Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun, also known as Tutankhamen, was the third-last pharaoh of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty. He took the throne as a child and died around age 18. Originally named Tutankhaten, his rule reversed the religious shift to Atenism and restored the traditional worship of many gods. An inscription on his tomb door shows his dedication to these deities. The Restoration Stela records his gifts and rebuilding of temples, especially bringing back the cult of the god Amun at Thebes. He and his queen changed their names from Tutankhaten and Ankhesenaten to Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun. Soon after becoming king, he moved the royal court from Akhenaten’s capital at Amarna back to Memphis. He reopened diplomatic ties with the Mitanni and led military campaigns in Nubia and the Near East. He was one of the few pharaohs worshipped as a god while still alive. He likely started building a royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings and a mortuary temple, but neither was finished when he died. In 2012, researchers suggested he died from a combination of malaria and a broken leg. Because his intended tomb was incomplete, he was buried in a small, non-royal tomb that was adapted for the purpose. His vizier Ay succeeded him, probably as an old man with a short reign. Ay was followed by Horemheb, who had been Tutankhamun’s military commander. Under Horemheb, the restoration of traditional religion was completed; he took over constructions by Ay and Tutankhamun and erased earlier rulers from the Amarna Period. Tutankhamun’s tomb was found in 1922 by a team led by Howard Carter and funded by Lord Carnarvon. Though robbed in ancient times, it still held most of its original items, including the king’s undisturbed mummy. The discovery was covered worldwide; with over 5,000 artifacts, it sparked renewed public interest in ancient Egypt. His golden mask, kept at the Egyptian Museum, remains a famous symbol. Before moving to the Grand Egyptian Museum in 2025, some treasures toured globally with huge crowds. The Egyptian government allowed tours of the tomb starting in 1961. Deaths of some people involved in the excavation have been popularly blamed on a “curse of the pharaohs” due to similar circumstances. Since the discovery, he has been commonly called “King Tut.” Tutankhamun was born during Akhenaten’s reign, in the Amarna Period of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. His birth name, Tutankhaten, means “living image of Aten,” reflecting the Atenism of that time. His parentage is debated because no surviving inscriptions confirm it. He was certainly a prince, as a fragment from Hermopolis calls “Tutankhuaten” a “king’s son.” Most scholars think he was the son of Akhenaten or his co-ruler Smenkhkare. Inscriptions from his reign treat him as a son of Amenhotep III, but that would require a long co-regency between Akhenaten and his father—a theory many Egyptologists once supported but now mostly reject. His mother has been suggested as Nefertiti, Beketaten, Meritaten, or Meketaten. He was nursed by a woman named Maia, known from her tomb at Saqqara. DNA tests identified his father as the mummy from tomb KV55, thought to be either Akhenaten or Smenkhkare. The “Younger Lady,” an anonymous mummy from tomb KV35, was identified as his mother. Genetic research suggests his parents were full siblings, both children of Amenhotep III and his chief wife Tiye. The exact identity of the Younger Lady is unknown. Nefertiti is not known to be a sister of Akhenaten, which seems to rule her out. However, researchers Marc Gabolde and Aidan Dodson argue it remains possible if the genetic results actually point to three generations of first-cousin marriage rather than brother-sister incest, assuming Nefertiti and Akhenaten were related. Kara Cooney thinks it unlikely that Nefertiti was Tutankhamun’s mother or that the Younger Lady was Akhenaten’s sister; she proposes instead that Akhenaten fathered a son with one of his own daughters, Meritaten or Meketaten, making Tutankhamun a product of father-daughter incest, which would fit the DNA evidence. Juan Belmonte acknowledges the genetic possibility that the Younger Lady was Akhenaten’s daughter, though he calls it very improbable. Assuming the DNA is accurate, the Younger Lady is most likely one of Amenhotep III and Tiye’s younger daughters, perhaps Nebetah or Beketaten. The reliability of the genetic data from mummies has been questioned due to decay and ambiguous readings from inbreeding. Joyce Tyldesley ignores the genetic results entirely and considers the KV55 male and the Younger Lady more likely to be Smenkhkare and Meritaten, with Tutankhamun as a son of Akhenaten by Kiya.