Even a century after his tomb’s discovery, questions still linger over the teenage pharaoh’s life, loves, successors, and death. From the earliest days of archaeology in Egypt, the Valley of the Kings has exerted an irresistible allure. The famed cemetery was the burial place of royals during the golden age of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties. Conducted since at least the early 1800s, excavations have revealed that most of the rock-cut tombs in the area were thoroughly looted in antiquity. The one great exception—the four richly appointed chambers of King Tutankhamun Nebkheperure—yielded not only a stunning trove of artifacts but a glimpse of the country’s astounding wealth and culture during the 14th century B.C.
Since its discovery in 1922, King Tut’s tomb has provided ample evidence that has allowed both experts and amateurs to puzzle out the young pharaoh’s life and times, including the political intrigues that must have swirled around him in the wake of his succession to the throne. Some parts of the picture fit neatly together, while other details are not so clear. Now, a century after the tomb’s discovery, is perhaps a fitting moment to consider what the experts have learned, and at what they can still only guess.Surprising finds
The story of the discovery of King Tut’s final resting place begins in 1902, two decades before its discovery, when Egypt granted permission to American lawyer and businessman Theodore Davis to dig in the Valley of the Kings. Davis would go on to fund excavations there for more than a decade, discovering and excavating some 30 tombs. He also unearthed tantalising clues about the young king, whose name was mostly absent from historical records.
Davis came across two minor deposits containing artefacts with Tutankhamun’s name. One was an embalming cache; the other held embossed, decorative gold from chariots. Davis believed he had found the mysterious pharaoh’s burial, but he was disappointed with the artefacts. Other underwhelming discoveries that he made subsequently convinced him that it was finally time to quit.“I fear that the Valley of the Tombs is now exhausted,” he explained.
According to one report, Davis had come within six feet of Tutankhamun’s tomb. His pivotal decision to give up his concession in the valley on the very brink of success allowed Lord Carnarvon, a wealthy Englishman, to step in in 1914. Working for Carnarvon, archaeologist Howard Carter conducted excavations over the next eight years before uncovering the steps leading to King Tut’s tomb on November 4, 1922.
Akhenaten’s other wives included a woman named Kiya, possibly a foreign princess, who was once thought to be a possible candidate for Tut’s mother. But DNA tests revealed that Tut was the son of a female mummy found in KV35 (known as the Younger Lady). That woman was also the sister of the man from KV55, Tut’s father, making Tut the product of sister-brother incest. The names of five of Akhenaten’s sisters are known, but which one might be the woman from KV35 is a mystery.After slowly, carefully removing and cataloguing many hundreds of dazzling funerary artefacts, Carter was finally able to open Tutankhamun’s nested coffins in late 1925 and gaze upon the mummy. “The youthful Pharaoh was before us at last: an obscure and ephemeral ruler, ceasing to be the mere shadow of a name,” he wrote. “Here was the climax of our long researches.” By then, Tutankhamun – ‘King Tut’ – had become one of the most famous people in the world. His image and name were everywhere. In the field of Egyptology, the once little-known ruler was now one of the pharaohs that historians knew best.
Clues uncovered in Tut’s tomb—KV62, the 62nd burial complex found in the valley —confirm that he was one of the successors of heretic king Amenhotep IV. The latter chose a new name, Akhenaten, meaning “effective for the Aten,” the god that the king decided to worship to the exclusion of all others. In the distinctive art of the era, the Aten appears as a sun disc whose rays deliver blessings and eternal life.Tut’s original name was Tutankhaten, “living image of the Aten.” He was surely born in Akhenaten’s new capital, Akhetaten—“horizon of the Aten”—today the archaeological site of Amarna. Everyone at court, government officials and bureaucrats, and thousands of artisans and labourers had moved to Akhetaten with the king, abandoning the traditional capital of Thebes, modern Luxor. That occurred in the midst of a religious revolution in which Akhenaten made the Aten the country’s one official god. As centuries of polytheistic tradition were suddenly upended, with the old gods falling out of favour, confusion and terror must have gripped the country.According to the results of DNA tests published in 2010, a decayed mummy found in tomb KV55 was Tut’s father. Some Egyptologists believe that it was Akhenaten, based largely on royal epithets on the coffin, but other experts have their doubts. They wonder if the bones might belong to someone else—perhaps a shadowy figure named Smenkhkare, who may have been Akhenaten’s brother.
Like many ancient Egyptian royals, Akhenaten had more than one wife. His queen was the famously beautiful Nefertiti, and together they had six daughters: Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten Tasherit, Neferneferure, and Setpenre. History shows that the royal couple probably did not produce a son needed to secure the succession. Archaeologists would have to look elsewhere for the identity of Tut’s mother.
Akhenaten’s other wives included a woman named Kiya, possibly a foreign princess, who was once thought to be a possible candidate for Tut’s mother. But DNA tests revealed that Tut was the son of a female mummy found in KV35 (known as the Younger Lady). That woman was also the sister of the man from KV55, Tut’s father, making Tut the product of sister-brother incest. The names of five of Akhenaten’s sisters are known, but which one might be the woman from KV35 is a mystery.
