Tutankhamun (part one)

Tutankhamun (/ˌtuːtənkɑːˈmuːn/, Ancient Egyptian: twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen (/ˌtuːtənˈkɑːmɛn/) (c. 1341-1323 BC), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled c. 1332 – 1323 BC in the conventional chronology) during the New Kingdom of Egyptian history. His father is believed to be the pharaoh Akhenaten, identified as the mummy found in the tomb KV55. His mother is his father's sister, identified through DNA testing as an unknown mummy referred to as "The Younger Lady" who was found in KV35. Tutankhamun took the throne at eight or nine years of age under the unprecedented viziership of his eventual successor, Ay, to whom he may have been related. He married his paternal half-sister Ankhesenamun. During their marriage they lost two daughters, one at 5–6 months of pregnancy and the other shortly after birth at full-term. His names—Tutankhaten and Tutankhamun—are thought to mean "Living image of Aten" and "Living image of Amun", with Aten replaced by Amun after Akhenaten's death. A small number of Egyptologists, including Battiscombe Gunn, believe the translation may be incorrect and closer to "The-life-of-Aten-is-pleasing" or, as Professor Gerhard Fecht believes, reads as "One-perfect-of-life-is-Aten". Tutankhamun restored the Ancient Egyptian religion after its dissolution by his father, enriched and endowed the priestly orders of two important cults, and began restoring old monuments damaged during the previous Amarna period. He reburied his father's remains in the Valley of the Kings and relocated the capital from Akhetaten back to Thebes. Tutankhamun was physically disabled with a deformity of his left foot along with bone necrosis that required the use of a cane, several of which were found in his tomb. He had other health issues including scoliosis and had contracted several strains of malaria. The 1922 discovery by Howard Carter of Tutankhamun's nearly intact tomb, in excavations funded by Lord Carnarvon, received worldwide press coverage. With over 5,000 artefacts, it gave rise to renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamun's mask, now in the Egyptian Museum, remains a popular symbol. The deaths of some involved in discovery of Tutankhamun's mummy have been popularly attributed to the “curse of the pharaohs”. Some of his treasure has traveled worldwide with unprecedented response; the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities allowed tours beginning in 1961. He has, since the discovery of his intact tomb, been referred to colloquially as "King Tut".

Tutankhamun, whose original name was Tutankhaten or Tutankhuaten, was born during the reign of Akhenaten, during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Akhenaten's reign was characterized by a dramatic shift in ancient Egyptian religion, known as Atenism, and the relocation of the capital to the site of Amarna, which gave its name to the modern term for this era, the Amarna Period. Toward the end of the Amarna Period, two other pharaohs appear in the record who were apparently Akhenaten's co-regents: Neferneferuaten, a female ruler who may have been Akhenaten's wife Nefertiti or his daughter Meritaten; and Smenkhkare, whom some Egyptologists believe was the same person as Neferneferuaten but most regard as a distinct figure. It is uncertain whether Smenkhkare's reign outlasted Akhenaten's, whereas Neferneferuaten is now thought to have become co-regent shortly before Akhenaten's death and to have reigned for some time after it. An inscription from Hermopolis refers to "Tutankhuaten" as a "king's son", and he is generally thought to have been the son of Akhenaten, although some suggest instead that Smenkhkare was his father. Inscriptions from Tutankhamun's reign treat him as a son of Akhenaten's father, Amenhotep III, but that is only possible if Akhenaten's 17-year reign included a long co-regency with his father, a possibility that many Egyptologists once supported but is now being abandoned. While some suggestions have been made that Tutankhamun's mother was Meketaten, the second daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, based on a relief from the Royal Tomb at Amarna, this possibility has been deemed unlikely given that she was about 10 years old at the time of her death. Another interpretation of the relief names Nefertiti as his mother. Meritaten has also been put forward as his mother based on a re-examination of a box lid and coronation tunic found in his tomb. Tutankhamun was wet nursed by a woman named Maia, known from her tomb at Saqqara. In 2008, genetic analysis was carried out on the mummified remains of Tutankhamun and others thought or known to be New Kingdom royalty by a team from University of Cairo. The results indicated that his father was the mummy from tomb KV55, identified as Akhenaten, and that his mother was the mummy from tomb KV35, known as the "Younger Lady", who was found to be a full sister of her husband. The team reported it was over 99.99 percent certain that Amenhotep III was the father of the individual in KV55, who was in turn the father of Tutankhamun. More recent genetic analysis, published in 2020, revealed Tutankhamun had the haplogroups YDNA R1b and mtDNA K, both of which originated in the Near East. He shares this Y-haplogroup with his father, the KV55 mummy (Akhenaten), and grandfather, Amenhotep III, and his mtDNA haplogroup with his mother, The Younger Lady, his grandmother, Tiye, and his great-grandmother, Thuya, upholding the results of the earlier genetic study. The profiles for Tutankhamun and Amenhotep III were incomplete and the analysis produced differing probability figures despite having concordant allele results. Because the relationships of these two mummies with the KV55 mummy had previously been confirmed in an earlier study, the haplogroup prediction of both mummies could be derived from the full profile of the KV55 data. In 2022, biological anthropologist S.O.Y. Keita commented that analysis of the Short Tandem Report (STR) data published on Rameses III and the Amarna royal mummies which included Tutankhamun showed “a majority to have an affinity with “Sub-Saharan” Africans in one affinity analysis”. Although, he cautioned that this does not mean that the royal mummies “lacked other affiliations” which he argued had been obscured in typological thinking. Keita further added that different “data and algorithms might give different results” which reflected the complexity of biological heritage and the associated interpretation. The identity of The Younger Lady is unknown but she cannot be Nefertiti, as she was not known to be a sister of Akhenaten. However, researchers such as Marc Gabolde and Aidan Dodson claim that Nefertiti was indeed Tutankhamun's mother. In this interpretation of the DNA results, the genetic closeness is not due to a brother-sister pairing but the result of three generations of first-cousin marriage, making Nefertiti a first cousin of Akhenaten. The validity and reliability of the genetic data from mummified remains has been questioned due to possible degradation due to decay. When Tutankhaten became king, he married Ankhesenpaaten, one of Akhenaten's daughters, who later changed her name to Ankhesenamun. They had two daughters, neither of whom survived infancy. While only an incomplete genetic profile was obtained from the two mummified foetuses, it was enough to confirm that Tutankhamun was their father. Likewise, only partial data for the two female mummies from KV21 has been obtained so far. KV21A has been suggested as the mother of the foetuses but the data is not statistically significant enough to allow her to be securely identified as Ankhesenamun. Computed tomography studies published in 2011 revealed that one daughter was born prematurely at 5–6 months of pregnancy and the other at full-term, 9 months. Tutankhamun's death marked the end of the royal line of the 18th Dynasty.

Tutankhamun was between eight and nine years of age when he ascended the throne and became pharaoh, taking the throne name Nebkheperure. He reigned for about nine years. During Tutankhamun's reign the position of Vizier had been split between Upper and Lower Egypt. The principal vizier for Upper Egypt was Usermontu. Another figure named Pentju was also vizier but it is unclear of which lands. It is not entirely known if Ay, Tutankhamun's successor, actually held this position. A gold foil fragment from KV58 seems to indicate, but not certainly, that Ay was referred to as a Priest of Maat along with an epithet of "vizier, doer of maat." The epithet does not fit the usual description used by the regular vizier but might indicate an informal title. It might be that Ay used the title of vizier in an unprecedented manner. An Egyptian priest named Manetho wrote a comprehensive history of ancient Egypt where he refers to a king named Orus, who ruled for 36 years and had a daughter named Acencheres who reigned twelve years and her brother Rathotis who ruled for only nine years. The Amarna rulers are central in the list but which name corresponds with which historic figure is not agreed upon by researchers. Orus and Acencheres have been identified with Horemheb and Akhenaten and Rathotis with Tutankhamun. The names are also associated with Smenkhkare, Amenhotep III, Ay and the others in differing order. Kings were venerated after their deaths through mortuary cults and associated temples. Tutankhamun was one of the few kings worshiped in this manner during his lifetime. A stela discovered at Karnak and dedicated to Amun-Ra and Tutankhamun indicates that the king could be appealed to in his deified state for forgiveness and to free the petitioner from an ailment caused by sin. Temples of his cult were built as far away as in Kawa and Faras in Nubia. The title of the sister of the Viceroy of Kush included a reference to the deified king, indicative of the universality of his cult. In order for the pharaoh, who held divine office, to be linked to the people and the gods, special epithets were created for them at their accession to the throne. The ancient Egyptian titulary also served to demonstrate one's qualities and link them to the terrestrial realm. The five names were developed over the centuries beginning with the Horus name. Tutankhamun's original nomen, Tutankhaten, did not have a Nebty name or a Gold Falcon name associated with it as nothing has been found with the full five-name protocol. Tutankhaten was believed to mean "Living-image-of-Aten" as far back as 1877; however, not all Egyptologists agree with this interpretation. English Egyptologist Battiscombe Gunn believed that the older interpretation did not fit with Akhenaten's theology. Gunn believed that such an name would have been blasphemous. He saw tut as a verb and not a noun and gave his translation in 1926 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. Fecht translated the verb tut as "To be perfect/complete". 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.

Once crowned and after "taking counsel" with the god Amun, Tutankhamun made several endowments that enriched and added to the priestly numbers of the cults of Amun and Ptah. He commissioned new statues of the deities from the best metals and stone and had new processional barques made of the finest cedar from Lebanon and had them embellished with gold and silver. The priests and all of the attending dancers, singers and attendants had their positions restored and a decree of royal protection granted to insure their future stability. Tutankhamun's second year as pharaoh began the return to the old Egyptian order. Both he and his queen removed 'Aten' from their names, replacing it with Amun and moved the capital from Akhetaten to Thebes. He renounced the god Aten, relegating it to obscurity and returned Egyptian religion to its polytheistic form. His first act as a pharaoh was to remove his father's mummy from his tomb at Akhetaten and rebury it in the Valley of the Kings. This helped strengthen his reign. Tutankhamun rebuilt the stelae, shrines, and buildings at Karnak. He added works to Luxor as well as beginning the restoration of other temples throughout Egypt that were pillaged by Akhenaten.

The country was economically weak and in turmoil following the reign of Akhenaten. Diplomatic relations with other kingdoms had been neglected, and Tutankhamun sought to restore them, in particular with the Mitanni. Evidence of his success is suggested by the gifts from various countries found in his tomb. Despite his efforts for improved relations, battles with Nubians and Asiatics were recorded in his mortuary temple at Thebes. His tomb contained body armor, folding stools appropriate for military campaigns, and bows, and he was trained in archery. However, given his youth and physical disabilities, which seemed to require the use of a cane in order to walk, most historians speculate that he did not personally take part in these battles. Given his age, the king probably had advisers which presumably included Ay (who succeeded Tutankhamun) and General Horemheb, Ay's possible son in law and successor. Horemheb records that the king appointed him "lord of the land" as hereditary prince to maintain law. He also noted his ability to calm the young king when his temper flared. In his third regnal year Tutankhamun reversed several changes made during his father's reign. He ended the worship of the god Aten and restored the god Amun to supremacy. The ban on the cult of Amun was lifted and traditional privileges were restored to its priesthood. The capital was moved back to Thebes and the city of Akhetaten was abandoned. As part of his restoration, the king initiated building projects, in particular at Karnak in Thebes, where he laid out the sphinx avenue leading to the temple of Mut. The sphinxes were originally made for Akhenaten and Nefertiti; they were given new ram heads and small statues of the king. At Luxor temple he completed the decoration of the entrance colonnade of Amenhotep III. Monuments defaced under Akhenaten were restored, and new cult images of the god Amun were created. The traditional festivals were now celebrated again, including those related to the Apis Bull, Horemakhet, and Opet. His Restoration Stela erected in front of Karnak temple says: