Tutankhamun
the most famous Egyptian Pharaohs
King Tutankhamun (or Tutankhamen) governed Egypt for ten years as pharaoh until his death at the age of 19 in the year 1327 B.C. Tutankhamun’s influence was largely neutralised by his successors, despite his administration being renowned for undoing his father’s chaotic religious changes. Until 1922, when British archaeologist Howard Carter chipped through a gateway and entered the young pharaoh’s tomb, which had been sealed for more than 3,200 years, he was little known to the modern world. The tomb’s immense wealth of artefacts and riches, which were meant to accompany the king into the afterlife, revealed a great deal about royal life in ancient Egypt and immediately made King Tut the most renowned pharaoh in the world. As a result of the public outcry over this development, Akhenaten was killed and toppled.
Tutankhamun is said to have been permitted to ascend to the throne because he was so young and so easier to govern. The ancient holy worship was reestablished under Tutankhamun, and the city of Akhenaten, which his father had erected, was abandoned.
Tutankhamun’s tomb was unearthed in its entirety, including a wealth of fascinating artefacts that helped Egyptologists better understand the mummification process.
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Reign
Tutankhamun was between the ages of eight and nine when he claimed the throne and assumed the title of Pharaoh, assuming the name Nebkheperure. He ruled for around nine years. The role of Vizier was partitioned between Upper and Lower Egypt during Tutankhamun’s reign. Usermontu was the vizier in charge of Upper Egypt. Another individual named Pentju served as vizier, although it is unknown whose countries he served. It’s unclear whether Tutankhamun’s successor, Ay, truly held this role. A gold foil piece from KV58 suggests, but does not prove, that Ay was called a Priest of Maat and given the epithet “vizier, doer of maat.” The epithet does not suit the traditional vizier’s description, but it might represent an informal title. It’s possible that Ay utilised the title of vizier in an unusual way. Tutankhamen’s reign was mainly unremarkable, according to historians, although the youthful pharaoh did make at least one big change. His father, Akhenaten, regarded the god Aten as the most important deity in the Egyptian pantheon and supported his devotion above all others. In addition, Akhenaten relocated Egypt’s capital from Thebes to a new location dedicated to Aten. Tutankhamen is said to have reversed these controversial religious modifications, restoring Amun to his former splendour and returning Thebes as the capital. Tutankhaten (“living image of Aten”) was replaced by Tutankhamen (“live image of Amun”), which was his original name.
End of Amarna period
Tutankhamun made various donations after being crowned and “took counsel” with the deity Amun, which enriched and increased the priesthood numbers of the Amun and Ptah cults. He commissioned new deity sculptures made of the finest metals and stone, as well as new processional barques made of timber and adorned with gold and silver. The priests, as well as all of the attendant dancers, singers, and attendants, were reinstated, and a royal protection edict was issued to ensure their long-term stability.
The return to the ancient Egyptian order began in Tutankhamun’s second year as king. He and his queen both dropped the ‘Aten’ from their names and replaced it with Amun, as well as relocating the capital from Akhetaten to Thebes. He repudiated the deity Aten, banishing him to obscurity, and restoring Egyptian religion to its polytheistic state. His first act as pharaoh was to rebury his father’s mummy in the Valley of the Kings, which he had removed from his father’s tomb at Akhetaten. This aided in the consolidation of his power. At Karnak, Tutankhamun renovated the stelae, shrines, and structures. He expanded Luxor’s works and began the rebuilding of other temples around Egypt that had been pillaged by Akhenaten.
The Golden Mask
The mask was put over the king’s mummy and immediately over the linen bandages that had covered the body within the smallest anthropoid coffin, as the mummy had been housed in three anthropoid coffins, one on top of the other, inside a sarcophagus, and even further into four additional shrines. This exquisite pure and solid gold funeral mask, weighing 11 kilos and inlaid with semi-precious stones and coloured glass, was placed over the mummy’s head and shoulders (Lapis lazuli, cornelian, obsidian, turquoise, coloured glass). The mask, which resembled a real depiction of the monarch, enabled his ba (soul) to identify its body in the hereafter because the features of the deceased king were clothed in linen shrouds.
“This solid gold mask, battered and polished, was put over Tutankhamun’s mummy’s head and shoulders, outside the linen bandages in which the entire body was covered. It is around twenty-four pounds in weight. Although it is impossible to say whether the face is a real resemblance of the monarch, it is at least a near match. The somewhat narrow eyes, nose shape, fat lips, and chin cast are all in harmony with the traits apparent in his mummies, and the entire appearance is definitely juvenile. It may be a little romanticised, but it appears to be a true representation.”
Death and burial
King Tut was mummified after he died, in accordance with Egyptian religious custom, which stated that royal bodies should be maintained and nourished for the afterlife. Embalmers removed his organs and wrapped him in resin-soaked bandages, and he was laid in a succession of nested containers—three golden coffins, a granite sarcophagus, and four gilded wooden shrines, the biggest of which barely fit inside the tomb’s burial chamber.
Because of the modest size of his tomb, historians believe King Tut’s death was unexpected and his burial hastened by Ay, his successor as pharaoh. More than 5,000 objects were crammed inside the tomb’s antechambers, including furniture, chariots, clothing, weaponry, and 130 of the lame king’s walking sticks. The entry passage appears to have been robbed shortly after the burial, while the interior rooms remained locked. The pharaohs who succeeded Tut opted to disregard his rule because, despite his efforts to restore Amun, he was tarnished by his father’s religious upheavals. The tomb’s entrance had been choked with stone rubble, covered over by workmen’s cottages, and forgotten within a few centuries.
Howard Carter, a British archaeologist, had been excavating Egyptian antiquities for three decades when he uncovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. Archaeologists thought all the royal graves in the Valley of the Kings, across the river from ancient Thebes, had already been removed at the time of the discovery. The news of the new tomb, which was the most intact ever discovered, swiftly went throughout the world. Carter and his colleagues spent a decade cataloguing and emptying the tomb.
According to the creators of a BBC television series from 2014, perished in a chariot collision that fractured his legs and pelvis, causing an infection and maybe death by blood poisoning. Supporters of this hypothesis point out that Tut was represented riding chariots and had a malformed left foot, suggesting that he may have fallen and broken his leg.
“Those of us who work with mummies know how difficult it is to factor in post mortem changes with the effects of mummification itself, along with what may have happened,” says Betsy M. Bryan, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University who has spent decades researching ancient Egypt. Bryan believes that new forensic technology will eventually advance to the point where it will be possible to figure out what happened. She explains, “I have a lot of confidence in science.”
Rühli, a Swiss mummy expert at the University of Zurich, believes that rather than more science, another examination of Tut’s bones is required. “New technology isn’t required,” he claims. “However, a thorough eye-only (with a magnifying glass) study of the suspected trauma locations (feet, knees, and face) on the corpse itself would be most beneficial.”
F.A.Q
Because his tomb is the only Pharaoh’s tomb found in the Valley of the Kings that hasn’t been looted. All of the king’s valuables had been buried with him, and they were still there. The majority of Pharaonic tombs have been robbed throughout the ages, leaving only the tomb itself and no real contents. Tutankhamun’s tomb, on the other hand, was filled with of “beautiful treasures,” as Howard Carter put it.
According to famous Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, incestuous unions were widespread among Egypt’s rulers. “A monarch might marry his sister and daughter because he is a deity, like Iris and Osiris,” Hawass said during a press conference at Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.
Akhenaten shifted Egypt’s religious headquarters from Thebes to Amarna, uprooting a centuries-old religious structure in favour of worshipping a single deity, the sun god Aten. After Akhenaten’s death, two pharaohs reigned briefly until Tutankhaten, a 9-year-old boy, ascended to the throne.
Scientists looked at x-rays of King Tut’s mummy to try to figure out what killed him. Some speculated that he was poisoned and then killed. However, contemporary technology such as 3-D scanning soon showed that the great monarch was in bad health, with a damaged leg to boot.
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