King Tutankhamun

King Tutankhamun (1343-1325 B.C.)

King Tutankhamun lived over 3,300 years ago during a period known as the New Kingdom. This period of time was called the New Kingdom because it was when the pharaohs united upper and lower Egypt into one kingdom with the capital being Memphis near current day Cairo. The reason I chose to write a research paper on King Tut is because he is one of the most well known pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Tutankhamun is most well known only by the discovery of his intact tomb in 1922 by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon.

King Tut was born in 1343 B.C. into the 18th Dynasty. Early in his life Tutankaten meaning the "Living Image of the Aten" changed his name to the well-known Tutankamun meaning "Living Image of Amun". Tutankhamun began his education at the young age of four learning first to read then to write. He was probably often found himself playing the ancient board game of Senet. The young pharaoh was involved in many sports such as swimming, fishing, and hunting. His passion was in hunting waterfowl, hare, gazelle, ibex, antelope, and ostrich. By the time of his death he had acquired forty-six bows the largest of which measured six feet in length.

King Tutankamun became the pharaoh at the young age of nine years old. He ruled over a troubled country that was in chaos because previous dynasties had alienated their gods. The people loved and adored their young king. Since he was so young he had powerful and experienced advisers mainly Ay and Horemheb the commander-in-chief of the army. During King Tut's reign he and his powerful advisors propriatated the gods and restored the religion and traditional art styles of the early pharaohs as well as rebuild the temples of Amun. King Tut also moved the capitol to Memphis near modern-day Cairo.

Being the king of the most large and powerful empire in the ancient world also came with some perks. The dressing of Tutankhamun was a ritual event carried out in front of expert courtiers. Some items that were found in his tomb were sandals, necklaces, jewels, kilts, and some undershirts with embroidery around the collar area. Such simple garments would take up to 3,000 hours to hand craft by some estimates. The wearing of gloves by the Egyptians was very rare and reserved for the upper class. Tut had 27 pairs of gloves some of which bore stitching that wasn't reinvented until the 18th century. This amazed many modern glove makers that the Egyptians had such sophisticated stitching techniques.

The king's life though short had its fair amount of interaction with the ladies. Tutankhamun married Ankhesenamen, the third daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Ankhesenamen was about four years older than her husband and gained deep affection from the young pharaoh as she helped him transition from boyhood to kingship. When Tutankhamun died his grieving widow placed a wreath of cornflowers on his second coffin. The flowers only grew in the winter which signals that King Tut died in the pleasantly cool Egyptian winter.

Some time around the ninth year of Tut's reign possibly 1325 B.C. he died. There is evidence of an injury to his skull. One belief is that he led a raiding party into Nubia, which resulted in a fatal arrow wound by his left ear. Some other theories are that he had fallen of his horse-drawn chariot or that he was even murdered by his royal advisors. After the pharaoh's death the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army Horemheb assumed power by marrying Tutankhamun's mother. Then the 19th Dynasty rulers took over and labored hard to return Egypt to its former glory as a world power.

Over the centuries since the reign of the mighty Egyptian pharaohs grave robbers have decimated the tombs and pyramids of the Egyptian pharaohs robbing the priceless artifacts and jewels buried with the pharaohs as a testament of good will so that the pharaoh would look after them in the