"Forgotten" plant and organic remains from the Tutankhamun rich funerary kit are going to be studied for the first time in this project.
Tutankhamun's tomb is in fact well-known for the discovery of numerous golden objects and other prestigious artifacts, including the remarkable funerary mask, the fine jewelry and the shrine with poignant statues of goddesses. Howard Carter, the archaeologist famous for the discovery of the burial, managed to acknowledge the potential value of less prestigious findings, including plant remains. After a selection of the most interesting elements of the 'botanical treasure', which included flowers, a dried pomegranate and a basket full with Hyphaene thebaica fruits (Hepper, 2009), all the remaining plant material was swiped from the surfaces of the tomb and deposited in a big wooden box (200 x 50 x 50 cm ca.). The box was closed in 1933 and was stored in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo until 2017. In 2018 it was moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum, where conservators started working on it in 2019. The big box is not containing only plant (seeds, fruits, cuticles, wood) remains, but also organic remains of not yet clear origin. They are going to be studied by different researchers of Sapienza university in close cooperation with the scientists of Gran Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
