King Tut
King Tut or Tutankhamen was an Egyptian Pharaoh. He lived from 1341 B.C. to 1323 B.C. and died at only the age of 19. Although King Tut lived for a short amount of time, even by ancient Egyptian’s standards, he still ruled for 10 years starting at the age of nine.
King Tut’s tomb was discovered completely intact by Howard Carter in 1922. It was only robbed once but nothing valuable was stolen besides some clothes, amulets, and some other small items. Even though Howard Carter was supposed to be an archeologist, it sadly turned out that he too was a robber and stole some items from the tomb. They haven’t been found yet even today.
The cause of King Tut’s death is unknown. Some people think that he was murdered and some people think that he died of a fractured leg bone. In 1968, a group of Egyptian scientists did an x-ray of King Tut’s mummy. They found a place in the back of his head that looked like it had been caused by a blow. Therefore they concluded that the King was murdered. Horemheb and Ay were both in line to be king of Egypt, so the scientists thought that one of them may have murdered King Tut.
Then, in 2005 another group of scientists x-rayed King Tut’s body. This time, they found nothing on the back of the head besides a hole in which the ancient Egyptians used during mummification. They also found a fracture in his leg. They found out that King Tut had died soon after the fracture took place, so they thought that he may have died from falling off a chariot.
King Tut did not rule for very long and didn’t do anything great as a pharaoh, yet he is the most famous pharaoh. The only real reason for this is that his tomb (not pyramid) was the only one found intact in the Valley of the Kings. Also, his tomb was made for a priest, so it isn’t even half as big as the average pharaoh got. The reason that King Tut had a tomb instead of a pyramid was because every single pyramid had gotten robbed after only 1000 years, so the Egyptians moved to underground in order to protect the valuable buried with each pharaoh or queen.
While we were in Egypt, we got to see King Tut’s tomb, mummy, sarcophagus, and much more. The tombs of all of the pharaohs were really amazing because the colors were still there. Some tombs looked almost newly painted. Ancient Egyptians especially King Tut are really interesting and I hope to learn even more about them sometime.