Tutankhamen , the boy Pharoah

I cannot take credit for this text , as it was written by "Ryan Kroonenburg" His Homepage

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In 1922 two englishmen found something that thrilled the
world. In a room they found piles of gold, Stacked high
were golden statues,chariots, furniture, tools, and shrines.
They belonged to a king, a Pharaoh, who’s name was
Tutankhamen. He lived 3,300 years ago. His body was in
the next room wrapped in linen. It had layed there for
many years.
The two men who found it were called Howard Carter and
George Carter, who, was the earl of Carnarvon. Five
months after the find, Lord Carnarvon died a mysterious
death. And then there were several other mysterious
deaths .The newspaper headlines told this story around the
world. It was then when people started considering the
curse was not just a myth but could be a reality.

The Posible Causes

If there was no curse, what called all those deaths?
1) Fungus- One theory is that fungas in the tombs caused
fever and many of those who died suffered from a fever.
2) Poison- Another idea is that ancient priests used poison
to protect the dead. The tombs were airtight and the
poison could remain in the tombs and when people
opened the tombs and touch things the posion would be
released. In some cases the poison lead to death.
3) Bacteria- Several explores died of pneumonia, which
can be caused by bacteria. According to some people, The
mummies bred germs that could cause people in the tombs
to be ill.
4) The Curse- Many people believed in the curse of the
pharaoh’s. They believed that when you entered the
pharaoh’s tomb would die from the curse.

A lot of people argue about why all these poeple die and
unless we discover the secret of time travel we may never
know.

The Amarna Revolution

The Armarna Revolution lasted a for short 17 years. It
started and ended with the pharoh Akhenaton or as he was
first known as Amenhotep IV. He reigned for 17 years
(1379-1362 B.C.).
Within the first few years of Akehenaton’s reign some
changes began to happen, weird changes. He abandoned
worshiping most of the egyptian gods and made up a new
god, Aton, The god of the sun. He built a temple for
Aton.
Akhenaton then shifted the Captial from The over crowed
city of thebes to a new city, named after himself, called
Akheton.
When Akhenaton died Tutankhamen became the pharoh
of Egypt at the age of 9!

Tutankhamen the baby

Around the year 1350 B.C. Tutankhamen was born. We
dont know who his father or mother was, however he was
apparently related to the royal family sp ofcourse when he
was born there would of been a lot of rejioing. A royal
baby in a land full of slaves, Tutankhamen would of haved
a lot of servents waiting on him. And he would have a
head nurse and then under her there would be a nursing
staff.
Tutankhamen would not have to worry about love because
Akhenton was married to a very beautiful woman called
Nefertiti. Akhenton and Nefertiti had 6 daughters and no
sons, This meant that they would have made a lot of fus
about the baby boy.

The Coronation

Tutankhamen was not expected to be a pharoh. As
Akhenaton shared his throne with a young man who may
have been Tutankhamen’s Older brother. He would have
been 22 and he was expected to outlive Akhenaton. How
ever this was not right. They both died within a few
months of each other, and Tutankhamen was proklaimed
Pharoh. At that time Tutankhamen was married to
Ankhesenpaton, he was probably 6 or 7 at that time!!!.
Seventy days had to pass between the death of a pharoh
and the crowning of a new one. This was the time where
the mumification of the pharoh took place.
Tutankhamen was then crowned in Karnak so that right
from the start he made it obvious to everyone that he
believed in the old way of things and not the sun god
Aton.
On the day he would have been wearing a loin-cloth and
nothing else. He would have been led to the great temple
of Karnak. In the temple two priests, one wearing the
mask of horus, the god of the horizon (which was the
falcons head.) and the other the mask of Aton, he was then
circumsised.
Next he was taken to hall and to a pool, where 4 priests
representing gods threw purification liquid over him.
He was then taken to the very holiest part of the temple. In
here there were two temples, one representing the North
of Egypt and the other representing the South of Egypt.
He was told to enter the Temple representing the North of
Egypt where a priestess was wearing a huge mask of the
head of the Cobra. Now came the crowning where 5
crowns were placed on Tutankhamens head. All these
crowns were his to look after until his death.

Tutankhamen’ Reign

Tutankhamen did not live for very long and since he was
very young, Ay, devine father (A preist) instructed
Tutankhamen in what to do. All the temples had been
forgotten because of Akhenatons different beliefs. Ay
directed Tutankhamen to fix the temples, to stop the
weeds from growing in the holiest of holy places and this
is what tutankhamen did.
Tutankhamen got bored of all his royal duties and he
toured the countryside with his wife. All across Egypt they
went sleeping in the best of accomadation drinking the
finest of drinks and eating best of foods, What a life!
Towards 18 Tutankhamen knew he was dying. No one
knows what he died from and where he died, but we do
know that he knew he was dying as he instructed his
queen that when he died to marry a Hittite King, however
no one even knows if she did.

Conclusion

Although Tutankhamen did not do anything very
important during his reign(like build a Pyramid or a
temple) The most important thing he did was die. This
may sound cruel but by him dying and his grave not being
disturbed we are able to find out a lot about ancient
Egyptian culture and government.