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Tutankhamun

"Inside my mask of gold, lapis, turquoise and amber, my naked body breaks its bondage and soars like an eagle towards the golden Sun of rejuvenation"

By Ruth Elizabeth StiffPublished 2 years ago 5 min read
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Tutankhamun

King Tut was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the 18th Dynasty. He was 8 or 9 years old when he took to the throne. He was physically disabled with a deformity of his left foot which meant he used a cane as an aid to walking. Over 5,000 artefacts were found at his tomb, including his famous gold mask. He was Tutankhamun.

Tutankhamun was a king’s son but his actual parentage is uncertain. Smenkhkare died and Tutankhamun (or Tut) became the King of ancient Egypt. He was married to Ankhesenpaaton, who was Akhenaten’s third daughter. As he was still very young (8 or 9) when he ascended the throne, the elderly official Ay and the general of armies Horemheb, served as chief advisors.

By his third royal year, Tut moved his residence to Memphis, which was the administrative capital of Egypt (near modern Cairo). Tut ‘issued a decree’ restoring the temples, images, personnel, and privileges of the old gods. He also began to restore the sacred shrines of Amon, which had been badly damaged by a previous King of Egypt (or pharaoh). The chief monument of Tut is the colonnade of the Temple of Luxor, which he had decorated with reliefs depicting the Opet festival, which was an annual rite of renewal involving the king, the three chief deities of Karnak, Amon, Mut and Khons, and the local form of Amon at Luxor.

King Tut and his Queen

Tut and his Queen had two daughters, neither of whom survived infancy. One daughter was born prematurely at 5-6 months of pregnancy, and the other at full-term (9 months), so when Tutankhamun died so did the royal line of the 18th Dynasty. Tut reigned for (roughly) nine years and he was one of the few Pharaohs who was worshipped during his lifetime in the same manner as the Pharaohs were venerated after their deaths. Temples of this Pharaoh’s cult were built as far away as Kawa and Faras in Nubia.

It is thought that Akhenaten was Tutankhamun’s father, and during this Pharaoh’s reign, he worshipped the Sun god Aton ‘exclusively’, which led to the (almost complete) destruction of Egypt's other many gods and goddesses and their temples. When Tutankhamun took over the ancient Egyptian throne, he restored these many gods and goddesses with their temples, and named himself after the King of gods Amun. Once Tutankhamun was crowned and after “taking counsel” with the god Amun, he made several endowments that enriched and added to the priestly numbers of the cults of Amun and Ptah. The priests and all their attendees (dancers, singers, etc) had their positions restored, and a decree of royal protection was granted to ensure their future stability. Tut commissioned new statues of the deities from the best materials and stone, and he had new processional barques (royal boats) made of the best cedar and he had these barques embellished with gold and silver. All of this helped to strengthen King Tutankhamun’s reign, returning Egyptian religion to its ‘polytheistic’ (belief in more than one god) form.

King Tut

When Tut took over the throne, the country was economically weak, plus, diplomatic relationships had been neglected. Tut worked hard to strengthen his country and to restore these diplomatic relations. However, there were battles with Nubians and Asiatics which are recorded in Tutankhamun’s mortuary temple at Thebes.

King Tutankhamun (or Tut) was slight in his build, and (roughly) 5ft 6in (167cm) tall. He had large front incisors and an overbite characteristic of the Thutmosid royal line to which he belonged. It is thought that Tut ‘suffered’ physically, with a clubfoot, a cleft palate and a severe bone disease. He is the only Pharaoh depicted as sitting down doing archery. Tutankhamun is known as an important Pharaoh who returned order to Egypt and who may have gone on to better things, if he hadn’t died so young.

The death of this Pharaoh is a mystery and has been the subject of considerable debate and study. Murder by a blow to the head was a theory, as a result of an x-ray in 1968 which showed two bone fragments inside the skull. Another theory is that he died as a result of his multiple weakening disorders, a leg fracture and a severe malarial infection. It was suggested that the young Pharaoh died in a chariot accident. Unfortunately, we may never know.

Tutankhamun was buried in a small tomb. It is possible that his death was unexpected before the royal tomb was completed, and that he was buried in a tomb meant for someone else.

The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. They found that Tutankhamun’s sealed burial chambers were miraculously intact, and inside of these chambers, there was a collection of several thousand priceless objects, which included the gold coffin containing the mummy of the young Pharaoh.

Tutankhamun's tomb

Carter carefully explored the four-room tomb, uncovering an amazing collection of jewels, gold, furniture, clothes, and actual chariot, weapons and many other items which give us a glimpse into the world of the ancient Egyptians. The best find was the stone sarcophagus which contained three coffins nested inside of each other. The final coffin was solid gold, in which lay the mummified body of Tutankhamun. It has been preserved for 3,200 years!

If you enjoyed this article, go on over to my website for more similar articles: https://sarah-s-story-book.webnode.co.uk/

Historical
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About the Creator

Ruth Elizabeth Stiff

I love all things Earthy and Self-Help

History is one of my favourite subjects and I love to write short fiction

Research is so interesting for me too

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