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THE ARTICLE

Three teams of scientists from around the world have brought to life the face of Tutankhamen, the 3,300-year-old Egyptian king. Forensic artists in Egypt, France and America reconstructed images of the boy king’s face using computerized scans of his skull. While the Egyptian and French teams knew whose face they were reconstructing, the Americans were purposely kept in the dark. Regardless, the U.S. team correctly identified the skull as that of a Caucasoid North African. All of the images bear striking resemblances to ancient portraits of Tutankhamen. The teams came close on the proportions of the skull and on facial features, differing only in the degree of details in the face’s extremities – the shape of the nose, ears and chin. All teams gave the young pharaoh chubby cheeks. The Secretary-General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass said: “The shape of the face and skull are remarkably similar to a famous image of Tutankhamen as a child, where he was shown as the sun god at dawn rising from a lotus blossom.” Mr. Hawass also commented that the Egyptian team’s face did look the more Egyptian of the three.

WARM UPS

1. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics you are interested in, which do not look interesting and which look really boring:

Egypt / Tutankhamen / Egyptian kings / forensic science / portraits / facial features / noses / ears / chins / lotus blossoms

Have a chat about the topics you liked. For more conversation, change topics and partners frequently.

2. TUTANKHAMEN: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with Tutankhamen. Share your words with your partner / group and talk about them.

3. MY FACE: In pairs. Use the vocabulary in Worksheet A to briefly write down a description of your face. After you have finished, do the same for your partner. Compare your descriptions of each other. Try to agree where there are differences of opinion.

Worksheet A

4. EGYPT WORDS: In pairs / groups, brainstorm as many words as you can that you associate with Egypt. After you have finished, visit other partners or groups to exchange words. Explain the meanings if the other students don’t know them. Back with your original partner / group, put the words into lists – you must choose the category titles. Use these lists to make mini-presentations on Egypt to another group or the whole class.

5. I AM KING / QUEEN TUT: Imagine you are an ancient Egyptian ruler. Talk to your partner or group - also (an) ancient Egyptian ruler(s) – about your daily lives in Egypt. Some of the following words might be useful:

breakfast / clothes / today’s duties / my rivals / sport / hobby / law making / pets / diplomacy / my subjects / love / new statues / dinner / bed …

Repeat this activity by being the ancient rulers of your own country.

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. WORD SEARCH: Use your dictionary / computer to find word partners (collocates), other meanings, synonyms or more information on the words ‘facial’ and ‘feature’.

2. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the article’s headline and guess whether these sentences are true (T) or false (F):

1. Archaeologists have found the face of boy king Tutankhamen.  T / F
2. Forensic scientists have reconstructed a lifelike image of Tutankhamen.  T / F
3. An American team reconstructed Tutankhamen’s face in a dark room.  T / F
4. A U.S. team identified a skull as being Caucasoid North African.  T / F
5. Ancient portraits depict Tutankhamen as a bear.  T / F
6. The young pharaoh supposedly had chubby cheeks.  T / F
7. Scientists disagreed on details of Tutankhamen’s facial extremities.  T / F
8. An Egyptologist said the new images are very similar to ancient ones.  T / F

3. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:

4. PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases from the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

1. SPOT THE MISTAKES: Half of the words in bold are right and half are wrong. Circle the incorrect words and try to replace them with words that fit.

The face of Tutankhamen

Three teams of scientists from around the cosmos have brought to life the face of Tutankhamen, the 3,300-year-old Egyptian king. Forensic actors in Egypt, France and America reconstructed images of the boy king’s face using computerized scans of his skull. While the Egyptian and French teams knew whose face they were reconstructing, the Americans were purposely kept in the light. Regardless, the U.S. team correctly identified the skeleton as that of a Caucasoid North African. All of the images bear striking resemblances to ancient portraits of Tutankhamen. The teams came close on the proportions of the skull and on facial features, differing only in the degree of details in the face’s extremities – the shape of the nose, ears and chin. All teams gave the young pharaoh chubby hair. The Secretary-General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass said: “The shape of the face and skull are remarkably similar to a famous image of Tutankhamen as a child, where he was shown as the sun god at dawn rising from a lotus blossom.” Mr. Hawass also commented that the Egyptian team’s face did look the more Egyptian of the three.

2. TRUE/FALSE: Check your answers to the T/F exercise.

3. SYNONYM MATCH: Check your answers to this exercise.

4. PHRASE MATCH: Check your answers to this exercise.

5. QUESTIONS: Make notes for questions you would like to ask the class about the article.

6. VOCABULARY: Circle any words you do not understand. In groups, pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find their meanings.

POST READING IDEAS

1. SPOT THE MISTAKES: In pairs / groups, check your answers to this exercise.

2. QUESTIONS: Ask the discussion questions you thought of above to your partner / group / class. Pool the questions for everyone to share.

3. VOCABULARY: As a class, go over the vocabulary students circled above.

4. STUDENT TUTANKHAMEN SURVEY: In pairs/groups write down questions about Tutankhamen. Ask other classmates your questions and report back to your original partner/ group to compare your findings.

5. ‘FACIAL’ / ‘FEATURE’: Make questions based on your findings from pre-reading activity #1. Ask your partner / group your questions.

6. DISCUSSION:

1. What did you think of this article?
2. Do you want to know more about anything in particular?
3. Are you interested in Tutankhamen?
4. Are you interested in ancient Egypt?
5. What do you know of ancient Egypt and the pharaohs?
6. Would you like to have lived in Egypt at that time?
7. Would you like to be an archaeologist?
8. Have you ever seen a mummy?
9. Have you ever seen any mummy horror movies?
10. Would you like to go to the Valley of the Kings to visit Tutankhamen’s tomb?
11. How useful is forensic science?
12. Would you like to be a forensic scientist or artist?
13. What is your image of modern day Egypt?
14. Tutankhamen became king when he was nine. What kind of things do you think he had to do every day?
15. Did you like talking about Egypt and mummies etc?
16. Teacher / Student additional questions.

7. CHILD MONARCH: You are ten years old. As king/queen, you are the ruler of your country. You want your country to be a wonderful place for children. In pairs / groups, write down the things important to children. Decide what to do about the things you wrote down. Write down the details of these decisions in the table.

Change partners. With new partners, discuss each other’s important things and decisions. Give feedback on your partner’s decisions and his / her worthiness to be king / queen.

8. MY TOMB: Imagine you are an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Decide what items (between 5 to 10) you want to be buried with in your tomb. You will have these things when you wake up in the afterlife. Tell your partner the items you chose and why you chose them. Although you are an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, you can put modern day things in your tomb.

When your partner is telling you what he/she wants in his/her tomb, do your best to persuade them it’s a bad thing to take to the afterlife.

HOMEWORK

1. VOCABULARY EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or Google’s search field (or another search engine) to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find information on Tutankhamen. Share your findings with your class in the next lesson.

3. MY FACIAL FEATURES: Write a report describing your facial features in the tiniest of details. Imagine the report will be given to a portrait artist who has to reconstruct a perfect image from your description. Show your report to your classmates in your next lesson. They will provide feedback on its accuracy.

4. PHARAONIC DIARY: Write your journal / diary entry for one day in your life as a pharaoh in ancient Egypt. Read it to your partner(s) next class.

ANSWERS

TRUE/FALSE:

1. Archaeologists have found the face of boy king Tutankhamen.  F
2. Forensic scientists have reconstructed a lifelike image of Tutankhamen.  T
3. An American team reconstructed Tutankhamen’s face in a dark room.  F
4. A U.S. team identified a skull as being Caucasoid North African.  T
5. Ancient portraits depict Tutankhamen as a bear.  F
6. The young pharaoh supposedly had chubby cheeks.  T
7. Scientists disagreed on details of Tutankhamen’s facial extremities.  T
8. An Egyptologist said the new images are very similar to ancient ones.  T

SYNONYM MATCH:

PHRASE MATCH:

SPOT THE MISTAKES:

The face of Tutankhamen

Three teams of scientists from around the world have brought to life the face of Tutankhamen, the 3,300-year-old Egyptian king. Forensic artists in Egypt, France and America reconstructed images of the boy king’s face using computerized scans of his skull. While the Egyptian and French teams knew whose face they were reconstructing, the Americans were purposely kept in the dark. Regardless, the U.S. team correctly identified the skull as that of a Caucasoid North African. All of the images bear striking resemblances to ancient portraits of Tutankhamen. The teams came close on the proportions of the skull and on facial features, differing only in the degree of details in the face’s extremities – the shape of the nose, ears and chin. All teams gave the young pharaoh chubby cheeks. The Secretary-General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass said: “The shape of the face and skull are remarkably similar to a famous image of Tutankhamen as a child, where he was shown as the sun god at dawn rising from a lotus blossom.” Mr. Hawass also commented that the Egyptian team’s face did look the more Egyptian of the three.