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Mummy Who Would Be King, The
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Program Overview
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NOVA investigates whether an Egyptian mummy that wound up on display
at a curiosity museum in Canada may be the remains of Rameses I, the
founder of one of Egypt's greatest dynasties.
The program:
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reviews how the mummy appears to have been purchased around 1860
and shipped to the Niagara Falls Museum and Daredevil Hall of
Fame in Ontario, Canada.
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describes how an amateur German Egyptologist became intrigued
with the mummy in 1979 and prompted a subsequent inquiry that
led investigators to conclude in 1985 that the remains did not
belong to a royal mummy from the New Kingdom.
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reviews some of the pharaohs who ruled during the New Kingdom
era, which began about 3,500 years ago and lasted five
centuries.
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relates that while the tombs of nearly all the pharaohs buried
in the Valley of the Kings were looted in antiquity, their
mummies were safeguarded and eventually moved to the Egyptian
Museum in Cairo.
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reports which of the mummies of New Kingdom pharaohs have
already been identified and where many of them were discovered.
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notes how the mummy captured the attention of an archeology
student who invited a visiting British Egyptologist to come see
it at the Niagara Falls Museum.
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relates how the mummy came to be carbon-14 dated in 1994, which
indicated the remains were about 2,700 years old, too old to be
part of the later Roman era.
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explains how the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta acquired
the mummy in 1999.
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follows the investigation launched by the Carlos Museum to
determine the mummy's identification, which included visual
observation, X-ray and cross-matching of the skull to an
existing database of pharaoh skull shapes, CT scans, and
archival evidence.
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concludes with the confirmation that the unknown mummy is almost
certainly a pharaoh and possibly Rameses I.
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follows the October 2003 return of the mummy to Egypt.
Taping Rights: Can be used up to one year after the program
is taped off the air.
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