One Man’s Trash Is Someone Else’s Treasure: Plant Remains From The Tomb Of The Pharaoh Tutankhamun

The arid environmental conditions present in Egypt have allowed to perfectly preserve desiccated botanical materials from a wide range of contexts and time periods, spanning from the Predynastic Period to the Ottoman one. An interesting case study in this sense is represented by the tomb of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun, who reigned between 1334 and 1325 BC. Other than the golden objects and the rich funerary assemblage, the tomb was also full of plant remains. These were found in the form of already well documented flower garlands and stored in numerous containers as funerary offerings. Nonetheless, part of these remains was left untouched for a century. In fact, after cataloguing the most interesting findings, Howard Carter and his collaborators swept the remaining material from the surfaces of the tomb, including numerous plant parts, and stored them in a wooden box, initially found in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and recently moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum. We have had the opportunity to study the contents of this box, identifying over 9000 plant remains, including food, medicinal and ornamental plants. These include taxa not previously recorded in the tomb (such as Beta vulgaris L.). Overall, our study does not only provide information about funerary offerings to the king, but also provides information about plant availability in 14th century BC Egypt.