The resting place of
Egypt’s pharaoh Tutankhamen has
become the world’s most famous tomb, its discovery 100 years ago among the
greatest archaeological finds of all time.
اضافة اعلان
Here are five key facts about the boy-king, his
treasure-filled chamber and its abundant, mysterious riches:
Hoard uncovered intact
The tomb of Tutankhamen, who
died aged 19 around 1324 BC after nine years on the throne, was discovered by
British archaeologist Howard Carter and his Egyptian digging team in the Valley
of the Kings near Luxor in November 1922.
The more than 4,500 objects laid out across five
rooms included thrones, statues, jewels, furniture, and weapons.
It is pharaonic Egypt’s only mausoleum found so far
with its burial artefacts intact.
Many other resting places of pharaohs and
dignitaries had been pillaged by tomb robbers down the centuries.
Golden treasures
Among the discovered
artefacts are a gilded bed featuring posts made of carved lion heads, a
chariot, and a gold-handled dagger that experts say was forged from the iron of
meteorites.
The walls of the chamber in which Tutankhamen was
laid to rest were covered in gold; his coffin is a three-piece sarcophagus, the
innermost 110kg of solid gold.
His funeral mask, now one of the most instantly
recognisable Egyptian artefacts, is made of gold inlaid with lapis lazuli and
with eyes of obsidian and quartz.
Enigmatic family tree
Tests have established that
Tutankhamen’s father was the pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled from the 1330s to
1350s BC.
Akhenaten was the husband of the legendary beauty
Queen Nefertiti.
Another mummy has been confirmed as Tutankhamen’s
mother, whose name is not known. That discovery ended the theory that
Tutankhamen was the son of Nefertiti.
The mother was a sister of Akhenaten, with genetic
analyses showing incest between the parents.
It was at the age of nine, towards 1333 BC, that
Tutankhamen is believed to have acceded to the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt,
although his exact age and dates vary from one expert to another.
Troubled reign, mysterious death
Tutankhamen’s reign coincided
with a troubled time in Egyptian history known as the
Amarna period, during
which Akhenaten tried to radically transform religion to focus on just one god,
Aton.
Tutankhamen is believed to have married his
half-sister Ankhesenpaaten, with marriage between brother and sister
commonplace in pharaonic Egypt.
He sired two children, both girls, but they died in
the womb, according to experts.
The death of Tutankhamen, which ended the 18th
dynasty under the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom, has been
a mystery.
It was blamed variously on a chariot accident,
illness, or murder.
‘Curse’ of King Tut
Several months after the
1922 discovery, Britain’s
Lord Carnarvon, who financed the research, was
diagnosed with infections and died.
His demise fueled speculation that the fabled
“curse of the pharaohs” had struck one of those responsible for violating the
tomb of “King Tut”.
British crime queen Agatha Christie based one of her short
stories, “The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb”, on King Tut’s “curse”.
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