The original mud sealings that blocked the entrances to the tomb of 18th dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun have gone on public display for the first time since their discovery more than a century ago. They may seem ordinary in comparison to the glamour of his iconic gold funerary mask and other treasures, but surviving mud sealings that retain their original official impressions are rarer than gold in Egyptology because royal tombs were plundered and the entrance blocking destroyed in the process. The ancient looters of Tutankhamun’s tomb only made small holes in the sealing walls, and they were patched up, presumably by the priests who oversaw the pharaonic tombs.

Now displayed publicly for the first time at the Luxor Museum, the sealings offer visitors and researchers an unprecedented opportunity to encounter one of the few surviving original architectural elements directly connected to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

The sealings were made from a local plaster material known in ancient Thebes as “Habiya”, a mixture of calcite, clay, sand, plant fibers, and gypsum. It is considered unique, with no comparable examples discovered in any other royal tomb in Egypt. Following the transfer of most of Tutankhamun’s treasures to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), they also stand as the only original structural remnants still associated with the legendary tomb itself.

When Howard Carter discovered the tomb in 1922, he broke the sealings to three chambers to access the “wonderful things” within. He broke them into chunks, and at least took the care to box up all the broken pieces for storage, but unfortunately did not document their original configurations or locations. They were kept, but not conserved or studied, overshadowed by the extraordinary assemblage of more than 5,000 individual objects recovered from the tomb.

The complete wealth of funerary objects found in the tomb of Tutankhamun are now on display at the new Grand Egyptian Museum which had its official opening just last November. The boxes of fragments were not in display condition, and in 2025, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) launched a new initiative to give them their archaeological due. Each piece is being photographed and catalogued, their materials and manufacturing methods documented, then scanned so the walls can be digitally reconstructed.

Conservators have also been working to manually reconstruct them and one large section of blocking that was puzzled back together is part of the new exhibition at the Luxor museum. It was used to seal the entrance to the burial chamber from the antechamber and was stamped with the seals of Tutankhamun  and the necropolis guards who were entrusted with protecting the tomb from looters.

A 13-year-old on a walk in the Spandau district of Berlin discovered a rare ancient bronze coin from Troy. It dates to between 281 and 261 B.C. and was issued by the mint at Ilion (Classical and Hellenistic era Troy). Now on display at the PETRI Museum, it is the first Greek antiquity ever discovered inside the city of Berlin.

The city of Ilion during the period when this coin was minted is known as Troy VIII by archaeologists, a numbering system based on the excavation layers. It was built by Greek colonists within the remaining walls of the Hittite-era Bronze Age Troy VI citadel (ca. 1500 B.C.). From its founding in 700 B.C., Troy VIII prospered and grew. Its temple of Athena Ilias was a major regional religious center, and it drew tourists from all over the Classical world to pay homage to the tombs of the heroes of Homeric legend. Alexander the Great himself visited the temple and made sacrificial offerings at the tombs.

By the Hellenistic period, its yearly Panathenaia festival attracted large numbers pilgrims and did brisk trade at the associated market. That made it a target for the Gauls when they invaded Greece and the Balkans in 278 B.C., as did its crumbling walls, still the same ones built in the 1500s B.C. by the northern Anatolian occupants of Troy VI. They sacked it, but the city still stood until 85 B.C. when it was besieged and destroyed by the Roman general Gaius Flavius Fimbria during the civil war between partisans of Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

The coin features the patron deity of Ilion on both sides. The obverse has a profile portrait of the goddess Athena wearing the Corinthian helmet that is one of her most characteristic attributes. The reverse show Athena Ilias wearing a kalathos (headdress) holding aloft a spear in her right hand and a spindle in her left. It is 12mm in diameter and weighs seven grams.

At first, archaeologists wondered if the coin was a “modern loss”—perhaps dropped by a collector in recent years. However, a professional excavation of the discovery site suggests a much deeper connection.

The field was found to be a multi-layered historical site, containing Bronze Age and Iron Age burial remains, Roman-era artifacts, and even a medieval Slavic knife fitting. This “archaeological context” suggests the coin likely arrived in the region centuries ago, rather than falling out of someone’s pocket last week.

The presence of a Trojan coin in Northern Europe poses a fascinating puzzle. Historians believe it likely traveled along ancient trade routes. The Mediterranean and the Baltic regions were linked by the Amber Road, where southern merchants traded goods for precious northern amber (which the Greeks called elektron).

Interestingly, because the coin is made of bronze rather than gold or silver, it had very low material value. This suggests it wasn’t used for a major business transaction. Instead, its discovery near burial remains hints at a symbolic or ritual use—perhaps kept as a charm, a souvenir of a long journey, or an offering to the dead.