Tutankhamun 'was not black'
2007-09-26 08:43
Cairo - Egyptian antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass insisted on Tuesday that Tutankhamun was not black despite calls by United States black activists to recognise the boy king's dark skin colour.
Hawass said: "Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilisation as black has no element of truth to it.
"Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa."
Hawass said he was responding to several demonstrations in Philadelphia after a lecture he gave there on September 06, where he defended his theory.
Protestors also claimed images of King Tut were altered to show him with lighter skin at the "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibit, which left Philadelphia for London on September 30.
The exhibition sparked an uproar after it kicked off in Los Angeles in June 2005 when black activists demanded that a bust of the boy king be removed because the statue portrayed him as white.
The face of the legendary pharaoh, who died about 3 300 years ago at the age of just 19, was reconstructed in 2005 with images collected through CAT scans of his mummy.
The boy king's intact tomb caused an international sensation after it was discovered by Briton Howard Carter in 1922 near Luxor in southern Egypt.