Tutankhamun was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who was buried in a tomb filled with gold artifacts in the Valley of the Kings. His tomb was found in 1922 by an archaeological team.
In the 14th century B.C., he ascended the throne at a young age and died a decade later. Most of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings had been taken in ancient times and his tomb was found mostly intact.
King Tut became a household name after his tomb was discovered. It's hard to imagine the past century without Tutankhamun and the discovery of that time-capsule tomb.
There would have been no media frenzy of Tut-mania and mummy curses to kick-start the jazz age, and no surge of corresponding pride in the newly independent nation-state of Egypt.
Historical and archaeological evidence shows that Tutankhamun was sickly and spent his short rule undoing a religious revolution started by his father.
King Tut was born around 1341 B.C., and was the son of a revolutionary pharaoh. The names and images of other Egyptian deities were ordered to be destroyed. There is a new capital at Tell el-Amarna. After his death, he was condemned for carrying out these acts.
Egyptologists still don't know if Queen Nefertiti was Tutankhaten's biological mother or not. Tutankhamun was wet-nursed by his half- sister. Meritaten is shown nursing her baby in a portrait painted in a tomb.
The boy king would have relied on his advisers. He removed the word "aten" from his name and replaced it with the name of the Egyptian god.
Tutankhamun condemned his father's actions in a stela that stated that the gods ignored Egypt because of the religious revolution. The temples and the cities of the gods and the goddesses, starting from Elephantine as far as the Delta marshes, were fallen into disrepair. He may have been able to cement his power by doing this act. Tutankhamun relied on his advisors a lot when he ascended the throne.
Evidence shows that Tutankhamun was ill. He had a number of medical conditions and illnesses, including Kohler disease, a rare bone disorder of the foot, which was found in a 2010 study of his remains. The canes found in Tutankhamun's tomb suggest that he had difficulty walking.
He may have worn armor despite his health issues. The leather armor that was found in Tutankhamun's tomb had been used.
Someone with Marfan syndrome can have long fingers, arms and legs. These features were used to depict members of the royal family. The 2010 study found that Tutankhamun probably didn't have this.
Twin girls who were stillborn were buried in jars in the pharaoh's tomb. There were no heirs to the throne. Queen Ankhesenamun's tomb has not been found.
In 1323 B.C., the boy king died. His death is likely to have been sudden. The brown spots in the tomb were analyzed by a professor at Harvard University. The spots which turned out to be remains of microbes that had once grown on the walls were probably caused by paint that was still wet when the pharaoh was buried. Mitchell said that the painted wall was probably not dry when the tomb was sealed.
Tutankhamun's death is not known by anyone. Over the years, Egyptologists have come up with many hypotheses. His death may have been caused by a combination of malaria and a broken bone in his left foot, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The importance of returning Egypt to its traditional polytheistic beliefs was said to be so important to Tutankhamun that he had himself mum.
After his death, Tutankhamun's skin was soaked in oil and he had his heart removed. His penis was mummified at a 90- degree angle. Osiris had a heart that had been hacked to pieces by his brother and he had black skin.
Tutankhamun's mummy caught fire because of the large amount of oil.
The tomb's entranceway was found by Howard Carter's team in 1922.
Carter wrote in his diary that "as one's eyes became accustomed to the glint of light the interior of the chamber gradually looms before one, with its strange and wonderful assortment of extraordinary and beautiful objects heaped upon one another."
The tomb had a lot of untouched treasures. "Our sensations and astonishment are difficult to describe as the better light revealed to us the marvelous collection of treasures: two strange effigies of a King, goldled sandal, bearing staff and mace, and gilded couches in strange forms, lion- His death mask, made of gold and inlaid stones and glass, was the most famous treasure.
The discovery of the boy king's tomb made waves. The myth was that the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb caused a curse to kill those who helped find it. A 2002 British Medical Journal study found that the mummy's curse was not true. The average age of people who entered the tomb was 70 and the average lifespan was 20 years. The average life span for those who went inside the tomb was around 30 years.
The Theban mapping project notes that the tomb was small for a pharaoh's burial, with a total volume of 9,782 feet. According to the mapping project, the tomb of Seti I has a volume of 67,110 square feet. Two rooms now called the "annex" and the "treasury" are located in this space.
The pharaoh died young and there wasn't time to make a bigger tomb. In a paper published in The Oxford Handbook of the Valley of the Kings, an Egyptology professor at the University of Arizona wrote that the tomb may not have been intended for a pharaoh.
The tomb of Tutankhamun is not of royal design and may have been hastily taken over for his burial when he died. People who were not pharaohs were buried in the valley.
In 2015, an Egyptologist published a paper suggesting that King Tut's tomb contained the remains of Nefertiti. Ground-penetrating radar surveys have not been able to find a hidden burial.
The media attention surrounding King Tut's tomb has made him more famous in death than he was in life. The long-lost king, buried before he was out of his teens, found more fame and influence in the twentieth century than he had ever known in his own life time.
Today, KV 62 is a major tourist destination. Changes in humidity can cause damage to the tomb and its wall paintings. In order to help mitigate the risks, a new ventilation system was installed in the tomb and the wall paintings were checked.
In the 19th and early 20th century, western powers shipped Egyptian archaeological treasures to their own museums. According to Richard Parkinson, an Egyptology professor at the University of Oxford, Egyptian authorities enacted laws to make sure that Tutankhamun and his treasures stayed in the country. The Boswellian Library is located in Oxford.
Much of the material from the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb can be accessed on the website of the institute. The ministry of tourism and antiquities has online galleries showing images from the tomb and information on how to visit it. There is a virtual tour of the Tutankhamun artifacts in the Egyptian Museum.
The article was first published on April 1, 2016
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