Tutankhamun the Boy King 1336–1327 BC
It is ironic that the Egyptian king who is most famous today was a little known and unimportant pharaoh in his own time. He had no actual power, his impact on Egyptian history was trivial, and the modest works carried out during his brief reign were taken and renamed by his successors.
We have many of the objects he owned and yet we know almost nothing about what sort of person he was. What we know is fragmentary, and until material evidence is found, we can only speculate on the story of his life.
We know he lived his early life in the city of Akhetaten. It is possible that he was the son of Lady Kiya, who is thought to be a Mitannian princess and a wife of Akhenaten. It is likely that she died giving birth to him. He might also have been the brother or half brother of Smenkhkara, his immediate predecessor.
Towards the end of Akhenaten’s reign, senior court officials like the civil servant Ay and the commander of the army Horemheb realised that the empire, and indeed Egyptian society, was disintegrating. Akhenaten’s co-regent, Smenkhkara, left the new city of Akhetaten and transferred the administration back to Memphis where he contacted members of the old, outlawed, priests of Amun to rescue the situation, but he met an untimely death.
Later, after Akhenaten’s death Tutankhaten, as he was then called, was crowned at Memphis. He was only nine years old and had few close relatives left alive. His wife, Ankhesenpaaten, was older, and he was likely the political puppet of Ay and Horemheb. Under their guidance, he changed his name to Tutankhamun; restored Amenhotep III’s Theban palace; issued a decree restoring the temples, images, and privileges of the old gods; and admitted the errors of Akhenaten’s political and religious policies.
During Tutankhamun’s ninth year, Horemheb marched the army into Syria to assist Egypt’s old ally, the Mitannian kingdom of northern Syria, which was embroiled in hostilities with vassals of the Hittites. Tutankhamun’s death occurred around this time. He was eighteen, and modern medical analysis of his mummy shows that he may have received a blow to the head, but we can only speculate whether he was murdered or the victim of an accident such as a fall from his chariot. Several well-preserved chariots were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb and, like most Egyptian kings, it seems he was an enthusiastic charioteer.
There is an interesting PostScript to the story of Tutankhamun, which gives a clue to the power struggles after his death. Ankhesenamun, Tutankhamun’s wife, was left a widow and in a difficult position. She found herself surrounded by older, ambitious men, such as Ay and Horemheb, who were vying for power. In order for one of them to legitimise his claim to the throne, he would have to marry young Ankhesenamun, the only surviving member of her dynasty.
From letters found in the Hittite archive, we know she had no particular affection for her aged Egyptian suitors and it is easy to sympathise with this young widow’s predicament. She wrote to Suppiluliumas I, the Hittite king, asking him to send one of his sons for her to marry, promising that she would make him pharaoh of Egypt. The Hittites, being old enemies of Egypt, were at first suspicious of this offer and in Egypt, Ankhesenamun’s behaviour was considered nothing short of treason. Suppiluliumas eventually sent prince Zannanza, but the young prince was murdered at the Egyptian border.
Ankhesenamun was then forced to marry Ay, who, eight months after the death of Tutankhamun, became king. Traditionally, a king was buried seventy days after his death, but it is possible that Tutankhamun lay unburied for eight months while the political plotting and manoeuvring were being played out.
Ankhesenamun vanishes from the records after her marriage to Ay and her name was hacked out of some monuments, leaving us to only speculate about her fate following her attempt to bring a foreigner to rule Egypt.
Ay was king for only four years then succeeded by Horemheb and although the records state the eighteenth dynasty ended with Horemheb, Tutankhamun was in fact the last member of his family to rule Egypt.
It was a sad end for a family who expelled the invading Hyksos from Egypt and produced such a great cast of characters such as Hatshepsut the woman king, Thutmose III, the Napoleon of Egypt, Thutmose IV, the young man who dreamt of the sphinx and became king, and Amenhotep III the sophisticated king who brought forth a crazy, flamboyant genius of a son, Akhenaten.
The Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb
The Egyptologist Howard Carter had worked in Egypt for 31 years before he found King Tutankhamun’s tomb. He began his career in Egypt at the age 17 copying wall paintings and hieroglyphic inscriptions and in 1899 was appointed the Inspector-General of Monuments in Upper Egypt.
In 1905, the Earl of Carnarvon, who spent the English winters in Egypt, hired Carter to direct archaeological digs. After several fairly successful seasons working together, interrupted by World War I, they began working in the Valley of the Kings in 1917.
Carter had found a faience cup, a piece of gold foil, and a cache of funerary items which all bore the name of Tutankhamun and was convinced there was still an undiscovered royal tomb to be found in the Valley. He began a systematic search but only found some ancient workmen’s huts at the foot of Rameses VI tomb and 13 calcite jars at the entrance to the tomb of Merenptah. After five years of excavating in the Valley, he had little to show and Lord Carnarvon ended the search. But Carter persuaded Carnarvon to finance just one last season in 1922.
He began by removing the workmen’s huts at the base of Rameses VI tomb and after four days found a step that had been cut into the rock, which lead to a staircase descending to a blocked entrance.
Carter had the stairs filled in to hide the find and deployed several of his most trusted workmen as guards. He then sent a cable to Lord Carnarvon in England “At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley a magnificent tomb with seals intact recovered same for your arrival. Congratulations.”
Three weeks later, Lord Carnarvon arrived in Luxor and the following day the workers cleared the staircase, fully exposing the doorway and revealing several intact seals at the bottom containing Tutankhamun’s name.
They noticed the upper left of the doorway had been damaged, most probably by tomb robbers but this showed signs of repair. The doorway was removed, revealing a passageway filled with limestone chips which tomb robbers had dug through, but the hole had been refilled with larger, darker rocks which suggested that the tomb had been raided but then repaired in antiquity.
Clearing a 26-foot-long passageway revealed another sealed door, showing evidence of a hole that had been resealed.
Carter wrote, “With trembling hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left-hand corner. Darkness and blank space, as far as an iron testing-rod could reach, showed that whatever lay beyond was empty, and not filled like the passage we had just cleared. Candle tests were applied as a precaution against foul gases, and then, widening the hold a little, I inserted the candle and peered in, Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn and Callender standing anxiously beside me to hear the verdict. At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold – everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment – an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by – I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, “Can you see anything?” it was all I could do to get out the words, “Yes, wonderful things.”
Ancient Egyptian Anecdotes
The Ancient Egyptians in their own words
Illustrated Papyri translations edited for the modern reader.
