For centuries, the mysterious allure of ancient Egyptian culture has fascinated scholars and political elites around the globe. Tutankhamun, or King Tut, was a young pharaoh in Egypt more than 3,300 years ago. He is sometimes called the “Boy King” because he ascended to the throne at only 9 years old.
The golden mask of Tutankhamun
The Reign of Tutankhamun's Predecessors
The reign of Tutankhamun's grandfather Amenhotep III (around 1390-1352 BC) marked the peak of ancient Egypt's prosperity and reflected long-held traditions of kingship and religious belief. Amenhotep's reign was marked by a strong government and stable society, supported by enormous wealth from Egypt's empire - especially gold from Nubia.
This statue is a conventional representation of an Egyptian king, conveying his supreme status as head of state and of the religious hierarchy. In this granodiorite statue, Amenhotep III is shown wearing a nemes head-dress, which was in reality made from a piece of cloth.
Akhenaten, father of Tutankhamun
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King Akhenaten, the son of Amenhotep III, believed in only one god, the shining disc of the sun, which was called the Aten. He ordered the temples of Egypt's old gods, including Amun, to be closed. Akhenaten built a new city for himself (Akhetaten, now known as el-Amarna), where he and his wife Nefertiti worshipped the Aten. The formality of earlier Egyptian art was relaxed and the king was depicted in an unconventional style. Tutankhamun is usually thought to have been Akhenaten's son.
Akhenaten's drastic religious changes offended the establishment, and after his death he became a hated figure.
The Life and Death of Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun became king when he was around nine years old. His reign did not last long, as analysis of his mummy suggests that he was around 19 when he died. While his cause of death is unknown, it has been suggested it was the result of injuries, perhaps from a chariot accident, or from an infectious or congenital illness.
When the young king died unexpectedly, he was buried in the Valley of the Kings in what was probably not intended as a king's tomb. In this statue, Tutankhamun is represented in traditional style with a head-dress known as a nemes, a beard and a broad collar. He is shown making an offering to the traditional gods of Egypt - a sign that in his reign the old religion and royal imagery were restored.
His predecessor Akhenaten had revolutionised the religious and artistic traditions, introducing the worship of a single god: the sun disc Aten. Tutankhamun and his contemporaries quickly reversed the unpopular changes made by Akhenaten. However, as Tutankhamun was Akhenaten's son and had grown up under his authority, he was regarded as tainted by association.
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King Horemheb (who usurped Tutankhamun's statue) was not of royal birth. He was the commander of the Egyptian army during Tutankhamun's reign and held the unusual title 'King's Deputy'. Such a powerful official was in a position to control events. When Tutankhamun died childless, Ay and Horemheb seized the throne in succession.
Due to his short reign, Tutankhamun didn't have a great impact on society during his lifetime. But this didn't prevent him from becoming one of the most well-known ancient Egyptian kings, a poster boy for pharaonic times.
Soon after the discovery of his tomb in 1922, his image started to be reproduced in many contexts. He was the first pharaoh to appear on Egyptian currency, with the reproduction of one of his statues on banknotes first issued in 1930.
This inscription was set up by Ramesses II in a temple at Abydos about fifty years after Tutankhamun's death. It originally recorded the names of earlier kings of Egypt, whom Ramesses regarded as 'legitimate' predecessors whose memory deserved honour. Amenhotep III is named there, but the list omits the next four rulers - including Tutankhamun - and jumps straight to Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the dynasty.
The Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb
Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in November 1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter and a team of local Egyptians, including four foremen: Ahmed Gerigar, Gad Hassan, Hussein Abu Awad and Hussein Ahmed. The discovery was an important archaeological event. Tutankhamun's tomb is the only pharaoh's tomb dating from Egypt's New Kingdom (around 1550-1069 BC) to have been found substantially intact.
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The discovery was a sensation that created huge interest in Egyptology and the story of the boy king. The burial site was situated in the Valley of the Kings, located on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes.
How did Howard Carter Locate Tutankhamun's Tomb?
Global Exhibitions of Tutankhamun's Treasures
The artifacts had sparked widespread interest in ancient Egypt when they were discovered between 1922 and 1927, but most of them remained in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo until the 1960s, when they were first exhibited outside of Egypt. Because of these exhibitions, relics from the tomb of Tutankhamun are among the most travelled artifacts in the world.
All of the artifacts exhumed from the Tutankhamun tomb are, by international convention, considered property of the Egyptian government. Consequently, these pieces are normally kept at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo; the only way for them to be shown internationally is by approval of Egyptian authorities.
Key Exhibitions
- Tutankhamun Treasures (1961-1966)
- The Treasures of Tutankhamun (1972)
- Tutankhamen: The Golden Hereafter (2004)
- Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs (2005)
- Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs (2008)
The first travelling exhibition of a substantial number of Tutankhamun artifacts took place from 1961 to 1966. The exhibition, titled Tutankhamun Treasures, initially featured 34 smaller pieces made of gold, alabaster, glass, and similar materials.
From 1965 to 1966 an enlarged version of the 1961-1965 North America tour took place in Japan. It was first shown in London at the British Museum in 1972. After a year of negotiations between Egypt and the United Kingdom, an agreement was signed in July 1971. Altogether, 50 pieces were chosen by the directors of the British Museum and the Cairo Museum to be shown at the exhibition, including 17 never before displayed outside Egypt. For insurance purposes, the items were valued at £9.06 million.
In January 1972, they were transported to London on two civilian flights and one by the Royal Air Force, carrying, among other objects, the gold death mask. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the exhibition on March 29, 1972. More than 30,000 people visited in its first week. By September, 800,000 had been to the exhibition, and its duration was extended by three months because of the popularity. When it did close on December 31, 1972, 1.6 million visitors had passed through the exhibition doors.
During the years 1976 to 1979 the exhibition was shown in the United States.
The Metropolitan's exhibition was designed to recreate for visitors the drama of the 1922 discovery of the treasure-filled tomb. While the exhibition was on display in San Francisco, Police Lieutenant George E. LaBrash suffered a minor stroke as he guarded the treasures after hours.
Originally entitled Tutankhamen: The Golden Hereafter, this exhibition is made up of fifty artifacts from Tutankhamun's tomb as well as seventy examples of funerary goods from other 18th Dynasty tombs. The tour of the exhibition began in 2004 in Basel, Switzerland and went to Bonn, Germany on the second leg. The European tour was organized by the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), and the Egyptian Museum in cooperation with the Antikenmuseum Basel and Sammlung Ludwig.
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs consists of the same items from the Germany and Switzerland tour but in a slightly different exhibition. Of the 50 artifacts from the Tutankhamun tomb fewer than ten were repeated from the 1970s exhibition.Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs displays actual items excavated from tombs of ancient Egyptian Pharaohs.
From 130 authentic artifacts presented, 50 were found specifically during the excavations of Tutankhamun's tomb. The exhibition includes 80 exhibits from the reigns of Tutankhamun's immediate predecessors in the Eighteenth dynasty, such as Hatshepsut, whose trade policies greatly increased the wealth of that dynasty and enabled the lavish wealth of Tutankhamun's burial artifacts.
Other items were taken from other royal graves of the 18th Dynasty (dating 1555 BCE to 1305 BCE) spanning Pharaohs Amenhotep II, Amenhotep III and Thutmose IV, among others. Items from the largely intact tomb of Yuya and Tjuyu (King Tut's great-grandparents; the parents of Tiye who was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III) are also included. Yuya and Tjuyu's tomb was one of the most celebrated historical finds in the Valley of the Kings until Howard Carter's discovery in 1922.
This exhibition does not include either the gold death mask that was a popular exhibit from The Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition, or the mummy itself. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs was expected to draw more than three million people.
The exhibition started in Los Angeles, California, then moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Chicago and Philadelphia. The exhibition then moved to London before finally returning to Egypt in August 2008.
This exhibition, featuring completely different artifacts from those in Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, first ran at the Ethnological Museum in Vienna, from 9 March to 28 September 2008, under the title Tutankhamun and the World of the Pharaohs.
This exhibition from IMG Exhibitions featured over 150 authentic tomb objects, with many appearing outside of Egypt for the first and last time. It ran from March 2018 to May 2020, touring North America, France and the United Kingdom. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibition in London closed early on March 20, 2020, and the artifacts were returned to Egypt on August 28 of that year instead of continuing on to Boston and Sydney.
Several exhibitions have been established which feature replicas of Tutankhamun artifacts, rather than real artifacts from archaeological sites. These provide access to pieces of comparable appearance to viewers living in places where the real artifacts have not circulated.
The first replica exhibition, a copy of the entire tomb of Tutankhamun, was built only a few years after the discovery of the tomb. The Tutankhamun Exhibition in Dorchester, Dorset, England, is a permanent exhibition set up in 1986 by Michael Ridley as a re-creation of the tomb of the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
The exhibition does not display any of the actual treasures of Tutankhamun, but all artifacts are recreated to be exact facsimiles of the actual items. Original materials have been used where possible, including gold. The storyline is based around the famous English archaeologist Howard Carter. A life-size model of Tutankhamun's mummy is displayed.
The Treasure Hall shows recreations of statues and jewels found within the tomb of Tutankhamun. The Discovering Tutankhamun exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, was a temporary exhibition, open from July until November 2014, exploring Howard Carter's excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.
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