TUTANKHAMUN & ANAKSENAMUN

Night had closed in over the West Bank and the villagers slept, unaware that a very important event was about to take place. Using the stealth of the moonlight a large white truck drove through the hills and winding lanes of the Ancient Theban necropolis , it was escorted by the police and armed guards,as it took a long sweeping bend three unusual houses neatly spaced with domed roofs came into view,the truck passed beneath them as the moonlight glowed on the white walls of the house Howard Carter had used when working in The Valley of the Kings, it held ghosts from the past and memories of the presence of a determined yet stubborn man who had made a fantastic discovery. The truck entered Bilban el Muluk, the gateway of the Kings and passed through the winding avenue between its mountain walls, echoes reverberated round the bends and bounced off the high ridges and the ancient Madjay the bodyguards of the Kings of Egypt awoke from their slumber their ghostly army surrounded the edges of the Quorn watching silently as the truck arrived at its final destination, Taa Set Aat. The gates were locked and the Valley was now sealed, whilst armed guards patrolled the compound under floodlight.

This special night was the most important event since Lord Carnarvon had impatiently stood waiting behind Howard Carter in November 1921 whilst he broke a hole through in the sealed door of a tomb and passed a candle through the hole. ‘Can you see anything?’ said Lord Carnarvon anxiously. Carter had been struck almost dumb as hot air escaped from the room within causing his candle to flicker, strange statues and animals appeared from the gloom within, and the glint of gold was everywhere. It was all Carter could do to express the words ‘yes, Wonderful things!’

With the patronage of Lord Carnarvon and Carters determination they had made the most outstanding discovery that the entire world was privileged to be part of, they had found the tomb of Tutankhamun, a child that had come to the throne of Egypt at the age of nine years old. It is considered that he was the son or a nephew of the heretic king Akenaten and he had grown up in the now abandoned and destroyed exclusive world that Akenaten had created for himself in the desert 150 miles from Weset  (Luxor), this exclusive haven and retreat  was created by Akenaten so that he no longer felt the pressure from the priests of Amun, and he was able to live in his own world writing  his own chapter and opinion, eradicating any  visible signs of the old gods from his sight that his people had believed in for thousands of years, he wanted  them  to adore only one god, the Aten.
At the age of 11 Tutankhaten  married Ankensenpaaten  who was thirteen, she was one of the beloved daughters of Akenaten and his beautiful wife that he shared his dreams and throne with, Nefertiti. Before Akhenaton died he made Smenkare co-regent and after the death of Akenaten Smenkare ruled Egypt for about a year, many mysteries surround Smenkare, some consider that he could have been another minor son of Akenaten, others suggest that Smenkare was infact Nefertiti herself, or that he was the husband of Meritaten a daughter of Akenaten and Nefertiti, it is another  mystery that is yet to be unravelled, after the disappearance of Smenkare, Tutankhaten and his child bride Ankhesenpaaten  arrived back in Weset, and under the firm grip of Ay his chief advisor and General Horemheb they began to repair the damage that had been done to Ancient Egypt’s religion, it’s people and The City of Amun. Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun and ruled Egypt for a decade, his wife Ankhesenpaaten became known as Anaksenamun. Tutankhamun was the 12th king of the 18th Dynasty, until the age of 19 when he died suddenly. Anaksenamun had lost her childhood friend, her husband and two small children whose foetuses were also found in the tomb in tiny coffins. She was alone and just turned twenty one years old.

Tutankhamun's chief Advisor Ay could now see a way that he would be able to rule Egypt legitimately, he would marry Anaksenamun. In despair at the thought of having to marry this forceful old man Anaksenamun wrote to the Hittite king Suppliluliumas requesting that he send one of his sons urgently for her to marry.  The request was extremely unusual and Suppliluliumas decided to send an envoy to confirm the request, once he was satisfied he sent one of his sons the Prince Zennanza, The prince never arrived; he was murdered as he crossed the Egyptian border, possibly with the instructions of General Horemheb and so the Chief Advisor Ay seized the throne, and as was the custom when a king died, he administered the ‘Opening of the mouth ceremony’. The scene is detailed on the wall in the tomb overlooking the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun. Anaksenamun was forced into marriage with Ay and then she also disappeared from known records.

In 1968 x-rays were taken of Tutankhamun by Professor Ronald Harrison who noticed a blood clot at the base of Tutankhamun's skull and suggested that this could have been caused by a blow to the head,   this fuelled the suspicion that Ay had murdered the king to seize control of his throne, as Tutankhamun was probably reaching the age where he wanted an active part in the decisions of his country and was contesting some of the decisions of his Chief advisor and so the theory of murder and a suspect was born that hung over the mysterious death of Tutankhamun

The secret arrival of the special convoy in January 2005, thousands of years after Tutankhamun's death would finally offer conclusive proof as to how Tutankhamun had actually died, for the truck that had driven 500 miles from Cairo concealed the most up to date medical equipment, it incorporated a Cat Scan, a machine that generates 3D images piercing through body and bone. Dr. Zahi Hawass, the renowned Egyptian Secretary General for the supreme council of Antiquities reminded everyone present inside the tomb, ‘We are in the presence of a King, and we should look at him with respect.’

The glass covering was removed from the sarcophagus and they struggled to remove the lid from the wooden Cyprus coffin inside that had been adorned with a sheet of finely worked gold. This was only the second time that Tutankhamun had ever left his coffin since the day of his burial. Finally the lid was removed and the face of Tutankhamun was revealed. Inside the coffin was a message that had been written by Howard Carter in 1926. The cotton shroud covering the body of the king was pulled back and to their shock the body of Tutankhamun was in pieces, his chest was torn and ripped, the body parts had been hacked at and mangled and some pieces were missing. Howard Carter had been meticulous in his documentation notes and drawings from within the tomb, but I feel his team had forgotten their duties as archaeologists, and put aside their knowledge of the Ancient Egyptian beliefs in their greed to extract the precious amulets encased within the resin and wrappings of Tutankhamun during the mummification process. They had committed a sacrilegious act to this young King and if the curse was true then that is why it had been unleashed on them. They should have taken the ‘magic bricks’ seriously that were inscribed with chapter 151 of the Book of the Dead and  placed  in niches within the tomb at the four cardinal points of the earth to form a defensive perimeter around Tutankhamun.

Eighty-four years later with respect and care, Dr. Hawass and his team carefully lifted the remains of Tutankhamun from his sarcophagus and they carried the king  from the burial chamber through the antechamber and corridor and up the to enter the doors of the waiting truck supplied by Siemens,  at last they could scan the body and they would have an explanation for the premature death of their young king, the body slowly passed through into the Scanner  and  expectations mounted with the pressure and  knowledge that the results of this scan would offer them, suddenly strange flashes of light burst  onto the computer , this had never happened before on a scan, alarms sounded, and the computer crashed and shut down with the first images that had already begun to generate of the king, this was a disaster, the pressure was on Dr. Hawass to resolve these problems, he had been given special orders that Tutankhamun must be returned to the tomb within three hours , and  there was only   one hour left,  the technicians resolved the problems and once more the images appeared on screen, the data was saved and transferred to Germany and Cairo for specialist assessment. Satisfied that his mission was achieved Dr. Hawass returned Tutankhamun to the safety of his  sarcophagus once more, and like Howard Carter he also left a note with the body before the lid was replaced on his coffin.

The momentous night had drawn to a conclusion and it was almost dawn as silence came to The Great Place once more. The spirits of the Madjay watched the truck and convoy of specialists leave the valley and slowly one by one they returned to their slumbers safe in the knowledge that Tutankhamun their king, was at peace once more.
In Cairo the results of the scan were examined by a team of specialists who realized that the original x-rays taken in 1968 which had initiated the theory that Tutankhamun had possibly been murdered due to a blow to the head, was infact a small hole that had been drilled during the embalming process, and a suspicious dark area around the hole was resin that had been poured inside the skull after the brains had been removed during the embalming process. So Pharaoh Ay whose name has been besmirched has at last been vindicated from the unjust position  as a murder suspect of the boy king whose  throne it was assumed he wanted to acquire by any means.
The cat  scan had been adjusted to read dead tissue on a body and it established that after his death Tutankhamuns head had been severed from his body, Carters team had been determined to remove the famous solid gold portrait mask from Tutankhamuns face, this mask  had been a guide to help his soul return to his body after death, the chest had broken ribs and cuts to the bones at sharp angles,  these had been sustained whilst cutting with a knife through the hardened resin to extract the precious amulets within the mummification wrappings.

The left leg had a severe break and skin was torn away, the knee cap was missing,   and the ankle was fractured and had a suspicious substance in the wounds; the right knee cap was also fractured. These injuries had occurred whilst Tutankhamun was alive, the team realized that the severity of these wounds would have caused gangrene and fever to take hold of the young king’s body and within five days his struggle for life would have ended.  To enable him to walk again in the afterlife the embalmers had placed golden healing rings over his knees and shins.  Tutankhamun like many pharaohs before him had loved the thrill of the hunt and had been trained to ride fearlessly into battle on his chariot; the Cat scan has established that the fatal injuries to his legs whilst he was alive could have been caused by a fatal fall from his chariot or  wounds received in a battle, these were the consequences that stripped Tutankhamun of his life whilst he had been so healthy and young.


The treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun are housed within the Museum at Cairo,  on occasions selected items along with the famous gold funery mask travel the world to different museums for exhibitions that allows the world to view and experience this young king and part of an amazing civilization.One of the six chariots that were removed from Tutankhamun's tomb now sits in a quiet corner of Luxor Museum, and as I stand and look at it, I do not see an empty chariot, I see a royal king, his whip circling the air, as the nostrils of his chariot horses flair their manes flying wildly in the breeze, the chariot is not what it seems, it is part of eternity, riding across the cosmos with Tutankhamun.