Class 11 English · Original EZT practice
Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues - A.R. Williams (Class 11 English, Hornbill, Chapter 3)
Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues is Chapter 3 of Class 11 Hornbill (pp. 21-29), A.R. Williams's account of the boy pharaoh who 'was just a teenager when he died.' Since Howard Carter's 1922 discovery, the world has speculated about how Tut died; now, 'leaving his tomb for the first time in almost 80 years', Tut undergoes a CT scan that 'offers new clues about his life and death.' This page follows Carter's chisel, the missing breast-bone, the scanner that quit over 'sand in a cooler fan', and what the images answered, with fresh practice questions. (Note: this is original practice, not a textbook exercise key.)
6 original worked examples, 6 fresh self-check questions and 4 mixed questions, with explained answers. These are not copied textbook exercises, an official chapter index or a full answer key. No affiliation with NCERT is claimed.
Official sources for topic and edition context, checked 25 October 2026:
1. The chapter at a glance
The opening claim: 'He was just a teenager when he died', the last heir of a dynasty, 'laden with gold and eventually forgotten'; murder is 'the most extreme possibility' the modern world has speculated about. The scan night: 'It was 6 p.m. on 5 January 2005.' - 'An angry wind stirred up ghostly dust devils', 'dark-bellied clouds' scudding across the sky, 'veiling the stars in casket grey' as the world's most famous mummy glides 'head first into a CT scanner'. Carter's 1922 find: the tomb's contents 'remain the richest royal collection ever found', yet Tut was also buried with everyday things 'he'd want in the afterlife: board games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, cases of food and wine.' The resin problem: 'The ritual resins had hardened, cementing Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin'; 'No amount of legitimate force could move them', and hours in blazing sun that heated the mummy 'to 149 degrees' changed nothing. The chisel: Carter reported 'with scientific detachment' that 'the consolidated material had to be chiselled away from beneath the limbs and trunk'; in his defence, thieves would otherwise have 'circumvented the guards and ripped it apart to remove the gold'. The men 'removed the mummy's head and severed nearly every major joint', then reassembled the remains 'on a layer of sand in a wooden box with padding that concealed the damage'. The 1968 X-ray: an anatomy professor revealed that 'beneath the resin that cakes his chest, his breast-bone and front ribs are missing.' The new tool: computed tomography puts 'hundreds of X-rays in cross section ... together like slices of bread to create a three-dimensional virtual body' - could it answer 'how did he die, and how old was he at the time of his death?' The dynasty: Akhenaten smashed Amun's images and closed his temples - 'and then Akhenaten went a little wacky', says Ray Johnson; after Smenkhkare 'exited with hardly a trace', the boy Tutankhaten took the throne, changed his name to Tutankhamun, 'living image of Amun,' and 'reigned for about nine years' before dying unexpectedly. The scan itself: 1700 digital X-ray images in cross section, the head scanned 'in 0.62 millimetre slices' of 'eerie detail'; the million-dollar scanner quit 'because of sand in a cooler fan' - a guard joked nervously about the 'Curse of the pharaoh' - until two white plastic fans saved the night. The relief: 'Less than three hours after he was removed from his coffin, the pharaoh again rested in peace'; Zahi Hawass smiled - 'I didn't sleep last night, not for a second' - and above the tomb stood Orion, 'watching over the boy king.'
2. Key details and what they signal
The garlands: the first coffin's shroud was 'adorned with garlands of willow and olive leaves, wild celery, lotus petals, and cornflowers' - 'the faded evidence of a burial in March or April'; botany reads the season of a three-thousand-year-old funeral. The everyday grave goods: board games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, food and wine - the pharaoh expected ordinary life to continue; the gold gets the attention, but the razor tells the belief. Carter's defence: the text insists 'Carter really had little choice' - the chapter holds both truths at once, that the mummy 'is in very bad condition because of what Carter did' and that leaving it would have meant losing it to thieves. The missing breast-bone: only imaging revealed what Carter's padding concealed; each technology exposes what the previous one hid, which is the chapter's real subject. The Egyptian Mummy Project: an inventory begun in late 2003 has 'recorded almost 600 so far and is still counting', scanning mummies with a portable CT machine - Tut scanned first, 'in death, as in life, moving regally ahead of his countrymen.' The closing sky: the wind stops, 'the winter air lay cold and still, like death itself', and Orion - 'the soul of Osiris' - stands above the tomb; the science finishes, the saga continues.
3. Theme
Science versus mystery: every generation's tool - Carter's chisel, the 1968 X-ray, the 2005 CT - answers old questions and raises new ones; the two biggest ('how did he die, and how old was he') stay open. Respect for the dead: tourists whisper, a guard jokes nervously about the curse, and the writer ends with Tut 'again rested in peace where the funerary priests had laid him so long ago.' Evidence over legend: the 'pharaoh's curse' hovers as a shiver and a joke, while the chapter trusts pixels, slices and 'precise data for an accurate forensic reconstruction of the boyish pharaoh.' A dynasty's end: Tut's short reign closed a line that 'had ruled Egypt and its empire for centuries' - his funeral 'was the death rattle of a dynasty.'
Choose, solve, check, then try a fresh question.
Before calculating, read the method prompt and name the condition that makes it useful. Write your own attempt. Open the steps only when you need them, and use the check to catch a wrong sign, unit or interpretation. Finish with the fresh question before reading its answer.
Set the night of the scan
Choose the method: Wind, then timestamp.
EZT practice question
Which details does the writer use to build the mood on the night of the scan?
Show the worked solution
- The timestamp: 'It was 6 p.m. on 5 January 2005.'
- The weather: 'An angry wind stirred up ghostly dust devils', 'dark-bellied clouds' scudding across the sky.
- The light: the clouds 'veiling the stars in casket grey' as the mummy glides 'head first into a CT scanner'.
Answer: An angry wind stirring 'ghostly dust devils', dark-bellied clouds 'veiling the stars in casket grey', and the precise timestamp - 'It was 6 p.m. on 5 January 2005.'
Check: The dust devils, the casket-grey sky, the 6 p.m. timestamp.
Watch for this: Do not read the mood as superstition - the stormy sky frames a scientific event, and the 'curse' appears only as a nervous joke.
Now try it yourself
Why give the exact date and hour for a scan?
Check your answer
Because the chapter treats the night as history - the mummy's first journey in almost 80 years is logged like an expedition, not a hospital appointment.
Precision of time is what turns an event into evidence.
Judge Carter's chisel
Choose the method: Damage, then defence.
EZT practice question
Why does Zahi Hawass say the mummy 'is in very bad condition', and what excuse does the chapter offer Carter?
Show the worked solution
- The problem: 'The ritual resins had hardened, cementing Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin' - 'No amount of legitimate force could move them'.
- The act: 'the consolidated material had to be chiselled away from beneath the limbs and trunk'; the men 'removed the mummy's head and severed nearly every major joint'.
- The defence: thieves would otherwise have 'circumvented the guards and ripped it apart to remove the gold' - 'Carter really had little choice'.
Answer: Because Carter's men chiselled the body free of the hardened resins - the excuse: thieves would otherwise have 'circumvented the guards and ripped it apart to remove the gold'.
Check: The hardened resins, the chisel, the severed joints, the thieves argument.
Watch for this: Do not settle for blame or excuse alone - the chapter holds both truths: the mummy 'is in very bad condition because of what Carter did', and leaving it meant losing it.
Now try it yourself
Why does the writer mention the sun heated the mummy 'to 149 degrees'?
Check your answer
To show every gentle method failed first - the chisel arrives only after heat, and legitimate force, do nothing.
The failed alternatives are what make the defence stick.
Read the everyday grave goods
Choose the method: Gold, then razor.
EZT practice question
What everyday objects was Tut buried with, and what do they tell us about Egyptian belief?
Show the worked solution
- The famous side: the tomb's contents 'remain the richest royal collection ever found'.
- The ordinary side: 'board games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments, cases of food and wine'.
- The belief: these were things 'he'd want in the afterlife' - the dead were expected to live on much as they had.
Answer: Board games, a bronze razor, linen undergarments and cases of food and wine - things 'he'd want in the afterlife', so the dead were expected to live on as they had.
Check: The razor, the undergarments, the food and wine, the afterlife line.
Watch for this: Do not let the gold carry the whole answer - the bronze razor tells the belief more plainly than the treasure does.
Now try it yourself
Why pair 'richest royal collection' with linen undergarments in one list?
Check your answer
To show the tomb was both a treasury and a packed suitcase - splendour for a king, necessities for a journey.
The ordinary objects are the theology.
Read what the X-ray found
Choose the method: Resin, then ribs.
EZT practice question
What did the 1968 X-ray reveal that Carter's reassembly had hidden?
Show the worked solution
- The concealment: Carter's men reassembled the remains 'on a layer of sand in a wooden box with padding that concealed the damage'.
- The reveal: in 1968 an anatomy professor X-rayed the mummy.
- The finding: 'beneath the resin that cakes his chest, his breast-bone and front ribs are missing.'
Answer: That 'beneath the resin that cakes his chest, his breast-bone and front ribs are missing.'
Check: The padding, the 1968 X-ray, the missing breast-bone and front ribs.
Watch for this: Do not miss the pattern - Carter's padding hid the damage, the X-ray exposed it; each technology exposes what the previous one hid.
Now try it yourself
Why is the missing breast-bone the chapter's turning point?
Check your answer
It converts the question 'how did he die' into something imaging might actually answer - a hidden wound is a lead, not a legend.
The X-ray is the first time the body itself testifies.
Rescue the scanner
Choose the method: Sand, then fans.
EZT practice question
Why did the scan nearly fail on the night, and how was it rescued?
Show the worked solution
- The failure: the million-dollar scanner quit 'because of sand in a cooler fan'.
- The joke: a guard laughed nervously about the 'Curse of the pharaoh'.
- The rescue: two men sprinted to an office and returned with a pair of white plastic fans, which worked well enough to finish.
Answer: The scanner quit 'because of sand in a cooler fan' - two white plastic fans from an office finished the night.
Check: The sandy cooler fan, the curse joke, the two plastic fans.
Watch for this: Do not treat the breakdown as colour only - it is the night the 'curse' gets its one line, and the answer is hardware, not magic.
Now try it yourself
Why does the writer keep the guard's nervous joke in a science story?
Check your answer
Because the legend hovers over everything done to this mummy - the joke lets the chapter acknowledge the curse and then dismiss it with two plastic fans.
The fan repair is the curse's rebuttal.
Read the closing sky
Choose the method: Scanner, then stars.
EZT practice question
How does the final image of the night sky connect the science to Egyptian belief?
Show the worked solution
- The relief: 'Less than three hours after he was removed from his coffin, the pharaoh again rested in peace.'
- The man: Zahi Hawass smiled - 'I didn't sleep last night, not for a second'.
- The sky: above the tomb stood Orion - 'the constellation that the ancient Egyptians knew as the soul of Osiris, the god of the afterlife' - 'watching over the boy king.'
Answer: Orion - 'the soul of Osiris, the god of the afterlife' - stands above the tomb 'watching over the boy king', so the oldest belief frames the newest technology.
Check: The three hours, the rested-in-peace, Orion, Osiris.
Watch for this: Do not read the ending as abandoning science for myth - the scan is done and logged; the sky simply returns Tut to the story his own people told.
Now try it yourself
Why end under Orion instead of inside the radiology trailer?
Check your answer
Because the chapter's subject was never only the machine - the Egyptians read the same sky, and the writer lets their constellation have the last word.
The saga continues precisely because belief outlasts every tool.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. The night of the scan?
Show answer and reason
'6 p.m. on 5 January 2005' - dust devils, clouds 'veiling the stars in casket grey'.
The mood is logged like an expedition.
2. Why the mummy is in bad condition?
Show answer and reason
Carter's chisel - resins had 'cementing Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin'.
The chapter holds the damage and the defence together.
3. What the 1968 X-ray found?
Show answer and reason
'His breast-bone and front ribs are missing' beneath the resin.
Each technology exposes what the previous one hid.
4. How the scan was saved?
Show answer and reason
Sand in a cooler fan - fixed with two white plastic fans.
The 'curse' is answered with hardware.
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- In two sentences, explain how the garlands of 'willow and olive leaves, wild celery, lotus petals, and cornflowers' date the funeral season.
- Contrast what Carter's chisel, the 1968 X-ray and the 2005 CT scan each revealed - what does the sequence say about technology and truth?
- Explain in your own words why the chapter ends under Orion rather than in the radiology trailer.
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Questions about this practice page
- Who wrote Discovering Tut: the Saga Continues?
- A.R. Williams. The chapter's source note credits National Geographic, Vol 207, No. 6; the book carries no biographical note, so the page describes only what the text itself shows.
- What is Discovering Tut about?
- It follows King Tut's mummy from Howard Carter's 1922 discovery - the hardened resins, the chisel, the missing breast-bone found by X-ray in 1968 - to the night of 5 January 2005, when a CT scanner in the Valley of the Kings took 1700 cross-sectional images to probe how the boy pharaoh lived and died.
- Why did Howard Carter cut the mummy free?
- The ritual resins had hardened, 'cementing Tut to the bottom of his solid gold coffin'; hours of desert sun changed nothing, and Carter judged that if he did not cut it free, thieves would have ripped the body apart for the gold.
- What questions did the CT scan set out to answer?
- Two: 'how did he die, and how old was he at the time of his death?' The chapter shows the images being captured in eerie detail but leaves the answers to the specialists' ongoing work.
- Where is Discovering Tut in the Class 11 book?
- Chapter 3 of Hornbill, the Class 11 English textbook (pp. 21-29 by the current NCERT contents page; page numbers can differ between printings, so check your own copy).