Archaeologists Decapitated Tutankhamun's Mummy and Glued It Back Together

A re-examination of 1925 excavation records reveals a troubling chapter in Egyptology.

In November 1925, three years after Howard Carter's team discovered Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, they faced an unexpected problem: the boy king's mummy was fused to its solid gold coffin by a hardened black resin that had been poured over the burial wrappings. The solution they chose would leave the pharaoh's body in pieces.

Carter's team attempted to soften the resin by placing the coffin under the desert sun, but the ancient pitch-like substance refused to budge. With no viable alternative, the archaeologists resorted to using heated knives to cut through the wrappings and the body itself. The mummy was decapitated, its arms separated at the shoulders, elbows, and hands, its legs severed at the hips, knees, and ankles, and the torso cut from the pelvis. After removing the jewelry and amulets embedded in the wrappings, the team reassembled the remains and glued them back together to simulate an intact body.

Three key facts emerge from the newly examined records. First, the extent of the damage was deliberately omitted from the official excavation accounts published at the time. Second, the dismemberment was not an accident of decay but a systematic cutting by the archaeological team. Third, the reassembled mummy — now held in the Valley of the Kings — still bears the glue and structural joins from that 1925 reconstruction, meaning the pharaoh on public display today is not in his original burial condition. The discovery has reignited debates about archaeological ethics and the treatment of ancient human remains.