appear to be common to other Ancient Egyptian settlements although it is apparently quite rare to find full cities such as Tehen Aten because of the way they were constructed — primarily out of mud bricks — which do not really allow for the same kind of preservation as stone structures.

Unfortunately, by the end of the documentary, the mystery of the serpentine walls is essentially unanswered. And since it appears to be a relatively recent discovery — I don’t think a date is listed in the documentary, but I found an online article written by a Sri Lankan newspaper (in October of 2024) which dated the find to 2020 (the documentary is from 2022) — I didn’t find much online to help me verify anything presented in the show, and if any are curious as to what progress has been made since, I couldn’t really uncover much more about it than what was seen in the documentary.

Give Tut’s Lost City Revealed a watch?

Ultimately, this documentary was a pretty solid way to kill an hour. I found myself quickly enthralled with each new discovery, and fascinated by the theories and arguments used to explain how the ancients may have lived based on the evidence uncovered within the lost city.

Unfortunately, the primary mystery of the serpentine wall structures remained unanswered at the end of the documentary, and it was difficult to try to verify any of the assertions made within whether through other documentaries or even scholarly articles (maybe I just don’t know how to look properly).

Caveats aside, I would say this was a pretty enjoyable documentary about a fascinating subject, and overall an excellent way to celebrate the discovery of Tut’s Tomb.

That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone else already watched this one? What was your favorite part? Any other good documentaries I should watch?

See you next time!