#EGYPTOLOGY #KINGTUT #QUEENTIYE #TUTLINAGE #EGYPTGREATPHAROHS #KINGAKHENATEN KING TUTANKHATON Around the year 1343 BCE a young boy came to the throne of Egypt at the age of eight years old.. He was the last male heir in a long and powerful blood line of kings He followed on the heels of almost twenty years of social upheaval at the hands of Akhenaten, a king uniformly reviled by the pharaohs who succeeded him. Akhenaten had tried to install something akin to a henotheism or even monotheism in a culture that had been solidly polytheistic for years. Through the fact that he was that young he was guided by the priests and officials to restore the tradional cult of the proscribed diety Amun, which they effectively did. In El Ashmunein, during the last century, a limestone block that was broken into two pieces was found. The first piece of the block has an inscription that reads: the king’s son of his body Tutankhaton. On the other piece of the block the inscription reads: the daughter of the king, of his body, his great desire of the king of Two Lands, Ankhesenpaaton. Scholars suggest that this inscription is not only one of the few pieces of evidence showing Tut is from Tell El Amarna but also showing Akhenaton is the father of Tut because Tut is mentioned as the son along with the well-known daughter of Akhenaton, Ankhesenpaaton. Ankhesenpaaton was the third daughter of Akhenaton and Nefertiti and she was the wife of Tut. One of the first things these officials did was change the boy-king’s name to Tutankhamun, “Living Image of Amun,” to help establish the fact that Amun has returned as this young king. They married him to an older half-sister named Ankhesenpaaten, whose name was changed to Ankhesenamun, “She Lives for Amun.” They moved the nation’s capital from Akhenaten’s purpose-built city of Akhetaten back to Waset, the traditional religious capital of pharaonic Egypt. The god Akhenaten had venerated and whom he had forced upon Egypt as the new state deity, the Aten, was not proscribed but instead was returned to its former status as a minor aspect of the great sun deity Re. As for Akhenaten himself, the old king was branded a heretic and his name was not to be mentioned again; henceforth he was to be called “the criminal of Akhetaten.” The city of Akhetaten itself swiftly waned and fell into ruin, most of its stone temples and monuments disassembled down to their foundations by later kings and used as fill within the walls of massive temple pylons in the vast temple complex of Amun (Through this land filling of the temples he built a lot of history of linage was revealed and brought into reality). The reign of Tutankhamun was and still is today a complete stand out in the history making of Egypt. Most everyone has heard of him. To most people Tutankhamun is the most famous pharaoh of that long-ago civilization. Due to the circumstances and incomplete evidence surrounding King Tutankhamun life and his passing away remains a still image and question mark in the majority of minds. A young ruler comes of age to finally execute decisions on his own for the dynasty finds fulfillment in sports and dies a horrible death. Now as I continue with the reign of King Tutankhamun . He was only King for a decade and died at around the age of eighteen or twenty approximately according to minister Hawass. To me again he came of age to make strong and powerful changes without any approval from any advisors. He was revered and loathed by many. He was hated because he was from the royalblood line of the reviled “criminal of Akhetaten” and was subsequently erased from their own history He was meant to be forgotten but unfortunately life had another way of shiny through the rubble of lies. King Tutankhamun’s tomb was found in 1922. Designated KV62 (Kings Valley Tomb 62), the first of a royal tomb to be found almost intact. Not completely intact, mind you, because it had been raided at least twice, but great quantities of burial goods were found in KV62: almost 5,400 objects packed into a rather ignominious little tomb the size of the average modern garage due to the rush of his burial which his mummified body was placed in his brothers made sycofocus that is why they were two each appeared completely different. His furniture was broken or sawed apart to fit into the rooms which is evident. His body was not in proportion to the coffin they made and his body was rushed to burial for the next new King. Even though they tried to hide the truth of this King who was loved by his wife and servants his tomb is and still is today the most preserved and spectacular with impeccable items todate than any other royal tomb that has been discovered and unearth.. This is why King Tutankhamun (King Tut) is so famous in our own time. KV62 is one of the greatest archaeological finds in the history of EGYPT. The Original Autopsy in 1925 Three years passed after Howard Carter discovered KV62 before his team got around to unwrapping and examining the mummy itself. The autopsy was led by an anatomist named Douglass Derry, who had considerable experience working with Egyptian mummies. The irony is, as meticulous as Carter was in painstakingly clearing the artifacts from the tomb, the autopsy was botched. Significant damage was done to the mummy of Tutankhamun. The mummy had been so thickly coated with resins and unguents when placed in its nested coffins 3,300 years ago that it was stuck fast when Derry, Carter, and the others tried to remove it. They ended up disassembling the mummy into numerous pieces. The head came off after a myriad of attempts to pry off the king’s iconic gold burial mask. Carter notes in his publications, both the wrappings and body were heavily carbonized (Carter 2003 ed: 174, 198). This was evidently a chemical reaction due to the layers of resins and unguents that had been applied to the body in the mummification process, and was not associated with any antemortem condition or injury. It contributed to the fragmentation of the mummy during the rough handling in the autopsy. Carter immediately observed that the mummy was that of a young man but there was no obvious sign of cause of death during the examination (ibid 198). Derry noted a fracture to the left distal femur, to the extent that the left patella (knee cap) was quite loose. It was placed in the mummy’s left hand when the autopsy was completed. The poor condition of the body presented many cracks and fractures, but given the limitations of the time it wasn’t clear if the fracture to the left leg happened before or at the time of death, or if it was the result of rough handling on the part of the embalmers 3,300 years ago. Carter had hoped to X-ray the mummy of Tutankhamun, but the radiographer died on his way to Egypt. The team built a tray, filled it with sand, and carefully reassembled the mummy within the sand. This was placed back into one of the coffins and finally into the quartzite sarcophagus, evidently with the hope that no one would notice the fragmented condition of the body. The First X-rays: Plausable Evidence for Murder X-rays of King Tut shot in 1968 by a team from the University of Liverpool, and led by R.G. Harrison. Further X-rays were shot in 1978 by the University of Michigan, led by James E. Harris. In both cases the X-ray machine was brought to the tomb itself. That said, Harrison’s project was the first time the mummy had been viewed since Carter’s excavation over forty years earlier. Understandably Harrison was surprised to find the mummy in such poor condition; Carter’s little secret was out. The series of X-rays revealed a number of things, including the oddity that the king’s sternum and frontal ribs were missing. But it was the radiographs of the king’s skull that drew the most attention—at least later on. Neither Harrison nor Harris posited a clear cause of death but images of the skull showed an unusual difference in density to the base of the occipital bone (the bulge at the back of the skull) and a couple of loose bone fragments rattling around in there. In March 1999 a researcher named Bob Brier published a book entitled The Murder of Tutankhamen. Brier is a noted leader in the field of paleopathological studies of Egyptian mummies. Bob Brier observed and studied the X-rays from 1968 and 1978, and wondered at the possibility of assassination. He is hardly the first to bring out the idea of Tut’s having been murdered—the idea surfaced almost as quickly as the 1925 autopsy, given how young Tut was when he died. .Brier explored the idea in his book to a depth never before attempted (see Brier 1999). Was it Aye, the shrewd and old official who in fact succeeded Tut on the throne? Or was it Horemheb, the general of the army and thus a very powerful man? Brier enlisted the aid of an expert investigator who suggested the difference in density to the base of the occipital bone might indicate a subdural hematoma, the result of a vicious blow to the head that resulted in coma and death. Then there are the loose bone fragments—more evidence of a blow to the head. This was eventually ruled out as the time of his beaded headdress was removed which dismembered his head from the spinal cord which caused the fragments and hole. In my opionon something went completely wrong either an accident for he loved to ride the chariots or he was murdered for he would rule for many years to come and they wanted him out. 1st They could be the priests who wanted their idols and ways enforce with the captain of the army and his right handed male confidant who may have agreed to wipe him out and fixed his chariot so he would have an accident and give them the opportunity to wipe him out of the history of Egypt. This is plausible due to fact of the head injury, and leg injury depicted which reveals a large blow to the head. 2ND Plausible theory is that he could have went off with the chariots with full speed and had a horrible accident which caused severe damage internal bleeding and also broken bones which could not be healed but led to infections eventually gangrene which would have poisoned his system because there was not treatment for those type of injuries during those times and is evident in other mummy finding of untreated injuries which led to death. Any of these could have happened that is why he will never be forgotten. Bibliography: Brier, Bob. The Murder of Tutankhamen. 1999. Carter, Howard. The Tomb of Tutankhamen. 2003 edition. Hawass, Zahi, et al. “Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun’s Family.” JAMA. 2010.Hawass, Zahi. “Special Report: Scanning Tutankhamun.” Kmt: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt. Vol. 16, No. 2, 2005, Egyptian Museum Archieves, Ancient History, OTHER INFORMATION IN REFERNCE TO KING TUTANKHAMUN Tut lived in Tell El Amarna with Akhenaton and he married his wife, Ankhesenpaaton while living in Tell El Amarna. On the block and while he lived in Tell El Amarna, his name was Tutankhaton, honoring Aton, but when he became king and moved to Thebes he changed his name to Tutankamun, honoring Amun. This block can also be seen as evidence that Tut is in fact the son of Akhenaton. I am sure this archaeological evidence will instigate much discussion and debate among Egyptologists.. OTHER IMPERATIVE INFORMATION Tutankhamun’s father was the “heretic” king, Akhenaten, whose body is now almost certainly identified with the mummy from KV 55 in the Valley of the Kings. His mother, who still cannot be identified by name, is the “Younger Lady” buried in the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV 35). The mummy of the “Elder Lady” from the same tomb can now be conclusively identified as Tutankhamun’s grandmother, Queen Tiye. New light was shed on the cause of death for Tutankhamun with the discovery of DNA from the parasite that causes malaria; it is likely that the young king died from complications resulting from a severe form of this disease. The name and treasures of Tutankhamun are famous around the world. He came to the throne as a child, and ruled Egypt for almost ten years at the end of the 18th Dynasty, during a period -- over 3000 years ago -- in which Egypt controlled a vast empire. His immediate predecessors on the throne of Egypt were Amenhotep III, and Akhenaten, Amenhotep III’s son by his chief queen Tiye. Akhenaten is remembered as the world’s first monotheist. He and his beautiful wife Nefertiti abandoned the pantheon previously worshiped by Egyptians in favor of the disk of the sun, the Aten, closed the great state temples and moved the ceremonial capital of the country from Thebes in southern Egypt to the remote Middle Egyptian site now known as El-Amarna. The end of Akhenaten’s life is shrouded in mystery, but either immediately orwithin a few years after his death, Tutankhamun had taken the throne. By the second year of his reign, he had begun to move the court back to the traditional religious capital of Thebes and reinstate the old religion. For decades, since the spectacular 1922 discovery of his intact tomb in the Valley of the Kings by Howard Carter, scholars have debated Tutankhamun’s parentage, with the principal candidates proposed being Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, and a king named Smenkhkare about whom almost nothing is known, but who seems to have ruled either during or just after the end of Akhenaten’s reign. Possible mothers mentioned most often in the Egyptological literature are Amenhotep III’s great wife, Tiye, one of Akhenaten’s wives, or Smenkhkare’s queen, probably the daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. To explore this question, the Family of Tutankhamun Project studied Tutankhamun’s mummy, and ten other mummies either known or believed to be closely related to him. Included were the mummies of the parents of Queen Tiye, Yuya and Tjuya; the mummy of Amenhotep III; an anonymous male mummy found in KV 55 in the Valley of the Kings, a cache of material from the Royal Tomb at Akhenaten’s capital of Amarna; two anonymous female mummies -- the “Elder Lady,” and the “Younger Lady,” discovered hidden, along with the bodies of a number of New Kingdom pharaohs and their families, in the tomb of Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings (KV 35); two anonymous female mummies thought perhaps to be 18th Dynasty queens from a small uninscribed tomb, referred to as KV21A and KV21B. A group of five royal mummies from an earlier period were used as the control group.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 00:10:53 +0000
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