This year is the 101st since the discovery of Tutankhamun. For those of you who don’t know, Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled over Egypt for a very short period of about ten years. He was buried in Egypt and, essentially, his body was forgotten.

It happens that, at the end of the last century, British archaeologist Howard Carter was obsessed with finding his body. Carter was initially unsuccessful, but persisted and, finally, after a seven-year search, discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. This was fairly remarkable since there had been the discovery of 67 locations which contained Egyptian mummies, but which were all looted and were empty. Tutankhamun’s burial chamber’s entrance was covered by mounds of debris, causing it to be overlooked. The tomb, which consisted of four chambers, was not very large, but contained a lot of treasure in the form of gold, diamonds and various other precious metals and stones.

What was notable was that six people died relatively shortly after the excavations, thus raising the question of an ancient curse. Even more notable was that the discovery took place 3 000 years after Tutankhamun had been entombed. To anybody’s line of thinking, this was remarkable. What was even more remarkable was the quality of the goods found in the chamber.

Let’s pause for a minute and consider what we are saying in summary. The Egyptians were far ahead of their time in their methods of embalming and had discovered ways of metalworking to produce intricate jewellery and vessels. In contrast, modern medicine only really started coming into its own with the invention of the microscope in the 1500s and the stethoscope as recently as the 1800s; even at the time, they were not very effective.

One could say that we are not progressing as rapidly or as well as the ancient Egyptians, but our society may be far more advanced than we think. These days it’s not easy to know what the latest discoveries and inventions are or who made them, as so much of the leading knowledge is kept secret – for economic or security reasons. It’s almost impossible to believe we have reached the limit of our advancement. If this is the case, who is making sure these limits are kept, and if so, why?

We know, for example, that commercial supersonic flight was successfully developed and widely used by a certain sector of the population, and yet ultimately came to an end due to financial and engineering obstacles. Another area where we seem to be going, if not backwards, at least sideways, is transport. We all know that electric cars have been developed, but the fact is they’re still just cars. It would be far more effective to transport groups of people by an efficient train system. Maybe such a system exists, but how would we know if all these industrial secrets are being kept?

I’m not saying that everyone should be making the details of their discoveries and inventions available in the public domain, but perhaps if there was a way for people to work together and share information, we could advance more quickly. These days most information seems to be privately owned by large companies that cling to their patents and intellectual property.

We saw a glimmer of what is possible when people combine research during the recent pandemic, where doctors freely shared information to try to come up with a solution as quickly as possible that would be of benefit to all – or so it seemed. It didn’t take long for the pharmaceuticals companies to go their own ways and race to develop a vaccination, as it was obvious that whoever was first to market would make a killing, literally. As is often the case, the love of money overrides caution, and the safety of the process is still in question.

Returning to Tutankhamun – the discovery of his body helps to remind us that the ancient Egyptians still have something to offer us. Tutankhamun’s remains and possessions still hold many secrets and will keep archaeologists busy for many more years uncovering his background and the times in which he lived. Future generations may one day uncover one of our time capsules. Do you think they will be as enthralled?