Tut Ankh Amun
The living image of Amun.
I’m not sure you have picked up on this or not but one of my interests is history generally and archeology especially. I love the Romans and the Egyptians.
One of the podcasts I listen to is “the History of Egypt” podcast by Dominic Perry. He just finished a long series of shows about the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
The most famous Egyptian in our times is King Tut. Which is interesting because he certainly wasn’t a standout in his time. He was a minor king across the long lists of Egyptian rulers.
You probably think you know everything about Tut’s story. But, his story continues to evolve and what we thought we knew 20 year’s ago we think differently about today.
I’m going to talk a bit about why he is so famous, but first let’s put him into context.
First put him into context.
Tut was born in 1341 BC and he died, at the age of 18 or 19 in 1323 BC. That is a staggering 3,344 years ago. The fact that we know anything about someone who lived over 3 millennia ago is mind boggling. That we know so much more about Tut is just a miracle.
Tut was the last ruler of the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom. Historians break the history of Egypt into the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom. I’m oversimplifying, but these kingdoms were the periods when the Egyptian kings ruled upper and lower Egypt.
The Old Kingdom was when the pyramids were built – this was a staggering 5,000 years ago.
The New Kingdom is recent history in the grand scheme of things. This is when Rameses ruled and you start to get into biblical times. Then it finally transitions into the Greco-Roman period where you end up with the Ptolemies and Cleopatra.
We know so much about Tut due to a series of circumstances, many of them accidental. Egyptian Kings did leave behind evidence of their times. They built temples and tombs.
The great pyramids from the old kingdom. The great capital cities and temple complexes of Luxor, Karnak, and Memphis are full of monumental building that tells the story of these kings and their gods.
Lucky for us they carved their stories, at least the official versions, in stone.
In many cases we also have the bodies of the kings and queens of Egypt. Because of their excellent embalming skills, many of their mummies still exist. We know a lot about their funerary practices and beliefs from the murals and carvings in their tombs.
But, until Tut we never had an intact royal burial.
Who was tut?
Like I said above Tut was the last of his dynasty. The 18th dynasty. He came to the throne after Akenaten, often referred to as his father, but we don’t know that for sure.
There may have been another king in between, or that may have been Akhenaten’s wife Nefertiti acting as a king, but, like I said, it was 3500 years ago and the fact that we know anything is a miracle.
There are still a lot of questions around lineage in Egyptian kings and queens. DNA testing helps but the embalming process and the degradation of the mummies make this hard. Add to that that there was significant intermarriage of close relatives, and the DNA evidence becomes a bit jumbled.
Tut was 8 or 9 years old when he became King. He ruled until his death at 18-19 years old. He left no successors. It appears he had two daughters that both died in childbirth. We know this because we have their mummies.
Tut is also made a bit more famous by his famous predecessor, maybe father, Akhenaten, who decided that there was only one god, the sun-disk Aten. You may have heard him referred to as ‘the heretic king’. Akenaten built a new capital city in the desert, Armana, and shut down worship of the other gods.
In fact, Tutankhamun was originally named Tutankhaten, but changed his name, shortly after coming to the throne as part of an effort to reembrace the old gods, especially Amun.
With this reembracing, Tut began rebuilding the temples of the old gods that had been neglected or erased by Akhenaten. Tut moved the capital back from Akhetaten (Armana) to Thebes.
How do we know relatively precise dates from 3500 years ago? The ancient Egyptians were good at dating things. The calendar year was based on the king. For instance, you might find a seal from a bottle of wine that says year 4. That means it’s from the 4th year of that king’s reign.
But, of course, the biggest reason we know about Tut is that we found his tomb.
Most people think that we found Tut’s tomb intact. That’s partly true. We found his burial chamber relatively intact with the body of Tut undisturbed from where it was laid after the funerary procession.
What most people don’t realize is 2 things. First, Tut’s tomb was broken into, twice in fact. And second, how much stuff they still found, even though it was looted twice in antiquity.
The tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in Nov 1922 in the valley of the kings. Luckily for us Howard Carter was a serious archeologist for his time and documented everything to the best of his abilities.
There were over 5,000 items found in the tomb. Many of these are still, to this day, being analyzed.
The tomb itself was small and a rush job. Apparently, no one expected the king to die at age 18. The tomb was a shaft that led to 3 rooms. When you got to the end of the shaft there was a bricked up, sealed door. It was sealed by the officials that managed and guarded the funerary complex.
The first room was a sort of antechamber. It held a variety of things the king would use in his journey to the afterlife.
The second room was the King’s burial chamber. This was behind another door that was bricked up and sealed.
Off the King’s burial chamber was a small room, chock full of stuff, known as the Treasury.
What about those break ins?
The tomb of Tutankhamun was robbed twice, before some lucky breaks preserved it for Howard Carter to find.
The first set of thieves broke in shortly after the funeral. What they were looking for was stuff that was easy to sell or use. They went after the fine linens and oils that were buried with the king. In one discarded container of an oily cream there was left the fingerprints of the thief, who scooped out a handful.
It may seem strange to us that thieves would leave the wonderful golden items we see displayed today, but you have to put yourself in their sandals. They took stuff they could sell or use. They didn’t want to be lugging a giant gold funerary mask around town.
After this first break in the funerary complex managers or guards or priests fixed the hole in the door, re-sealed it and filled the entry shaft with rubble. There is a lot of rubble in the Valley of the Kings because these tombs are chipped into the rock and all those chips have to go somewhere.
This filling of the shaft did not keep out a second robbery. These second robbers broke in also fairly soon after the burial. Maybe months, maybe years. But, they seemed to know the tomb layout and knew what they were after.
These second robbers tunneled through the rubble, broke into the tomb, and cut through to the treasury.
They were after metal and jewelry. When you see pictures of Tut’s tomb, and pictures of the treasury it is a jumble of items thrown against a wall. This was the second set of thieves tossing stuff out of the way to get to the portable metal and jewelry.
It is estimated that they took 60% of Tut’s jewelry.
Even after two sets of robbers went through the tomb we were left with an amazing assortment of items and the intact burial shrine of the king.
Why didn’t subsequent robbers come back for these bulkier items? The golden coffin the magnificent funerary mask?
That’s where we get lucky.
It seems that after the second robbery there was a flash flood or landslide that covered up the entrance to Tut’s tomb. Then future tomb builders dumped even more rubble on top of that. Tut’s tomb was covered up and hidden for Howard Carter to find 3,000 years later.
Tut is so well known because we found his tomb relatively intact.
The discovery of the tomb caused a big wave of interest in England and the western world and brought Egyptology to the forefront. It was helped along by the sensationalist press of the day. Carter and Lord Canavan sold exclusive rights to only one London Newspaper, so the other newspapers of the day, who couldn’t get the official stuff, just started making up stories – like the curse story.
There are some other things about Tut you might think you know, but are no longer considered true.
At one point there was a theory that Tut was murdered by a blow to the back of the head. This was based on some early X-rays that showed chunks of bone in the back of the head cavity and an off-hand comment by an early archeologist.
It’s now believed that this is a red herring. The splinters of bone in the brain cavity were probably an artifact of the embalming process.
Tut’s Mummy is in pretty bad shape.
It’s not only 3500 years old, but it took a beating when they removed it from the coffin.
When they put the king’s mummy in the coffin, they poured expensive oils over it that pooled in the bottom and then solidified over time. So, Howard Carter had to pry and chisel it out and caused quite a bit of damage.
There are some things we do know from the mummy. We know Tut had a pronounced overbite and a cleft palette. We know he had a club foot and may have had difficulty walking. Many canes were found in the tomb and some had been heavily used.
And we may know a cause of death. It seems one of the king’s legs was broken and had not healed. So, our King Tut may have died from a broken leg that got infected.
We know that the young king liked to hunt in his chariots. There were several chariots in the tomb. Scholars propose that maybe he had a chariot accident and broke his leg.
We are learning more every year as the science progresses.
Some of the other fun things that were found in the tomb was a pair of sandals with caricatures of the king’s enemies on them so he could walk on his enemies.
Two silver trumpets were found in the tomb that were actually played as a demonstration on the BBC in 1939 and you can find the recording on YouTube. Finally, there was a knife that was fashioned from an iron meteorite.
King Tutankhamun, a boy king, the last of his line left this world on his journey to the west 3500 years ago.
He has taught us so much about his culture and his times.
The thing I always take away from these ancient stories is, even with all their cultural differences, how much like us they were.
They lived, strived, loved, and died. They had physical ailments and challenges.
They believed in things bigger than themselves.
In a higher calling and an afterlife.
And his body is still in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings.