Late in Akhenaten’s reign Nefertiti was possibly named Akhenaten’s co-regent (Neferneferuaten), and their oldest daughter, Meritaten, was named her father’s “consort” - not a wife but the most important female in the court. Meritaten married Smenkhkara (of uncertain parentage), who ruled briefly(?) after Akhenaten’s death, but with his death Tutankhaten became king at age eight or nine. Tutankhaten, who was probably Akhenaten’s son by another wife (Kiya?), married Ankhesenpaaten, perhaps 12 years old, the third daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti and probably her husband’s half-sister.
By year 3 of Tutankhaten’s reign the court had returned to Memphis, and the Amarna “revolution” was over. Highly debated is whether Akhenaten’s mummy was brought back to Thebes and buried in a small tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV 55), but the mummy of an unidentified male in this tomb is too young to be that of Akhenaten. A gilded wooden shrine, originally made for Akhenaten’s mother Tiy, was also found in this tomb, along with burial equipment that had been planned for a secondary wife of Akhenaten’s, Kiya.
Tutankhaten’s name was changed to Tutankhamen, and a royal edict was issued, which was inscribed on the “Restoration Stela.” The stela describes Egypt during the previous reign as a country that had been abandoned by the gods. To restore order, the old cults, especially that of Amen-Ra, were reopened, new cult statues were made, and revenues that had previously gone to the Aten cult were directed to other temples throughout Egypt. Although not stated on the stela, the destruction of Akhenaten’s monuments also began at this time.
It is unlikely that the young Tutankhamen implemented these changes himself; he was probably manipulated by high court officials and priests of the traditional cults. One official who may have been instrumental in the subsequent events was Ay, possibly a brother of the boy-king’s deceased grandmother Tiy (chief wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten). Although a tomb had probably been started for Tutankhaten at Amarna, it was abandoned and another one was prepared at Thebes but remained unfinished at the time of his death. A CT scan of Tutankhamen’s
Mummy in 2005 revealed a kneecap fracture, which possibly became infected and was the cause of his early death.
Tutankhamen was an insignificant king, famous today only because his small cluttered tomb was found mostly intact in 1922 - with huge amounts of gold artifacts (see Box 8-B), unlike all other royal tombs of the New Kingdom. Although there is evidence that ancient robbers had penetrated the tomb twice, they must have been caught
Box 8-B Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon: the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb
In 1901 George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, fifth Earl of Carnarvon, was in a car accident in Germany, which left him frail and unhealthy. His doctor recommended wintering in warmer climes and in 1903 he went to Egypt, where he took up Egyptology as a kind of hobby. The next year, realizing that he needed a trained professional, Lord Carnarvon hired Howard Carter, who had been working in Egypt since 1891. Their collaboration would ultimately lead to one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in the world.
In the years before World War I Carter excavated a number of private tombs in western Thebes and in early 1915 he began excavating in the Valley of the Kings, the concession for which had been previously held by a wealthy American from Newport, RI, Theodore Davis. With Lord Carnarvon in England, Carter’s exploration of the Valley of the Kings was curtailed by World War I until 1917. For the next five years he searched in the Valley for Tutankhamen’s tomb with no success, and in 1922 Lord Carnarvon decided to end his financial support. But at Highclere Castle, Carter said that he would personally fund a final field season, to excavate in one last area in the Valley. Relenting, Lord Carnarvon agreed to fund the work.
On November 1, 1922 Carter began digging in an area where in 1920/21 he had stopped working because all he found were the huts of workmen employed constructing the tomb of Rameses VI. Three days later, on November 4, his workmen uncovered the top of a rock-cut stairway. The next day more steps were cleared, revealing a plastered wall covered with stamped cartouches. Covering up the steps, Carter then sent a telegram to Lord Carnarvon in England about a “wonderful discovery” . . . “congratulations.”
Taking a ship from Southampton, Lord Carnarvon arrived by train in Luxor with his daughter on November 23. Work at the newly discovered tomb began the next day, when more clearance of the plastered wall revealed the cartouche of Tutankhamen. The plaster covered stone blocks, which were removed, opening into a descending corridor. At the end was another plastered wall, also stamped with cartouches. Puzzled, Carter made a small hole in this wall and inserted a candle - late in the afternoon of November 26. Looking into what would be called the tomb’s Antechamber, Carter felt hot air escaping. He would later write: “. . . 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” (see Figures 8.7 and 8.8).
But not long after the king’s burial chamber had been opened Lord Carnarvon was bitten on his cheek by a mosquito, and he nicked the bite while shaving. The opening became infected, and he developed pneumonia. Antibiotics had not yet been discovered, and the earl, frail since his auto accident, died in Cairo on April 5, 1923 at age 57.
There were no curses written anywhere in Tutankhamen’s tomb, however, as was rumored in the press. Unfortunately, Lord Carnarvon’s death created a number of problems with the Egyptian authorities in 1924, but Howard Carter would eventually spend a number of years with a team of experts and workmen, recording, photographing, conserving, packing, and clearing Tutankhamen’s tomb. It was the discovery of a lifetime, and he died at home in London in 1939, at age 65.
Figure 8.7 Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon in Tutankhamen’s tomb. © Griffith Institute, Oxford
Figure 8.8 View of the antechamber of Tutankhamen’s tomb, taken in 1922. © Griffith Institute, Oxford
Or stopped before much could be stolen or damaged, and the tomb was resealed by officials. Much smaller than other royal tombs of the 18th Dynasty, Tutankhamen’s tomb (KV62) was not planned for his burial, but was quickly adapted for it when the young king died. Its discovery by Howard Carter is truly one of the great stories in modern archaeology.
Because of Carter’s meticulous care in recording all artifacts in the tomb in situ, by drawings, notes, photographs, and a numbering system, the context of each item found in the tomb is known. If the tomb had been extensively robbed in antiquity most tomb goods would have been lost, with the gold melted down for reuse. If the tomb had been robbed in recent times, tomb goods would have been sold to antiquities dealers piece by piece, and the true arrangement of the king’s burial would remain unknown. Fortunately, the “wonderful things” in Tutankhamen’s tomb that Carter found and then recorded were carefully packed and sent to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where generations of visitors to Egypt (as well as scholars) have marveled at this great discovery.
The tomb consists of four small rooms entered from a long corridor at the bottom of 16 steps cut into the limestone bedrock (see Figure 8.9). The first is the co-called “Antechamber” in which there were three large beds, disassembled chariots covered in gold foil, travertine vessels, and various stools and boxes. Also found in the Antechamber was the famous Golden Throne, with an inlaid scene on the back of the king being anointed by his wife with perfumed oil (see Plate 8.5). Above the royal couple is the Aten sun-disk - indicating that the throne was made at the end of the Amarna Period. Names of both the king and the queen in the cartouches on the throne had been altered to read “Tutankhamen” and “Ankhesenamen,” but one cartouche on the outer arm still reads “Tutankhaten.”
To the west of the Antechamber in Tutankhamen’s tomb is the smaller “Annex,” found packed with a disorderly lot of furniture, wine jars, travertine vessels, and 116 baskets with fruit. On the north side of the Antechamber was the sealed entrance to the Burial Chamber, flanked by two wooden statues of the king with a gold-covered
Figure 8.9 Plan of Tutankhamen's tomb (KV 62), overlain by part of the tomb of Rameses VI (KV 9). Source: C. N. Reeves, The Complete Tutankhamun. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990, p. 55
Headdress, kilt, and jewelry, holding a gold mace and striding with his walking stick. The Burial Chamber is the only decorated room in the tomb with mortuary inscriptions and scenes of the funeral and of Tutankhamen with gods of the afterlife, especially Osiris.
Tutankhamen’s mummy was placed within a series of four gold-covered shrines bolted shut, with only a narrow space between the outermost one and the walls of the burial chamber (see Figure 8.10). It took Carter eight months to carefully dismantle the shrines, inside of which was a quartzite sarcophagus. Within the sarcophagus were three nested coffins. The outer two coffins are made of wood covered with gold foil, and the innermost coffin is of solid gold. Covering the mummy was a solid gold mask of the king wearing the nemes headdress (see Plate 8.6). Within the many layers of linen wrappings, the mummy was covered with over 100 pieces of jewelry, amulets, and ornaments, mostly in gold - and something very rare for the time, a gold-handled dagger with an iron blade.
The Treasury, opening to the north of the Burial Chamber, was protected with a crouching statue of the jackal-god Anubis on a portable shrine, covered in a linen shroud. There were many boxes in this room along with model boats, but the most important artifact was the gold-covered canopic shrine containing a travertine chest with the king’s embalmed viscera in small gold coffins (see Plate 8.7). Two mummified fetuses were also in small coffins in an undecorated box in the Treasury, perhaps from miscarriages of Tutankhamen’s wife Ankhesenamen.
The amazing finds in Tutankhamen’s tomb can only be briefly discussed here. Aside from the large artifacts described above, Tutankhamen was buried with just about everything he would need in life. Clothing includes linen garments, and even underwear in the form of triangular loincloths. Twenty-seven pairs of gloves were found, including a small pair used by the king as a child. Materials for sandals range from gold to beaded leather and woven papyrus. One box contained the king’s shaving equipment, and there are sets of writing equipment with pens, pen cases, and a papyrus burnisher.
Musical instruments include ivory clappers, sistra, and trumpets made of silver or copper alloy. There is an inlaid ebony game board for senet, and another one for the “game of 20 squares.” A tiny coffin nested within three larger coffins contained a braided lock of hair, which, according to the inscription, had belonged to Tutankhamen’s grandmother, Queen Tiy. Sixteen bows were found throughout the tomb, and other weapons include clubs, throw-sticks, daggers, and swords. Numerous vessels are made of pottery, travertine, faience, glass, silver, and gold.
Real food in the tomb includes pieces of beef, sheep/goat, geese, ducks, loaves of bread, and seeds of emmer wheat and barley. Lentils, chick peas, and peas were also found. Flavoring for the king’s food includes garlic bulbs, juniper berries, coriander, fenugreek, sesame seeds, and black cumin - as well as two jars of honey. Whole fruits were found in baskets, including persea, dates, sycamore figs, and grapes/raisins - and there were also watermelon seeds. Twenty-six of the wine jars found in the tomb had hieratic inscriptions, many of which identified the type of wine inside, its date (regnal year of Tutankhamen), where it came from - and even the name of the chief vintner. Bouquets of real flowers had been left in the tomb, and a wreath of (imported?) olive leaves and blue flowers was found on top of the king’s outermost coffin.
Figure 8.10 Plan of Tutankhamen's burial chamber, with four shrines, sarcophagus, and coffins. Source: C. N. Reeves, The Complete Tutankhamun. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990, p. 85. Reprinted by permission of the Griffith Institute
Ay, who briefly became ruler after Tutankhamen’s death, was buried in a larger tomb in the (west) Valley of the Kings, perhaps the one originally intended for Tutankhamen. General Horemheb, who became the last ruler of the 18th Dynasty, had earlier built a beautifully decorated tomb at Saqqara (see 8.10), but as king he was buried in the Valley of the Kings. Ay’s mortuary temple in western Thebes was later usurped by Horemheb.
World History
