Biography

Tutankhamun: Tomb, Mummy, Death & Howard Carter – HISTORY

King tut reign

contents

  1. who was king tut?
  2. how did king tut die?
  3. King Tut: Mummy and Tomb
  4. howard carter
  5. great egyptian museum
  6. King Tutankhamen (Tutankhamun or simply King Tut) ruled Egypt as Pharaoh for 10 years until his death at age 19, around 1324 B.C. Although his government was noted for reversing the religious reforms of his father Akhenaten, Tutankhamun’s legacy was largely denied by his successors. It was barely known to the modern world until 1922, when British archaeologist Howard Carter chiseled out the intact tomb of King Tutankhamen. The treasure from the tomb, destined to accompany the king to the afterlife, revealed an incredible amount about life in ancient Egypt and made Tutankhamen the most famous pharaoh in the world.

    see: the Egyptian book of the dead in the vault of history

    who was king tut?

    Genetic testing has verified that King Tut was the grandson of the great pharaoh Amenhotep III, and almost certainly the son of Akhenaten, a controversial figure in the history of the 18th Dynasty New Kingdom of Egypt (c.1550-1295 BC). ) . Akhenaten subverted a centuries-old religious system to favor the worship of a single deity, the sun god Aten, and moved the religious capital of Egypt from Thebes to Amarna.

    After Akhenaten’s death, two intermediate pharaohs reigned briefly before the nine-year-old prince, then called Tutankhaton, took the throne.

    did you know? Carter’s patron, Lord Carnarvon, died four months after first entering the tomb, prompting journalists to popularize a “curse of the pharaohs”, claiming that hieroglyphics on the tomb walls promised a death fast to those who disturb king tut. more than a dozen deaths have been attributed to the curse, but studies have shown that those who entered the tomb on average lived as long as their companions who did not enter.

    Tutankhamen reversed Akhenaten’s reforms early in his reign, revived worship of the god Amun, restored Thebes as a religious center, and changed the ending of its name to reflect royal allegiance to the creator god Amun. He also worked in conjunction with his powerful advisers Horemheb and Ay, both future pharaohs, to restore Egyptian stature to the region.

    how did king tut die?

    There are many theories as to what killed King Tut at the age of 19. he was tall but physically frail, with a crippling bone disease in his sprained left foot. he is the only pharaoh known to have been depicted seated while engaging in physical activities such as archery. traditional consanguinity in the Egyptian royal family probably also contributed to the ill-health and early death of the boy king. DNA tests released in 2010 revealed that Tutankhamun’s parents were brother and sister, and that King Tut’s wife, Ankhesenamun, was also his half-sister. His only two daughters were stillborn.

    Because Tutankhamun’s remains revealed a hole in the back of his skull, some historians have concluded that the young king was murdered, but recent evidence suggests that the hole was made during mummification. CT scans in 1995 showed the king had a broken and infected left leg, while DNA from his mummy revealed evidence of multiple malaria infections, all of which may have contributed to his early death.

    king tut: mummy and tomb

    After his death, Tutankhamun was mummified in accordance with Egyptian religious tradition, which held that royal bodies should be preserved and provisioned for the afterlife. embalmers removed his organs and wrapped him in resin-soaked bandages, placed a 24-pound solid gold portrait mask over his head and shoulders, and placed him in a series of nested containers: three gilt coffins, a granite sarcophagus, and four of gilded wood. shrines, the largest of which barely fit into the burial chamber of the tomb.

    Because of the small size of his tomb, historians suggest that King Tut’s death must have been unexpected and his burial hastened by Ay, who succeeded him as pharaoh. the tomb’s antechambers were filled to the ceiling with more than 5,000 artifacts, including furniture, chariots, clothing, weapons, and 130 staves of the lame king.

    The entrance corridor was apparently looted soon after the burial, but the interior rooms remained sealed. The pharaohs who followed King Tutankhamun chose to ignore his reign, since despite his work to restore Amun, Tutankhamun was tainted by the connection to his father’s religious upheavals. within a few generations, the entrance to the tomb was clogged with stone rubble, built over the workers’ huts, and forgotten.

    read more: 9 Fascinating Findings From King Tutankhamun’s Tomb

    howard carter

    when he discovered the tomb of tutankhamun in 1922, british archaeologist howard carter had been excavating egyptian antiquities for three decades. At the time of the discovery, archaeologists believed that all the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, across the river from ancient Thebes, had already been cleared.

    Enthusiasm for the new tomb, the most intact ever found, quickly spread around the world, sparking a worldwide fascination with the boy pharaoh and the mighty civilization of ancient Egypt. It took Carter and his team a decade to catalog and empty the tomb.

    great egyptian museum

    Artifacts from King Tutankhamun’s tomb have toured the world in several highly successful museum exhibits, including the 1972-1979 “Treasures of Tutankhamen” World Exhibits. Eight million visitors in seven US cities viewed the display of the gold funerary mask and 50 other precious items from the tomb.

    Today, the most fragile artifacts, including the funerary mask, no longer leave Egypt. Tutankhamun’s mummy remains on display inside the tomb in the valley of the kings in chamber kv62, its layered coffins replaced by a temperature-controlled glass case. His golden mask is on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but Tutankhamun’s collection will eventually move to the Great Egyptian Museum, or Gema, located near the Pyramids of Giza.

    read more: 14 everyday objects from ancient Egypt

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