ANCIENT Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen holds as much fascination for us as Madonna or Angelina Jolie, according to egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley.

The Bolton-based academic, who is regarded as a leading authority in the field, has just published her latest book on the famous pharaoh, Tutankhamen’s Curse, and is now starting work on a text about Nefertiti.

She said: “I’m interested in what makes people celebrities and why we are interested in them — people like Tutankhamen and Nefertiti were the celebrities of the ancient world.”

Dozens of conspiracy theories surround the death of the pharaoh, but Dr Tyldesley says she doubted that Tutankhamen was assassinated, as some believe. “It would have been an odd thing to do,”

she said. “He had been on the throne for nearly 10 years when he died, and seemed to be doing a good job.

“When the tomb was discovered in the 1920s it was just after the war and the influenza epidemic, and a lot of young people had died. I think nowadays we find it quite difficult to accept that a young person can just have an accident and die.”

She says that our continued fascination is a good example of our current obsession with celebrity.

“I think we are interested in him because of his youth and the fact that when he was discovered he was lying in a whole load of bling,” she said.

“There is something about treasure that calls to people’s imaginations.

“Also, because we have his gold burial mask we feel as though we have seen his face and we know him. He arrived at a time when the world was quite depressed after the war—he was familiar yet exotic.”