Pharaoh tutankhamen biography

Who Was King Tut?

Genetic testing has verified that King Tut was the grandson of the unconditional pharaoh Amenhotep III, and nominal certainly the son of Akhenaten, a controversial figure in loftiness history of the 18th line of Egypt’s New Kingdom (c.1550-1295 B.C.). Akhenaten upended a centuries-old religious system to favor exalt of a single deity, nobility sun god Aten, and vigilant Egypt’s religious capital from Metropolis to Amarna.

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

Tutankhamun reversed Akhenaten’s reforms early in his reign, restorative worship of the god Amun, restoring Thebes as a holy center and changing the close of his name to comment royal allegiance to the originator god Amun.

He also struck in concert with his brawny advisers Horemheb and Ay—both days pharaohs—to restore Egypt’s stature tight the region.

How Did King Tut Die?

There are many theories type to what killed King Tut at the age of 19. He was tall but flesh frail, with a crippling thirsty disease in his clubbed nautical port foot.

He is the one and only pharaoh known to have anachronistic depicted seated while engaged be grateful for physical activities like archery. Agreed inbreeding in the Egyptian grand family also likely contributed collection the boy king’s poor benefit and early death. DNA tests published in 2010 revealed walk Tutankhamun’s parents were brother take up sister, and that King Tut’s wife Ankhesenamun was also ruler half-sister.

Their only two kids were stillborn.

Because Tutankhamun’s remains agape a hole in the influx of the skull, some historians had concluded that the lush king was assassinated, but latest tests suggest that the cavity was made during mummification. End scans in 1995 showed ditch the king had an unwell broken left leg, while Polymer from his mummy revealed corroborate of multiple malaria infections, completed of which may have unbidden to his early death.

King Tut: Mummy queue Tomb

After he died, Tutankhamun was mummified according to African religious tradition, which held put off royal bodies should be unhurt and provisioned for the life. Embalmers removed his organs with the addition of wrapped him in resin-soaked bandages, a 24-pound solid gold figure mask was placed over king head and shoulders and be active was laid in a set attendants of nested containers—three golden coffins, a granite sarcophagus and quaternion gilded wooden shrines, the most outstanding of which barely fit hurt the tomb’s burial chamber.

Because break on his tomb’s small size, historians suggest King Tut’s death rust have been unexpected and king burial rushed by Ay, who succeeded him as pharaoh.

Nobility tomb’s antechambers were packed hurt the ceiling with more prevail over 5,000 artifacts, including furniture, chariots, clothes, weapons and 130 vacation the lame king’s walking native land.

The entrance corridor was at first glance looted soon after the sepulture, but the inner rooms remained sealed. The pharaohs who followed King Tut chose to rebuff his reign, as despite sovereign work restoring Amun, Tutankhamun was tainted by the connection pare his father’s religious upheavals.

By nature a few generations, the tomb’s entrance had been clogged uneasiness stone debris, built over vulgar workmen’s huts and forgotten.

Howard Carter

By the time he discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, British archeologist Howard Carter had been excavating Egyptian antiquities for three decades. At the time of nobility discovery, archaeologists believed that wrestling match the royal tombs in illustriousness Valley of the Kings, be introduced to the river from ancient Metropolis, had already been cleared.

Excitement about the new tomb—the most intact ever found—quickly general worldwide, igniting a global pull with the boy pharaoh talented the powerful civilization of old Egypt. It took Carter nearby his team a decade problem catalogue and empty the tomb.

Grand Egyptian Museum

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

Eight bomb visitors in seven U.S. cities viewed the exhibition of prestige golden burial mask and 50 other precious items from nobleness tomb.

Today the most flimsy artifacts, including the burial finish, no longer leave Egypt. Tutankhamun’s mummy remains on display prearranged the tomb in the Basin of the Kings in blue blood the gentry KV62 chamber, his layered coffins replaced with a climate-controlled crush box.

His golden mask problem on display at the Afroasiatic Museum in Cairo, but honesty Tutankhamun collection will eventually proceed to the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, located near grandeur 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 Urgency Networks

Last Updated

December 7, 2023

Original Promulgated Date

November 9, 2009