Tutankhaten “the living image of Aten.” Came to the throne at the age of nine and ruled for ten years, Egypt had almost been brought to the brink of Disaster by his father Akhenaten, who had closed all the Temples down, and declared that the Egyptians must only worship one God, the Aten, he had taken the capital from Waset (luxor) and moved to the desert to create a new capital Akhetaten. After Akhenatens death Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun and returned to Waset, reinstating the Ancient Egyptian God Amun and the temples
Genetic testing in 2010 on Tutankhamun's mummy, showed that he was a frail young man when he died at the age of 19, the tests also verified that Tutankhamun was the grandson of the great pharaoh Amenhotep III, who created amongst other things the great festival hall in Luxor Temple.
Discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun there were 130 staffs and walking sticks, some of the sticks show clear signs of use. Some of Tutankhamun's walking sticks were symbolically carved with prisoners of Egypt's traditional African and Asiatic enemies. When the king grasped this cane, the captives were turned upside down and therefore became magically rendered harmless, and under the full subjugation of Tutankhamun. This beautiful walking stick is carved with a Nubian man, his face, hands and feet are made out of ebony and he is represented wearing a short curly hair wig and a pleated garment
CT scans have revealed that Tutankhamun's left foot was crippled with a bone necrosis which would have made walking painful and difficult. In Ancient Egypt Pharaohs married their sisters and daughters to keep the blood lines pure, but this in- breeding possibly contributed to Tutankhamun's poor health and early death. DNA tests published in 2010 revealed that Tutankhamun’s parents were brother and sister and that his wife, Ankhesenamun, the daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, was also his half sister. When Tutankhamun's tomb was cleared of it's treasures two tiny mummies, his daughters were found to have been stillborn. In 1932 an autopsy was carried out on the mummies, the first child still had a part of the umbilical cord attached, and was probably born four months premature, the second child also a daughter had been born two months premature.
Tutankhamun is the only King still inside his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, he is on display with a glass coffin lid. His Golden Mask and all his treasures are at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, his collection will eventually move to the new Grand Egyptian Museum in 2021.
Hi Lorraine,
ReplyDeleteLovely to see your blog posts continuing. I have to say, though, that all the Nubians whom I've met have had European features with jet black skin, whilst the captive depicted on Tut's stick s obviously proper (Sub-Saharan?) negro. Is that just my experience, or is the man on the stick wrongly identified?