Tutankhamun

Discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun

The tomb of the boy King Tutankhamun was discovered on November 4, 1922 AD by “Howard Carter,” the English archaeologist, who was hired by “Lord Carnarvon” while financing a mission to excavate antiquities in the Valley of the Kings. The excavations continued without any benefit, until the child who was delivering water to the workers in the excavation area, named “Hussein Abd al-Rasoul”, stumbled upon something similar to a ladder in the ground, so he went rushing to tell the workers and Carter of what he found, thus the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered. The team of workers who was helping Howard Carter in the excavation process consisted of 50 Egyptian workers. Had it not been for the evacuation of the British from Egypt on February 28, 1922, all the possessions of the tomb would have been transferred to Britain, but the evacuation took place and Egypt was able to preserve its antiquities and the discovered possessions of the tomb Tutankhamun.

The life of the boy king Tutankhamun

The Golden King is the son of “Akhenaten”, and the grandson of King “Amenhotep III” and Queen “Tiye”, he is one of the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty and assumed power from 1334 BC until 1325 BC. Tutankhamun ruled Egypt at the age of nine, but he did not last long as he died at the age of nineteen, so he is called the boy king or the boy pharaoh. The boy king was initially named “Tutankhaten” then he changed it to “Tutankhamun”, he lived in “Memphis”, and during his rule he accepted the request of the priests regarding the return of the old religion and the multiplicity of gods, after the monotheism of Akhenaten, he also moved the seat of government from Tell el-Amarna in Minya Governorate to Thebes in Luxor. Regarding his health, Tutankhamun suffered from many diseases, including malaria and crooked teeth, he also suffered from bone diseases that prevented blood from reaching his toes, so he had to use more than 130 sticks, found inside his tomb, to help him walk, despite his suffering, he was fond of hunting, so he built a royal resting place next to the Sphinx, and was also able to ride the chariot.

Curse of Tutankhamun

There were many sayings about the curse of the pharaohs in general, whether it is real or just a myth to scare the thieves away from the tombs, and there were real events that people linked to the fact that there was an actual curse affecting everyone who approached the tomb of Pharaoh, and what happened around the tomb of Tutankhamun amazed many and made them believe in the fact that there is a curse, but others do not believe in the curse, the most important of them is the Egyptian archaeologist and Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass, despite what happened to him personally, he stated in a televised statement:

• “Lord Carnarvon” died three months after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun due to a mosquito bite that pinched him in a wound while he was shaving his chin, causing his death, then it was discovered that the wound in his face was very similar to a wound in the face of the mummy of the little king, and this raised terror and doubt about the reality of the curse.
• When Dr. Zahi Hawass was going with his driver to the Valley of the Kings in order to examine the mummy with a CT scan, on their way, they saw a child who almost hit by their car, although it was five in the morning and there were no tourists in the Valley of the Kings, and that also raised suspicion about the fact that there was a curse.
• On his way, he was surprised by his sister telling him on the phone that her husband had passed away, so he worried more that it was because of the curse.
• When they arrived in the Valley of the Kings, Mansour Braik, the director of antiquities there, told him that the minister’s secretary called saying that the minister had suffered a heart attack.
• When they entered the Valley of the Kings, the Japanese television came to record with him, and when they finished, a severe thunderstorm occurred, which terrified the Japanese and they fled in terror, saying that it was the curse of Tutankhamun.
• When they put the mummy in the tomography machine, it stopped working even though it was new, but the machine returned to work an hour later.

Monuments found in the tomb of Tutankhamun

When the tomb of Tutankhamun was opened, Carter discovered the treasure room full of holdings that scientists later estimated at more than 5,000 artifacts, and Dr. Zahi Hawass specified in a television interview that their number was 5,398 pieces, while Carter stated that they were only 3,500 artifacts, raising suspicions that Carter and Carnarvon had stolen holdings from the tomb.

Among the possessions found inside the tomb of Tutankhamun: 3 mummies of Tut and his sons, 130 sticks that the king used to walk, chests, war wheels, statues, gold, the king’s possessions of clothes, incense, golden chariots, and the king’s chair, which was made of ebony and ivory wood and decorated with gold. They also found with the king two daggers, one made of gold and the other of an iron type made of meteorite stone, which for the Pharaohs has great significance as it means that this dagger came from God given that the king was a holy person, the golden mask that the king used to wear which weighed 11 kg, and the golden sarcophagus, which weighed 110 kg of pure gold.

Missing objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun

According to Dr. Zahi Hawass, the Egyptian archaeologist, in a televised interview, there were missing objects from the tomb of the boy Pharaoh:

• Samples were taken from the tomb of Tutankhamun when Harrison came to X-ray the king’s mummy in 1968 AD.
• According to the photos taken by Carter in 1925 AD, there was a band of linen on the forehead of the king Tutankhamun with distinctive things on it, and these things disappeared according to pictures taken in 1968 AD, coinciding with Harrison’s presence to conduct x-rays on the mummy.
• Dr. Zahi Hawass also stated that he found 19 artifacts taken by “Carter” in the “Metropolitan Museum” located in New York, but it was not known if they were sold or gifted, but Hawass was able to return them.
• The archaeologist and Egyptologist, who was translating the hieroglyphs “Alan Gardner”, was gifted with an amulet from the tomb by “Carter”, forcing him to send a message to the Antiquities Authority saying that Carter had no right to gift the antiquities to whoever he wanted and returned the amulet, which confirmed the fact that Carter stole the antiquities .

How did King Tutankhamun die?

There are many sayings and theories about the story of the death of the Golden King, some say that he died of poisoning or because of gangrene that caused poisoning in his left foot after a fracture two days before his death. DNA research is now being conducted to discover whether or not this theory is true, including the one says that he died as a result of a hit he received from behind because there was a hole behind his head, but they proved that this hole was due to the embalming process, where embalming fluids were placed through it, and the other theory saying he died by falling off the chariot.