KING TUTANKHAMUN

KING TUTANKHAMUN

1. In 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter uncovered Tutankhamun's tomb. It lay untouched for over three thousand years.

   • It was the best preserved pharaoh's tomb ever to be discovered
     • The artifacts inside sparked new curiosity about King Tut

2. He was born as Tutankhaten more than three thousand years ago, about 1341 BC, the son of the pharaoh Akhenaten.

   • Akhenaten made many changes to the religion of ancient Egypt.
     • Switching from worshiping many gods to worshiping only Aten, the sun.
     • Moving the capital city from Thebes to a new city, Amarna, which he built.

3. Because of Akhenaten died very young. Tut became the pharaoh at the age of nine.

   • Tut reversed all of his father's changes (even changed his name to Tutankhamun to show that he was ending the time when Aten was worshiped as the one god)
   • So Tut married his half-sister, Ankhesenamun and they had two daughters, but both of them died before they could even be born.
     • For a mistery cause, Tutankhamun died when he was only about 19 years old. it was unexpected for a pharaoh to die so young, and his tomb was probably not complete. was mummified and buried in a sarcophagus holding three nested coffins.
       • His sarcophagus was surrounded by four elaborate shrines, and his tomb was filled from top to bottom with thousands and thousands of items and artifacts that the Egyptians believed King Tut would need for his journey to the afterlife.

4. In November of 1922, Carter and his team discovered the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

   • When the tomb was opened, more than 5,000 items were found.
     • Each one of them needed to be removed, cataloged, described, photographed, and shipped to the Cairo museum, a process that took ten years.
       • The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun made news headlines worldwide,
       • the artifacts that were inside it have traveled to museums around the globe to be seen by millions of people.