The curse of king tutankhamun biography

Horemheb was a militaryman of peasant birth and was, as the military commander-in-chief, technically a servant of queen Ankhesenamun. The vizier Aywhile of some royal blood, was an established vizier, and also technically a servant of queen Ankhesenamun. Ankhesenamun's spousal preferences ignited a series of disruption in the fulfillment of king Tutankhamun's will on throne heirship.

Seeking to resolve her spousal dilemma, Ankhesenamun inadvertently generated a predicament involving the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I and his son, prince Zannanzaknown as the Zannanza affair. Meanwhile, Tutankhamun's vizier maneuvered in the midst of Tutankhamun's death to intercept the throne, circumventing Horemheb's rightful heirship, marrying Ankhesenamun towards the onset of this Hittite-Egyptian negotiation period, unbeknownst to Hittites.

The fact that Ay is depicted presiding over Tutankhamun's funeral, which is customary for the successor pharaoh, and the fact that Horemheb appears to have been absent at Tutankhamun's funeral aligns with this. The pharaoh Ay's reign was abruptly short and his death again left a vacancy in the throne with no royal bloodline heir because Ay did not have children with queen Ankhesenamun.

Toward the end of Ay's reign, Ay named his son, military generalissimo Nakhtminto be successor to the throne. However, Nakhtmin died before he could become pharaoh. Horemheb succeeded the throne as pharaoh after Ay's death. As pharaoh, Horemheb saw to it that the restoration of the traditional ancient Egyptian religion that Tutankhamun was previously spearheading was completed, restabilizing the nation.

Notably, during the standard damnatio memoriae process that each new Egyptian pharaoh undertakes, Horemheb defaced Ay's tomb, but left Tutankhamun's untouched, presumably out of respect. In due course, Horemheb had selected then civilian military officer, Ramesses Ias heir to the throne. Ramesses I's grandson, Ramesses IIwould go on to found the Ramesside dynasty and become the greatest pharaoh of ancient Egypt.

Tutankhamun was buried in a tomb that was unusually small considering his status. His death may have occurred unexpectedly, before the completion of a grander royal tomb, causing his mummy to be buried in a tomb intended for someone else. This would preserve the observance of the customary 70 days between death and burial. The location of the tomb was lost because it had come to be buried by debris from subsequent tombs, and workers' houses were built over the tomb entrance.

The concession rights for excavating the Valley of the Kings was held by Theodore Davis from until In that time, he had unearthed ten tombs including the nearly intact but non-royal tomb of Queen Tiye's parents, Yuya and Thuya. As he continued working there in the later years, he uncovered nothing of major significance. He believed this to be the pharaoh's lost tomb and published his findings as such with the line; "I fear the Valley of the Tombs is exhausted".

The Earl of Carnarvon and Carter had hoped this would lead to their gaining the concession when Davis gave it up but had to be satisfied with excavations in different parts of the Theban Necropolis for seven more years. After a systematic search beginning inCarter discovered the actual tomb of Tutankhamun KV62 in November The tomb's entrance was buried by mounds of debris from the cutting of KV9 over years after Tutankhamun's burial; ancient workmen's huts were also built on the site.

According to Carter's account the workmen discovered the step while digging beneath the remains of the huts; other accounts attribute the discovery to a boy digging outside the assigned work area. By February the antechamber had been cleared of everything but two sentinel statues. A day and time were selected to unseal the tomb with about twenty appointed witnesses that included Lord Carnarvon, several Egyptian officials, museum representatives and the staff of the Government Press Bureau.

On 17 February at just after two o'clock, the seal was broken. Letters published in of correspondence between Rex Engelbach and Alan Gardinerreveal that Howard Carter had stolen objects from the tomb, such as a 'whm amulet', before the tomb was officially opened. Rex Engelbach said in a letter to Gardiner about a 'whm amulet' gifted to Gardiner from Carter that "The whm amulet you showed me has been undoubtedly stolen from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Tutankhamun's tomb is the only royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings found in near-intact condition. Howard Carter took 10 years to catalog the items. On 4 November85 years to the day after Carter's discovery, Tutankhamun's mummy was placed on display in his underground tomb at Luxorwhen the linen-wrapped mummy was removed from its golden sarcophagus to a climate-controlled glass box.

The case was designed to prevent the heightened rate of decomposition caused by the humidity and warmth from tourists visiting the tomb. While the closure was originally planned for five years to restore the walls affected by humidity, the Egyptian revolution of set the project back. The tomb re-opened in February For many years, rumors of a " curse of the pharaohs " probably fueled by newspapers seeking sales at the time of the discovery [ ] persisted, the curse of king tutankhamun biography the early death of some of those who had entered the tomb.

The most prominent was George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvonwho died on 5 Aprilfive months after the discovery of the first step leading down to the tomb on 4 November The cause of Carnarvon's death was pneumonia supervening on [facial] erysipelas a streptococcal infection of the skin and underlying soft tissue. His doctor recommended a warmer climate so in the Carnarvons traveled to Egypt where the Earl became interested in Egyptology.

A study showed that of the 58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years; [ ] Howard Carter died of lymphoma in at the age of Kinnaman who died in39 years after the event. Tutankhamun's fame is primarily the result of his well-preserved tomb and the global exhibitions of his associated artifacts.

As Jon Manchip White writes, in his foreword to the edition of Carter's The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun"The pharaoh who in life was one of the least esteemed of Egypt's Pharaohs has become in death the most renowned". The discoveries in the tomb were prominent news in the s. Tutankhamen came to be called by a modern neologism"King Tut".

President Herbert Hoover. Originally performed on Saturday Night Livethe song was released as a single and sold over a million copies. Tutankhamun's artifacts have traveled the world with unprecedented visitorship. With the ending of that conflict, the Louvre Museum in Paris was quickly able to arrange an exhibition of Tutankhamun's treasures through Christiane Desroches Noblecourt.

The French exhibit drew 1. Noblecourt had also convinced the Egyptian Minister of Culture to allow British photographer George Rainbird to re-photograph the collection in color. The new color photos as well as the Louvre exhibition began a Tutankhamun revival. Inthe Tutankhamun exhibit traveled to Tokyo National Museum in Tokyo, Japan 21 August—10 October [ ] where it garnered more visitors than the future New York exhibit in This exhibition was first shown in London at the British Museum from 30 March until 30 September More than 1.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art organized the U. More than eight million attended. It traveled first to Washington D. InEgypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, in partnership with Arts and Exhibitions International and the National Geographic Society, launched a tour of Tutankhamun treasures and other 18th Dynasty funerary objects, this time called Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.

It featured the same exhibits as Tutankhamen: The Golden Hereafter in a slightly different format. It was expected to draw more than three million people but exceeded that with almost four million people attending just the first four tour stops. The exhibition visited Australia for the first time, opening at the Melbourne Museum for its only Australian stop before Egypt's treasures returned to Cairo in December The exhibition included 80 exhibits from the reigns of Tutankhamun's immediate predecessors in the 18th Dynasty, such as Hatshepsutwhose trade policies greatly increased the wealth of that dynasty and enabled the lavish wealth of Tutankhamun's burial artifacts, as well as 50 from Tutankhamun's tomb.

The exhibition did not include the gold mask that was a feature of the — tour, as the Egyptian government has decided that damage which occurred to previous artifacts on tours precludes this one from joining them. Init was announced that the largest collection of Tutankhamun artifacts, amounting to forty percent of the entire collection, would be leaving Egypt again in for an international tour entitled; "King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh".

The exhibit featured one hundred and fifty gold coins, along with various pieces of jewelry, sculpture and carvings, as well as the gold mask of Tutankhamun. Promotion of the exhibit filled the streets of Paris with posters of the event. On 28 August the artifacts that made up the temporary exhibition returned to the Egyptian MuseumCairo, and other institutions.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Pharaoh of ancient Egypt 18th Dynasty. For other uses, see King Tut disambiguation. Tutankhamun's golden funerary mask. Royal titulary. Horus name Ka nakht tut mesut [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Victorious bull, the very image of re birth.

Atenism Ancient Egyptian religion. See also: Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt family tree. Genealogy and population affinities. Religiopolitical countermand. See also: Atenism. Main article: List of pharaohs deified during lifetime. Horemheb Iry-pat fulfillment. Main article: Tomb of Tutankhamun. Main article: Discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Main articles: Mask of Tutankhamun and Tomb of Tutankhamun. International exhibitions. Further information: Exhibitions of artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun. Explanatory notes and reference sources. The probability that the man interred in KV55 is the father of Tutankhamun was equally as the curse of king tutankhamun biography. Lockwood Press.

ISBN English Egyptologist Battiscombe Gunn believed that the older interpretation did not fit with Akhenaten's theology. Gunn believed that such a name would have been blasphemous. He saw tut as a verb and not a noun and gave his translation in as The-life-of-Aten-is-pleasing. Professor Gerhard Fecht also believed the word tut was a verb. He noted that Akhenaten used tit as a word for 'image', not tut.

Using Aten as the subject, Fecht's full translation was "One-perfect-of-life-is-Aten". The Hermopolis Block two carved block fragments discovered in Ashmunein has a unique spelling of the first nomen written as Tutankhuaten ; it uses ankh as a verb, which does support the older translation of Living-image-of-Aten. Hawass says he heard this story from el-Rassul in person.

Another Egyptologist, Christina Riggs, suggests the story may instead be a conflation of Keedick's account, which was widely publicised by the book Tutankhamun: The Untold Story by Thomas Hovingwith el-Rassul's long-standing claim to have been the boy who was photographed wearing one of Tutankhamun's pectorals in University College London.

Retrieved 5 August Collins English Dictionary.

The curse of king tutankhamun biography

Retrieved 24 September American Association of Museums. Retrieved 17 July Czech Institute of Egyptology. Human Molecular Genetics. ISSN PMID S2CID Needless to say, this did not go down at all well with any of the other newspapers, who had gathered like vultures to report on the story that the whole world was awaiting to read about, and who now had little or nothing to print.

If the disgruntled press were unable to report directly on the greatest archaeological discovery of all time, then they would have to find other stories surrounding the find to appease their hungry readers. Straight away, rumours spread that it was the King Tut curse that had killed the earl, a story, which the press greedily pounced upon. In actual fact, Carnarvon had died from pneumonia, which was almost certainly a result of a blood infection caused by the cutting of a mosquito bite while shaving.

All in all, about a dozen deaths have been attributed to the so-called King Tut curse, most notably the deaths of Arthur Mace and Howard Carter himself. However, a study showed that of the 58 people present, either when the tomb or the sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a twelve-year period. The rest were still alive, including Howard Carterwho actually died of lymphoma inat the age of 64, some seventeen years after the opening of the tomb.

Furthermore, statistically speaking, the rates of death were not particularly unusual for that period. Although speculation about an actual curse has died down over the years, many scholars believe that some of the aforementioned eight may well still have died as a direct response to being at the opening of the tomb. Instead, he was trying to prevent something unsavory that neither his fame nor fortune could deter: his the curse of king tutankhamun biography being dug up by grave robbers.

These "anatomists" did not covet the Bard's body out of spite or malice but instead wanted it for the sake of science, to sell to doctors for medical use in schools. Shakespeare was only one of many at the time concerned about post-mortem theft; grave robbing was quite common during Shakespeare's time and long before. Whether Howard Carter, King Tut, or William Shakespeare truly believed in curses is irrelevant; the important thing is that those who might disturb their graves believe in them.

And it worked: nearly a century after Tut's tomb was opened, many people still believe in it. Benjamin Radford, M. Trending Auroras predicted for weekend New form of magnetism Neanderthals' blood type China's 'artificial sun' Diagnostic dilemma. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors.

Benjamin Radford. Social Links Navigation. That opportunity soon came because of his artistic skills and lack of formal education. Why the undereducated, inexperienced Carter? They could not afford to hire another expensive gentleman-scholar. For years, Carter chronicled these sites, developing celebrated and innovative techniques for capturing wall reliefs.

But would the aspiring archaeologist ever get an expedition of his own to lead? Enter, inthe wealthy English aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who was fascinated by Egyptology and had the deep pockets to fund British excavations of Egypt, as Meyers describes:. For someone like Carter, a figure like Lord Carnarvon offered the essential financial backing and encouragement to ultimately take the helm of excavation projects.

Tutankhamun, colloquially known as King Tutwas the 12th pharaoh of the 18th Egyptian dynasty, in power from approximately to B. Tutankhaten was just nine years old when he assumed power, and died at age 19 from a gangrene infection—possibly the result of a broken leg. It was the discovery of a lifetime: a fully intact tomb, the likes of which had never been discovered before.