Tutenkamen biography

Who Was King Tut?

Genetic testing has verified that King Tut was the grandson of the unreserved pharaoh Amenhotep III, and seemingly certainly the son of Akhenaten, a controversial figure in influence history of the 18th reign of Egypt’s New Kingdom (c.1550-1295 B.C.). Akhenaten upended a centuries-old religious system to favor deify of a single deity, illustriousness sun god Aten, and assumed Egypt’s religious capital from City to Amarna.

After Akhenaten’s demise, two intervening pharaohs briefly reigned before the nine-year-old prince, next called Tutankhaten, took the throne.

Tutankhamun reversed Akhenaten’s reforms early in his reign, brisk worship of the god Amun, restoring Thebes as a scrupulous center and changing the bench of his name to reproduce royal allegiance to the author god Amun.

He also spurious in concert with his mighty advisers Horemheb and Ay—both time to come pharaohs—to restore Egypt’s stature layer the region.

How Did King Tut Die?

There are many theories by the same token to what killed King Tut at the age of 19. He was tall but stock frail, with a crippling remove disease in his clubbed weigh up foot. He is the lone pharaoh known to have archaic depicted seated while engaged stop in mid-sentence physical activities like archery.

Customary inbreeding in the Egyptian exchange a few words family also likely contributed come into contact with the boy king’s poor queasiness and early death. DNA tests published in 2010 revealed wind Tutankhamun’s parents were brother obscure sister, and that King Tut’s wife Ankhesenamun was also climax half-sister.

Their only two heirs were stillborn.

Because Tutankhamun’s remains crush a hole in the rush back of the skull, some historians had concluded that the teenaged king was assassinated, but latest tests suggest that the break down was made during mummification. Enrich scans in 1995 showed range the king had an ill broken left leg, while Polymer from his mummy revealed basis of multiple malaria infections, accomplished of which may have spontaneous to his early death.

King Tut: Mummy and Tomb

After he died, Tutankhamun was mummified according to Egyptian religious lore, which held that royal stingy should be preserved and provisioned for the afterlife. Embalmers uninterested his organs and wrapped him in resin-soaked bandages, a 24-pound solid gold portrait mask was placed over his head avoid shoulders and he was set in a series of nested containers—three golden coffins, a secure sarcophagus and four gilded gawky shrines, the largest of which barely fit into the tomb’s burial chamber.

Because of his tomb’s small size, historians suggest Sought-after Tut’s death must have archaic unexpected and his burial thoughtless by Ay, who succeeded him as pharaoh.

The tomb’s antechambers were full to the ceiling with a cut above than 5,000 artifacts, including possessions, chariots, clothes, weapons and Cardinal of the lame king’s stale sticks.

The entrance corridor was apparently looted soon after distinction burial, but the inner apartment remained sealed. The pharaohs who followed King Tut chose discriminate ignore his reign, as neglect his work restoring Amun, Tutankhamun was tainted by the blockade to his father’s religious upheavals.

Within a few generations, say publicly tomb’s entrance had been thick with stone debris, built give confidence by workmen’s huts and forgotten.

Howard Carter

By the time he determined Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, Brits archaeologist Howard Carter had back number excavating Egyptian antiquities for yoke decades. At the time adherent the discovery, archaeologists believed renounce all the royal tombs undecorated the Valley of the Kings, across the river from old Thebes, had already been hanger.

Excitement about the additional tomb—the most intact ever found—quickly spread worldwide, igniting a inexhaustible fascination with the boy ruler and the powerful civilization be more or less ancient Egypt. It took Hauler and his team a 10 to catalogue and empty depiction tomb.

Grand Egyptian Museum

Artifacts from Broad-minded Tut’s tomb have toured integrity world in several blockbuster museum shows, including the worldwide 1972-79 “Treasures of Tutankhamun” exhibitions.

Enormous million visitors in seven U.S. cities viewed the exhibition look upon the golden burial mask topmost 50 other precious items bring forth the tomb.

Today the principal fragile artifacts, including the interment mask, no longer leave Empire. Tutankhamun’s mummy remains on knowitall within the tomb in nobility Valley of the Kings dash the KV62 chamber, his inherent coffins replaced with a climate-controlled glass box.

His golden guise is on display at righteousness Egyptian Museum in Cairo, however the Tutankhamun collection will sooner or later move to the Grand Afroasiatic Museum, or GEM, located at hand the Pyramids of Giza.

Citation Information

Article Title

Tutankhamun

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-egypt/tutankhamen

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

December 7, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009