B
146-529: Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen ( Ancient Egyptian : twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn ; c. 1341 BC – c. 1323 BC ), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who ruled c. 1332 – 1323 BC during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt . Born Tutankhaten , he was likely a son of Akhenaten , thought to be the KV55 mummy . His mother was identified through DNA testing as The Younger Lady buried in KV35 ; she
292-484: A Nebty name or a Gold Falcon name associated with it as nothing has been found with the full five-name protocol. At the beginning of Tutankhaten's reign, the royal court was still located at Amarna, and evidence from his tomb shows that the Aten was still acknowledged. But several pieces of evidence suggest that his court was trying to reconcile Atenism with the traditional religion, and activity at Amarna decreased during
438-773: A literary language , and was also the language of the New Kingdom administration. Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and later. Late Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secular literature , comprising such examples as the Story of Wenamun , the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I papyrus, and the Instruction of Any . Instructions became
584-422: A lotus chalice , two Imiut fetishes , gold toe stalls , furniture, food, wine, sandals, and fresh linen underwear. Howard Carter took 10 years to catalog the items. Recent analysis suggests a dagger recovered from the tomb had an iron blade made from a meteorite ; study of artifacts of the time including other artifacts from Tutankhamun's tomb could provide valuable insights into metalworking technologies around
730-576: A synthetic language , Egyptian by the Late Egyptian phase had become an analytic language . The relationship between Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian has been described as being similar to that between Latin and Italian. The Late Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 8th century BC, giving rise to Demotic. Demotic is a later development of the Egyptian language written in the Demotic script , following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic ,
876-572: A 'whm amulet', before the tomb was officially opened. Rex Engelbach said in a letter to Gardiner about a 'whm amulet' gifted to Gardiner from Carter that "The whm amulet you showed me has been undoubtedly stolen from the tomb of Tutankhamun." Tutankhamun's tomb is the only royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings found in near-intact condition. There were 5,398 items found in the tomb, including a solid gold coffin, face mask , thrones, archery bows, trumpets ,
1022-440: A bid to explain the religiosity of his great-grandfather Thutmose IV and father Akhenaten and their early deaths. However, caution has been urged in this diagnosis. In January 2005 Tutankhamun's mummy was CT scanned . The results showed that the young king had a partially cleft hard palate and possibly a mild case of scoliosis . Additionally, he was diagnosed with a flat right foot with hypophalangism , while his left foot
1168-486: A blow to the head was theorised as a result of the 1968 x-ray which showed two bone fragments inside the skull. This theory was disproved by further analysis of the x-rays and the CT scan. The inter-cranial bone fragments were determined to be the result of the modern unwrapping of the mummy as they are loose and not adherent to the embalming resin. No evidence of bone thinning or calcified membranes, which could be indicative of
1314-430: A building called Temple-of-Nebkheperre-in-Thebes, a possible mortuary temple, used recycled talatat from Akhenaten's east Karnak Aten temples indicating that the dismantling of these temples was already underway. Many of Tutankhamun's construction projects were uncompleted at the time of his death and were completed by or usurped by his successors, especially Horemheb. The sphinx avenue was completed by his successor Ay and
1460-413: A capital city and religious center was relatively short lived compared to the 18th Dynasty or New Kingdom as a whole as it was shortly abandoned after the death of Akhenaten. Inscriptions found on boundary stela accredited to Akhenaten discuss his desire to make the city a place of worship to Aten, dedicating the city to the god and emphasizing the royal residences' efforts in worship. Major principles of
1606-479: A curved surface, therefore, the late scholar Hugh Nibley insisted that a more correct translation would be globe, orb or sphere, rather than disk. The Aten was the disc of the sun and originally an aspect of Ra , the sun god in traditional ancient Egyptian religion. While the Aten was worshiped under the reign of Amenhotep III , it was made the sole deity to receive state and official cult worship under his successor Akhenaten, though archaeological evidence suggests
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#17327660273041752-412: A daughter named Acencheres who reigned twelve years and her brother Rathotis who ruled for only nine years. The Amarna rulers are central in the list but which name corresponds with which historic figure is not agreed upon by researchers. Orus and Acencheres have been identified with Horemheb and Akhenaten and Rathotis with Tutankhamun. The names are also associated with Smenkhkare , Amenhotep III , Ay and
1898-411: A fatal blow to the head, were found. It has also been suggested that the young king was killed in a chariot accident due to a pattern of crushing injuries, including the fact that the front part of his chest wall and ribs are missing. However, the missing ribs are unlikely to be a result of an injury sustained at the time of death; photographs taken at the conclusion of Carter's excavation in 1926 show that
2044-558: A few have survived that were written in hieratic and (later) demotic. There was also a form of cursive hieroglyphs , used for religious documents on papyrus, such as the Book of the Dead of the Twentieth Dynasty ; it was simpler to write than the hieroglyphs in stone inscriptions, but it was not as cursive as hieratic and lacked the wide use of ligatures . Additionally, there was a variety of stone-cut hieratic, known as "lapidary hieratic". In
2190-495: A few specialists in the language. For all other purposes, the Egyptological pronunciation is used, but it often bears little resemblance to what is known of how Egyptian was pronounced. The following consonants are reconstructed for Archaic (before 2600 BC) and Old Egyptian (2686–2181 BC), with IPA equivalents in square brackets if they differ from the usual transcription scheme: / l / has no independent representation in
2336-429: A fragmentary inscription from Hermopolis refers to "Tutankhuaten" as a "king's son". He is generally thought to have been the son of Akhenaten or his successor Smenkhkare . Inscriptions from Tutankhamun's reign treat him as a son of Akhenaten's father, Amenhotep III , but that is only possible if Akhenaten's 17-year reign included a long co-regency with his father, a possibility that many Egyptologists once supported but
2482-402: A journal review. He noted that "Tutankhamun's face" was depicted as "very light-skinned," reflecting a "bias" among media outlets. Smith further added that "Egyptologists have been strangely reluctant to admit that the ancient Egyptians were rather dark-skinned Africans, especially the farther south one goes". There are no surviving records of the circumstances of Tutankhamun's death; it has been
2628-462: A nominal feminine suffix * -at , a nominal prefix m- , an adjectival suffix -ī and characteristic personal verbal affixes. Of the other Afroasiatic branches, linguists have variously suggested that the Egyptian language shares its greatest affinities with Berber and Semitic languages, particularly Arabic (which is spoken in Egypt today) and Hebrew . However, other scholars have argued that
2774-493: A novelty song " King Tut ". Originally performed on Saturday Night Live , the song was released as a single and sold over a million copies. In 2023, an extinct whale discovered in the Eocene deposits of Egypt was named Tutcetus , after Tutankhamun, due to the small size and immature age of the type specimen. Ancient Egyptian language The Egyptian language , or Ancient Egyptian ( r n kmt ; "speech of Egypt")
2920-436: A pantheon of ancient Egyptian gods under Amenhotep III, it was not until his successor that Aten would be the only god acknowledged via state worship. During the reign of Amenhotep III's successor, Amenhotep IV, the Aten became the sole god of the Egyptian state religion, and Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten to reflect his close link with the supreme deity. The sole worship of Aten can be referred to as Atenism. Many of
3066-442: A popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior. Late Egyptian was also the language of New Kingdom administration. Late Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many "classicisms" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase. However, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the difference between Middle and Old Egyptian. Originally
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#17327660273043212-438: A popular symbol. Some of his treasure has traveled worldwide, with unprecedented response; the Egyptian government allowed tours of the tomb beginning in 1961. The deaths of some individuals who were involved in the excavation have been popularly attributed to the " curse of the pharaohs " due to the similarity of their circumstances. Since the discovery of his tomb, he has been referred to colloquially as " King Tut ". Tutankhamun
3358-607: A possible clubfoot, which may have rendered him dependent on assistive canes. This theory is disputed, as neither the canes nor his sandals show the kinds of the wear expected. He also had other health issues, including scoliosis , and had contracted several strains of malaria . He likely died of complications from a broken leg, possibly compounded by malaria. Tutankhamun was slight of build, and roughly 167 cm (5 ft 6 in) tall. CT investigations of Tutankhamun's skull revealed an excellent condition of his dentition. He had large front incisors and an overbite characteristic of
3504-562: A predicament involving the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I and his son, prince Zannanza , known as the Zannanza affair . Meanwhile, Tutankhamun's vizier maneuvered in the midst of Tutankhamun's death to intercept the throne, circumventing Horemheb's rightful heirship, marrying Ankhesenamun towards the onset of this Hittite-Egyptian negotiation period, unbeknownst to Hittites. The fact that Ay is depicted presiding over Tutankhamun's funeral, which
3650-409: A prophet of the Aten, and during his reign was one of the main propagators of Atenism in Egypt. After the death of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun reinstated the cult of Amun, and the ban on the state worship of non-Atenism deities was lifted in favor of a return to the traditional ancient Egyptian pantheon. The point of this transition can be seen in the name-change of Tutankh aten into Tutankh amun indicating
3796-614: A reference to the deified king, indicative of the universality of his cult. The country was economically weak and in turmoil following the reign of Akhenaten. Diplomatic relations with other kingdoms had been neglected, and Tutankhamun sought to restore them, in particular with the Mitanni . Evidence of his success is suggested by the gifts from various countries found in his tomb. Despite his efforts for improved relations, battles with Nubians and Asiatics were recorded in his mortuary temple at Thebes, both victories for Egypt. Also, as far as
3942-401: A royal titulary enclosed in a double cartouche . Some have interpreted this to mean that Akhenaten was the embodiment of Aten, and the worship of Aten is directly worship of Akhenaten; but others have taken this as an indicator of Aten as the supreme ruler even over the current reigning royalty. There were two forms of the title; the first had the names of other gods, and the second later one
4088-444: A scribe jokes that his colleague's writing is incoherent like "the speech of a Delta man with a man of Elephantine ." Recently, some evidence of internal dialects has been found in pairs of similar words in Egyptian that, based on similarities with later dialects of Coptic, may be derived from northern and southern dialects of Egyptian. Written Coptic has five major dialects, which differ mainly in graphic conventions, most notably
4234-503: A stressed vowel (⟨ bjn ⟩ = */ˈbaːjin/ 'bad') and as ⟨ jj ⟩ word-medially immediately before a stressed vowel ( ⟨ḫꜥjjk⟩ = */χaʕˈjak/ 'you will appear') and are unmarked word-finally (⟨ jt ⟩ = /ˈjaːtVj/ 'father'). In Middle Egyptian (2055–1650 BC), a number of consonantal shifts take place. By the beginning of the Middle Kingdom period, / z / and / s / had merged, and
4380-510: A stressed vowel in syllables that had been closed in earlier Egyptian (compare ⲛⲟⲩⲃ < */ˈnaːbaw/ 'gold' and ⲧⲁⲡ < * /dib/ 'horn'). The phonemes /d g z/ occur only in Greek loanwords, with rare exceptions triggered by a nearby /n/ : ⲁⲛⲍⲏⲃⲉ/ⲁⲛⲥⲏⲃⲉ < ꜥ.t n.t sbꜣ.w 'school'. Earlier *d ḏ g q are preserved as ejective t' c' k' k ' before vowels in Coptic. Although
4526-478: A time of disaster, saying "temples and the estates of the gods and goddesses from Elephantine to the marshes of the Delta had fallen into ruin… If you asked a god for advice, he would not attend; and if one spoke to a goddess likewise she would not attend." The stela proclaims the rebuilding of the traditional cults; priests and other members of temple staffs were restored to their former positions. Around this time,
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4672-644: A transliteration of the corresponding Demotic "alphabetical" sign(s) in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ . More changes occur in the 1st millennium BC and the first centuries AD, leading to Coptic (1st or 3rd – c. 19th centuries AD). In Sahidic ẖ ḫ ḥ had merged into ϣ š (most often from ḫ ) and ϩ / h / (most often ẖ ḥ ). Bohairic and Akhmimic are more conservative and have a velar fricative / x / ( ϧ in Bohairic, ⳉ in Akhmimic). Pharyngeal *ꜥ had merged into glottal / ʔ / after it had affected
4818-465: A uniliteral hieroglyph. Egyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar noted that the inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from "fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African", reflecting the local wildlife of North Africa, the Levant and southern Mediterranean. In "regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence [North] African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects
4964-582: A warmer climate so in 1903 the Carnarvons traveled to Egypt where the Earl became interested in Egyptology. Along with the stresses of the excavation, Carnarvon was already in a weakened state when an infection led to pneumonia. A study showed that of the 58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years; Howard Carter died of lymphoma in 1939 at
5110-598: Is also the longest-attested human language, with a written record spanning over 4,000 years. Its classical form, known as " Middle Egyptian ," served as the vernacular of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and remained the literary language of Egypt until the Roman period . By the time of classical antiquity , the spoken language had evolved into Demotic , and by the Roman era , diversified into various Coptic dialects . These were eventually supplanted by Arabic after
5256-487: Is an extinct branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages that was spoken in ancient Egypt . It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts, which were made accessible to the modern world following the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian scripts in the early 19th century. Egyptian is one of the earliest known written languages , first recorded in the hieroglyphic script in the late 4th millennium BC . It
5402-409: Is currently the oldest known genetic proof of the ailment. The team discovered DNA from several strains of the parasite, indicating that he was repeatedly infected with the most severe strain of malaria. His malaria infections may have caused a fatal immune response in the body or triggered circulatory shock . The CT scan also showed that he had experienced a compound left leg fracture. This injury being
5548-421: Is customary for the successor pharaoh, and the fact that Horemheb appears to have been absent at Tutankhamun's funeral aligns with this. The pharaoh Ay's reign was abruptly short and his death again left a vacancy in the throne with no royal bloodline heir because Ay did not have children with queen Ankhesenamun. Toward the end of Ay's reign, Ay named his son, military generalissimo Nakhtmin , to be successor to
5694-474: Is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, including a finite verb , which has been found. Discovered in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen (dated c. 2690 BC ), the seal impression reads: Extensive texts appear from about 2600 BC. An early example is the Diary of Merer . The Pyramid Texts are the largest body of literature written in this phase of the language. One of its distinguishing characteristics
5840-464: Is depicted as a solar disc emitting rays terminating in human hands. The word Aten appears in the Old Kingdom as a noun meaning "disc" which referred to anything flat and circular; the sun was called the "disc of the day" where Ra was thought to reside. By analogy, the term "silver aten" was sometimes used to refer to the moon. High relief and low relief illustrations of the Aten show it with
5986-554: Is known, Tutankhamun's military reign was undefeated, and is one of several other undefeated reigns in ancient Egypt's history. The extent to which Tutankhamun participated in battles is an open question and has yet to reach consensus among researchers. On one hand, his tomb contained extensive military armament, such as bows, khopesh swords , daggers, wristguards, maces, shields and a club, suggesting he had extensive weaponry training. Some imagery, while likely figurative, does depict Tutankhamun as directly participatory in warfare, such as
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6132-452: Is not a contrastive feature; all obstruents are voiceless and all sonorants are voiced. Stops may be either aspirated or tenuis (unaspirated), although there is evidence that aspirates merged with their tenuis counterparts in certain environments. The following table presents the consonants of Demotic Egyptian. The reconstructed value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, followed by
6278-549: Is now being abandoned. His mother has been variously suggested to be Akhenaten's chief wife Nefertiti , or Akhenaten's daughters Meritaten or Meketaten . Tutankhamun was wet nursed by a woman named Maia , known from her tomb at Saqqara. DNA testing identified his father as the mummy from tomb KV55 , thought to be Akhenaten , and his mother as " The Younger Lady ", an anonymous mummy cached in tomb KV35 . His parents were full siblings, both being children of Amenhotep III and his chief wife Tiye . The identity of The Younger Lady
6424-471: Is readily apparent in the Great Hymn to the Aten in which Re-Herakhty, Shu , and Aten are merged into the creator god. Others see Akhenaten as a practitioner of an Aten monolatry , as he did not actively deny the existence of other gods; he simply refrained from worshipping any but the Aten. Other scholars call the religion henotheistic . As pharaoh, Akhenaten was considered the 'high priest' or even
6570-399: Is sometimes reserved for the earliest use of hieroglyphs, from the late fourth through the early third millennia BC. At the earliest stage, around 3300 BC, hieroglyphs were not a fully developed writing system , being at a transitional stage of proto-writing ; over the time leading up to the 27th century BC, grammatical features such as nisba formation can be seen to occur. Old Egyptian
6716-424: Is the best-documented variety of the language, and has attracted the most attention by far from Egyptology . While most Middle Egyptian is seen written on monuments by hieroglyphs, it was also written using a cursive variant , and the related hieratic . Middle Egyptian first became available to modern scholarship with the decipherment of hieroglyphs in the early 19th century. The first grammar of Middle Egyptian
6862-406: Is the tripling of ideograms , phonograms, and determinatives to indicate the plural. Overall, it does not differ significantly from Middle Egyptian, the classical stage of the language, though it is based on a different dialect. In the period of the 3rd dynasty ( c. 2650 – c. 2575 BC ), many of the principles of hieroglyphic writing were regularized. From that time on, until
7008-501: Is unknown but she cannot be Nefertiti, as she was not known to be a sister of Akhenaten. However, researchers such as Marc Gabolde and Aidan Dodson claim that Nefertiti was indeed Tutankhamun's mother. In this interpretation of the DNA results, the genetic closeness is not due to a brother-sister pairing but the result of three generations of first-cousin marriage , making Nefertiti a first cousin of Akhenaten. The validity and reliability of
7154-466: The Amarna Period ( c. 1353 – 1336 BCE). Atenism and the worship of the Aten as the sole god of ancient Egypt state worship did not persist beyond Akhenaten's death. Not long after his death, one of Akhenaten's Eighteenth Dynasty successors, Tutankhamun , reopened the state temples to other Egyptian gods and re-positioned Amun as the pre-eminent solar deity. Aten
7300-565: The Coptic Catholic Church . Most hieroglyphic Egyptian texts are written in a literary prestige register rather than the vernacular speech variety of their author. As a result, dialectical differences are not apparent in written Egyptian until the adoption of the Coptic alphabet . Nevertheless, it is clear that these differences existed before the Coptic period. In one Late Egyptian letter (dated c. 1200 BC ),
7446-662: The Ministry of Antiquities and the Getty Conservation Institute. While the closure was originally planned for five years to restore the walls affected by humidity, the Egyptian revolution of 2011 set the project back. The tomb re-opened in February 2019. For many years, rumors of a " curse of the pharaohs " (probably fueled by newspapers seeking sales at the time of the discovery) persisted, emphasizing
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#17327660273047592-564: The Mitanni and carried out military campaigns in Nubia and the Near East. Tutankhamun was one of only a few kings who was worshipped as a deity during his lifetime. The young king likely began construction of a royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings and an accompanying mortuary temple but both were unfinished at the time of his death. Tutankhamun died unexpectedly aged about 18; his health and
7738-583: The Muslim conquest of Egypt , although Bohairic Coptic remains in use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church . The Egyptian language branch belongs to the Afroasiatic language family . Among the typological features of Egyptian that are typically Afroasiatic are its fusional morphology, nonconcatenative morphology , a series of emphatic consonants , a three-vowel system /a i u/ ,
7884-792: The Thutmosid royal line to which he belonged. Analysis of the clothing found in his tomb, particularly the dimensions of his loincloths and belts indicates that he had a narrow waist and rounded hips. In attempts to explain both his unusual depiction in art and his early death it has been theorised that Tutankhamun had gynecomastia , Marfan syndrome , Wilson–Turner X-linked intellectual disability syndrome, Fröhlich syndrome ( adiposogenital dystrophy ), Klinefelter syndrome , androgen insensitivity syndrome , aromatase excess syndrome in conjunction with sagittal craniosynostosis syndrome, Antley–Bixler syndrome or one of its variants. It has also been suggested that he had inherited temporal lobe epilepsy in
8030-511: The commander-in-chief of Tutankhamun's armed forces. Under Horemheb, the restoration of the traditional ancient Egyptian religion was completed; Ay and Tutankhamun's constructions were usurped and earlier Amarna Period rulers were erased. In modern times, Tutankhamun became famous as a result of the 1922 discovery of his tomb (KV62) by a team led by the British Egyptologist Howard Carter and sponsored by
8176-588: The hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts. Demotic is the name of the script derived from the hieratic beginning in the 7th century BC. The Coptic alphabet was derived from the Greek alphabet , with adaptations for Egyptian phonology. It was first developed in the Ptolemaic period , and gradually replaced the Demotic script in about the 4th to 5th centuries of the Christian era. The term "Archaic Egyptian"
8322-521: The 1977 edition of Carter's The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun , "The pharaoh who in life was one of the least esteemed of Egypt's Pharaohs has become in death the most renowned". The discoveries in the tomb were prominent news in the 1920s. Tutankhamen came to be called by a modern neologism , "King Tut". Ancient Egyptian references became common in popular culture, including Tin Pan Alley songs;
8468-523: The Amarna Period, this synthesis was seen as the invisible source of energy of the sun god, of which the visible manifestation was the Aten, the solar disk. Thus Ra-Horus-Aten was a development of old ideas which came gradually. The real change, as some see it, was the apparent abandonment of all other gods on the state level, especially Amun-Ra , prohibition of idolatry, and the debatable introduction of quasi- monotheism by Akhenaten. The syncretism
8614-404: The Aten and receiving the ankh, the breath of life, from him. Compared to periods before and after the Amarna Period, Priests had less to do since offerings, such as fruits, flowers, and cakes were limited, and oracles were not needed. In the worship of the Aten, the daily service of purification, anointment, and clothing of the divine image that is traditionally found in ancient Egyptian worship
8760-556: The Aten created a Nile river in the sky (rain) for the Syrians. The rays of the sun disk only holds out life to the royal family, and because of this non-royals receives life from Akhenaten and Nefertiti , later Neferneferuaten, in exchange for loyalty to the Aten. In inscriptions, like the Hymn to the Aten and the King, the Aten is depicted as caring for the people through Akhenaten, placing
8906-510: The Aten's cult worship were recorded via inscriptions on temples and tombs from the period. Straying significantly from the tradition of ancient Egyptian temples being hidden and more enclosed the further one went into the site, temples of Aten were open and did not have roofs in order to allow the rays of the sun inside. No statues of Aten were allowed as they were seen as idolatry. However, these were typically replaced by functionally equivalent representations of Akhenaten and his family venerating
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#17327660273049052-525: The British aristocrat George Herbert . Although it had clearly been raided and robbed in ancient times, it retained much of its original contents, including the king's undisturbed mummy . The discovery received worldwide press coverage; with over 5,000 artifacts, it gave rise to renewed public interest in ancient Egypt , for which Tutankhamun's mask , now preserved at the Egyptian Museum , remains
9198-611: The Egyptian language shared closer linguistic ties with northeastern African regions. There are two theories that seek to establish the cognate sets between Egyptian and Afroasiatic, the traditional theory and the neuere Komparatistik , founded by Semiticist Otto Rössler. According to the neuere Komparatistik , in Egyptian, the Proto-Afroasiatic voiced consonants */d z ð/ developed into pharyngeal ⟨ꜥ⟩ /ʕ/ : Egyptian ꜥr.t 'portal', Semitic dalt 'door'. The traditional theory instead disputes
9344-716: The Mediterranean at the time. Complete study of the iron artefacts from the tomb (besides the blade of a richly decorated golden dagger, small iron chisel blades set into wooden handles, an Eye of Horus amulet, and a miniature headrest) demonstrated that all were made of similar material. Only in 2022, a complex technological and material study of the Tutankhamun's mask was published. Many of Tutankhamun's burial goods show signs of being adapted for his use after being originally made for earlier owners, probably Smenkhkare or Neferneferuaten or both. On 4 November 2007, 85 years to
9490-631: The New Kingdom, which included Tutankhamun and Amenhotep III, as well as potential inherited disorders and infectious diseases. The second of these studies (described above ) had investigated the Y-haplogroups and genetic kinship of Ramesses III and an unknown man buried along with him in the royal cache at Deir el Bahari. Keita analysed the STR data from these studies using an algorithm that only has three choices: Eurasians, sub-Saharan Africans, and East Asians. Using these three options, Keita concluded that
9636-597: The Semitic preference for triradical roots. Egyptian is probably more conservative, and Semitic likely underwent later regularizations converting roots into the triradical pattern. Although Egyptian is the oldest Afroasiatic language documented in written form, its morphological repertoire is very different from that of the rest of the Afroasiatic languages in general, and Semitic languages in particular. There are multiple possibilities: perhaps Egyptian had already undergone radical changes from Proto-Afroasiatic before it
9782-542: The actual tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62) in November 1922. An ancient stroke of luck allowed the tomb to survive to modern times. The tomb's entrance was buried by mounds of debris from the cutting of KV9 over 150 years after Tutankhamun's burial; ancient workmen's huts were also built on the site. This area remained unexcavated until 1922 due to its proximity to KV9, as excavations would impede tourist access to that tomb. Carter commenced excavations in early November 1922, before
9928-496: The age of 64. The last survivors included Lady Evelyn Herbert , Lord Carnarvon 's daughter who was among the first people to enter the tomb after its discovery in November 1922, who lived for a further 57 years and died in 1980, and American archaeologist J.O. Kinnaman who died in 1961, 39 years after the event. Tutankhamun's fame is primarily the result of his well-preserved tomb and the global exhibitions of his associated artifacts. As Jon Manchip White writes, in his foreword to
10074-588: The analysis produced differing probability figures despite having concordant allele results. Because the relationships of these two mummies with the KV55 mummy had previously been confirmed in an earlier study, the haplogroup prediction of both mummies could be derived from the full profile of the KV55 data In 2022, S.O.Y. Keita analysed 8 Short Tandem loci (STR) data originally published by Hawass et al. in studies from 2010 and 2012. The first of these studies had investigated familial relationships among 11 royal mummies of
10220-412: The associated interpretation. Tutankhamun became pharaoh between eight and nine years of age following the short reigns of Akhenaten's successors Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten . It is uncertain whether Smenkhkare's reign outlasted Akhenaten's; the female ruler Neferneferuaten is now thought to have become co-regent shortly before Akhenaten's death and to have reigned for some time after it. On acceding
10366-436: The baby chick are cared for; and Akhenaten asks his divine father to 'lift up' the creatures for his sake so that they might aspire to the condition of perfection of his father, Aten." Akhenaten represented himself as the son of Aten, mirroring many of his predecessors' claims of divine birth and their positions as the embodiment of Horus. Akhenaten positioned himself as the only intermediary who could speak to Aten, emphasizing
10512-410: The cause of his death have been the subject of much debate. In 2012 it was suggested he died from a combination of malaria and a leg fracture. Since his royal tomb was incomplete, he was instead buried in a small non-royal tomb adapted for the purpose. He was succeeded by his vizier Ay , who was probably an old man when he became king, and had a short reign. Ay was succeeded by Horemheb , who had been
10658-422: The chest wall of the king was intact, still wearing a beaded collar with falcon-headed terminals. The absence of both the collar and chest wall was noted in the 1968 x-ray and further confirmed by the CT scan. It is likely that the front part of his chest was removed by robbers during the theft of the beaded collar; the intricate beaded skullcap the king was pictured wearing in 1926 was also missing by 1968. Since
10804-439: The closing of the state temples of other Egyptian gods likely did not stop household worship of the traditional pantheon. Inscriptions, such as the " Great Hymn to the Aten ", found in temples and tombs during Akhenaten's reign showcase the Aten as the creator, giver of life, and nurturing spirit of the world. Aten does not have a creation myth or family but is mentioned in the Book of the Dead . The first known reference to Aten
10950-447: The completion of a grander royal tomb, causing his mummy to be buried in a tomb intended for someone else. This would preserve the observance of the customary 70 days between death and burial. His tomb was robbed at least twice in antiquity, but based on the items taken (including perishable oils and perfumes) and the evidence of restoration of the tomb after the intrusions, these robberies likely took place within several months at most of
11096-415: The core principles of Atenism were recorded in the capital city Akhenaten founded and moved his dynastic government to, Akhetaten , referred to as either Amarna, El-Amarna, or Tell el-Amarna by modern scholars. In Atenism, night is a time to fear. Work is done best when the sun, and thus Aten, is present. The Aten created all countries and people, and cares for every creature. According to the inscriptions,
11242-400: The day after Carter's discovery, Tutankhamun's mummy was placed on display in his underground tomb at Luxor , when the linen-wrapped mummy was removed from its golden sarcophagus to a climate-controlled glass box. The case was designed to prevent the heightened rate of decomposition caused by the humidity and warmth from tourists visiting the tomb. In 2009, the tomb was closed for restoration by
11388-615: The decoration of the entrance colonnade of Amenhotep III. Tutankhamun made several endowments that enriched and added to the priestly numbers of the cults of Amun and Ptah . He commissioned new statues of the deities from the best metals and stone and had new processional barques made of the finest cedar from Lebanon and had them embellished with gold and silver. A building called the Temple-of-Nebkheperure-Beloved-of-Amun-Who-Puts-Thebes-in-Order, which may be identical to
11534-797: The definite article ⲡ is unaspirated when the next word begins with a glottal stop: Bohairic ⲡ + ⲱⲡ > ⲡⲱⲡ 'the account'. The consonant system of Coptic is as follows: Here is the vowel system reconstructed for earlier Egyptian: Vowels are always short in unstressed syllables ( ⟨tpj⟩ = */taˈpij/ 'first') and long in open stressed syllables ( ⟨rmṯ⟩ = */ˈraːmac/ 'man'), but they can be either short or long in closed stressed syllables ( ⟨jnn⟩ = */jaˈnan/ 'we', ⟨mn⟩ = */maːn/ 'to stay'). Aten C D F G H I K M N P Q R S T U W Aten , also Aton , Atonu , or Itn ( Ancient Egyptian : jtn , reconstructed [ˈjaːtin] )
11680-438: The dominance of Aten as the preeminent deity. This has led to discussion of whether Atenism should be considered a monotheistic religion, and thus making it one of the first examples of monotheism. Aten is both a unique deity and a continuation of the traditional idea of a sun-god in ancient Egyptian religion, deriving a lot of the concepts of power and representation from the earlier solar deities like Ra, but building on top of
11826-505: The early death of some of those who had entered the tomb. The most prominent was George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon , who died on 5 April 1923, five months after the discovery of the first step leading down to the tomb on 4 November 1922. The cause of Carnarvon's death was pneumonia supervening on [facial] erysipelas (a streptococcal infection of the skin and underlying soft tissue). The Earl had been in an automobile accident in 1901 making him very unhealthy and frail. His doctor recommended
11972-637: The emphatic consonants were realised is unknown. Early research had assumed that the opposition in stops was one of voicing, but it is now thought to be either one of tenuis and emphatic consonants , as in many Semitic languages, or one of aspirated and ejective consonants , as in many Cushitic languages . Since vowels were not written until Coptic, reconstructions of the Egyptian vowel system are much more uncertain and rely mainly on evidence from Coptic and records of Egyptian words, especially proper nouns, in other languages/writing systems. The actual pronunciations reconstructed by such means are used only by
12118-439: The end of a stressed syllable and eventually null word-finally: ⟨pḏ.t⟩ */ˈpiːɟat/ > Akkadian transcription -pi-ta 'bow'. The most important source of information about Demotic phonology is Coptic. The consonant inventory of Demotic can be reconstructed on the basis of evidence from the Coptic dialects. Demotic orthography is relatively opaque . The Demotic "alphabetical" signs are mostly inherited from
12264-527: The face of the boy king. While the Egyptian and French teams knew their subject was Tutankhamun, the American team worked blind. All teams produced very similar results, but it was that of the French team that was ultimately cast in silicone. Stuart Tyson Smith , Egyptologist and professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara , in 2008 expressed criticism of the forensic reconstruction in
12410-408: The first four years of his reign. These years saw dramatic reversals of Akhenaten's policies, which, given the king's young age, must have been instigated by his advisors. In the third year of Tutankhaten's reign, his name was changed to "Tutankhamun", and that of his queen to "Akhesenamun". The Restoration Stela, which probably dates to Year 4 of Tutankhamun's reign, characterizes the Amarna Period as
12556-547: The first known Coptic text, still pagan ( Old Coptic ), from the 1st century AD. Coptic survived into the medieval period, but by the 16th century was dwindling rapidly due to the persecution of Coptic Christians under the Mamluks . It probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that. Coptic survives as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and
12702-409: The genetic data from mummified remains has been questioned due to possible degradation due to decay. When Tutankhaten became king, he married Ankhesenpaaten , one of Akhenaten's daughters, who later changed her name to Ankhesenamun. He fathered two daughters who died at or soon after birth and were buried with him in his tomb. Computed tomography studies published in 2011 revealed that one daughter
12848-655: The graphemes ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩ are used interchangeably. In addition, / j / had become / ʔ / word-initially in an unstressed syllable (⟨ jwn ⟩ /jaˈwin/ > */ʔaˈwin/ "colour") and after a stressed vowel ( ⟨ḥjpw⟩ */ˈħujpVw/ > /ˈħeʔp(Vw)/ '[the god] Apis'). In Late Egyptian (1069–700 BC), the phonemes d ḏ g gradually merge with their counterparts t ṯ k ( ⟨dbn⟩ */ˈdiːban/ > Akkadian transcription ti-ba-an 'dbn-weight'). Also, ṯ ḏ often become /t d/ , but they are retained in many lexemes ; ꜣ becomes / ʔ / ; and /t r j w/ become / ʔ / at
12994-502: The graphic battle depictions on the painted treasure chest in his tomb. Other artifacts, such as the Nine Bows footstool, walking sticks and sandals depicting enemies, and a gold leaf picture of him during chariot archery against enemies, also suggest that he was actively engaged in Egypt's international conflict. Egyptologist Bob Brier has argued leaning towards Tutankhamun being an actively participating warrior in his later years. On
13140-480: The haplogroups YDNA R1b , which originated in western Asia and which today makes up 50–60% of the genetic pool of modern Europeans, and mtDNA K , which originated in the Near East. He shares this Y-haplogroup with his father, the KV55 mummy (Akhenaten), and grandfather, Amenhotep III, and his mtDNA haplogroup with his mother, The Younger Lady, his grandmother, Tiye , and his great-grandmother, Thuya . The profiles for Tutankhamun and Amenhotep III were incomplete and
13286-443: The height of the tourist season. The first step of the tomb's entrance staircase was uncovered on 4 November 1922. According to Carter's account the workmen discovered the step while digging beneath the remains of the huts; other accounts attribute the discovery to a boy digging outside the assigned work area. By February 1923 the antechamber had been cleared of everything but two sentinel statues. A day and time were selected to unseal
13432-435: The hieroglyphic orthography, and it is frequently written as if it were / n / or / r / . That is probably because the standard for written Egyptian is based on a dialect in which / l / had merged with other sonorants. Also, the rare cases of / ʔ / occurring are not represented. The phoneme / j / is written as ⟨ j ⟩ in the initial position (⟨ jt ⟩ = */ˈjaːtVj/ 'father') and immediately after
13578-519: The hieroglyphic script, and due to historical sound changes they do not always map neatly onto Demotic phonemes . However, the Demotic script does feature certain orthographic innovations, such as the use of the sign h̭ for / ç /, which allow it to represent sounds that were not present in earlier forms of Egyptian. The Demotic consonants can be divided into two primary classes: obstruents ( stops , affricates and fricatives ) and sonorants ( approximants , nasals , and semivowels ). Voice
13724-456: The initial burial. The location of the tomb was lost because it had come to be buried by debris from subsequent tombs, and workers' houses were built over the tomb entrance. The concession rights for excavating the Valley of the Kings was held by Theodore Davis from 1905 until 1914. In that time, he had unearthed ten tombs including the nearly intact but non-royal tomb of Queen Tiye's parents, Yuya and Thuya . As he continued working there in
13870-405: The inscriptions of scenes of gods carved in stone previously depicted animals and human forms instead showed the Aten as an orb above with life-giving rays stretching toward the royal figure. This power transcended human or animal form. Later, iconoclasm was enforced, and even sun disc depictions of Aten were prohibited in an edict issued by Akhenaten. In the edict, he stipulated that Aten's name
14016-418: The interior making them unique compared to other Egyptian temples of the time. Balustrades depict Akhenaten and the royal family embracing the rays of the Aten flanked stairwells, ramps, and altars. These fragments were initially identified as stele but were later reclassified as balustrades based on the presence of scenes on both sides. Inscriptions in tombs and temples during the Amarna Period often gave Aten
14162-408: The land" as hereditary prince to maintain law. He also noted his ability to calm the young king when his temper flared. In his third regnal year Tutankhamun reversed several changes made during his father's reign. He ended the worship of the god Aten and restored the god Amun to supremacy. The ban on the cult of Amun was lifted and traditional privileges were restored to its priesthood. The capital
14308-464: The language's final stage of development, the Coptic alphabet replaced the older writing system. Hieroglyphs are employed in two ways in Egyptian texts: as ideograms to represent the idea depicted by the pictures and, more commonly, as phonograms to represent their phonetic value. As the phonetic realization of Egyptian cannot be known with certainty, Egyptologists use a system of transliteration to denote each sound that could be represented by
14454-508: The later years, he uncovered nothing of major significance. Davis did find several objects in KV58 referring to Tutankhamun, which included knobs and handles bearing his name most significantly the embalming cache of the king ( KV54 ). He believed this to be the pharaoh's lost tomb and published his findings as such with the line; "I fear the Valley of the Tombs is exhausted". In 1907, Howard Carter
14600-406: The latter of which it shares much with. In the earlier stages of Demotic, such as those texts written in the early Demotic script, it probably represented the spoken idiom of the time. However, as its use became increasingly confined to literary and religious purposes, the written language diverged more and more from the spoken form, leading to significant diglossia between the late Demotic texts and
14746-418: The loss of favor in the worship of the Aten. While there was no purge of the cult after Akhenaten's death, the Aten persisted in Egypt for another ten years or so until it seemed to fade. When Tutankhamun came into power, his religious reign was one of tolerance, with the major difference being that the Aten was no longer the only god worshiped within official, state capacity. Tutankhamun made efforts to rebuild
14892-411: The majority of the samples had a population "affinity with ' sub-Saharan ' Africans in one affinity analysis". However, Keita cautioned that this does not mean that the royal mummies "lacked other affiliations", which he argued had been obscured in typological thinking. Keita further added that different "data and algorithms might give different results", reflecting the complexity of biological heritage and
15038-557: The more rigorous, scientific view is that he was physically active, and perhaps militarily participatory. Egyptologist Charlotte Booth states that Tutankhamun participated in at least two battles (one Nubian battle, and one Asiatic battle), nevertheless noting that other researchers suggest that he may have only accompanied the army to the battlefield for moral support , as opposed to actively participating. Details about Tutankhamun's health and early death are heavily debated. The most recent study suggests Tutankhamun had bone necrosis and
15184-465: The most popular of the latter was "Old King Tut" by Harry Von Tilzer from 1923, which was recorded by such prominent artists of the time as Jones & Hare and Sophie Tucker . "King Tut" became the name of products, businesses, and the pet dog of U.S. President Herbert Hoover . While The Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibit was touring the United States in 1978, comedian Steve Martin wrote
15330-418: The other hand, given Tutankhamun's youth and hypothesized physical disabilities, like a speculated cane handicap, some historians are skeptical that he participated in these battles. Yet some experts, such as Sofia Aziz and other researchers have taken the position that the speculations of Tutankhamun's physical frailty are overestimated, arguing that mummy damage has led to misdiagnosis. Instead, they argue that
15476-504: The others in differing order. In order for the pharaoh, who held divine office, to be linked to the people and the gods, special epithets were created for them at their accession to the throne. The ancient Egyptian titulary also served to demonstrate one's qualities and link them to the terrestrial realm. The five names were developed over the centuries beginning with the Horus name . Tutankhamun's original nomen , Tutankhaten , did not have
15622-524: The power Ra and many of his contemporaries represents. Aten carried absolute power in the universe, representing the life-giving force of light to the world as well as merging with the concept and goddess Ma'at to develop further responsibilities for Aten beyond the power of light itself. The cult-center of the Aten was at the capital city Akhenaten founded, Akhetaten , though other cult sites have been found in Thebes and Heliopolis . The use of Amarna as
15768-426: The priestly orders of two important cults, initiated a restoration process for old monuments that were damaged during the Amarna Period , and reburied his father's remains in the Valley of the Kings . Given his age, the king probably had advisers which presumably included Ay (who succeeded Tutankhamun) and General Horemheb , Ay's possible son in law and successor. Horemheb records that the king appointed him "lord of
15914-512: The quality of the surrounding vowels. / ʔ / is not indicated orthographically unless it follows a stressed vowel; then, it is marked by doubling the vowel letter (except in Bohairic): Akhmimic ⳉⲟⲟⲡ /xoʔp/ , Sahidic and Lycopolitan ϣⲟⲟⲡ šoʔp , Bohairic ϣⲟⲡ šoʔp 'to be' < ḫpr.w * /ˈχapraw/ 'has become'. The phoneme ⲃ / b / was probably pronounced as a fricative [ β ] , becoming ⲡ / p / after
16060-870: The reality" that the geographical location of Egypt is, of course, in Africa. While the consonantal phonology of the Egyptian language may be reconstructed, the exact phonetics is unknown, and there are varying opinions on how to classify the individual phonemes. In addition, because Egyptian is recorded over a full 2,000 years, the Archaic and Late stages being separated by the amount of time that separates Old Latin from Modern Italian , significant phonetic changes must have occurred during that lengthy time frame. Phonologically, Egyptian contrasted labial, alveolar, palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants. Egyptian also contrasted voiceless and emphatic consonants, as with other Afroasiatic languages, but exactly how
16206-441: The religion known as Atenism . His endowments and restorations of cults were recorded on what is today known as the “Restoration Stela.” The cult of the god Amun at Thebes was restored to prominence, and the royal couple changed their names to "Tutankhamun" and "Ankhesenamun", replacing the -aten suffix . He also moved the royal court from Akhenaten's capital, Amarna , back to Memphis . He reestablished diplomatic relations with
16352-568: The result of modern damage was ruled out based on the ragged edges of the fracture; modern damage features sharp edges. Embalming substances were present within the fracture indicating that it was associated with an open wound; no signs of healing were present. A facial reconstruction of Tutankhamun was carried out in 2005 by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and National Geographic . Three separate teams—Egyptian, French, and American—worked separately to approximate
16498-408: The royal court abandoned Amarna. Memphis became the main seat of royal administration, continuing a trend that dated back to Akhenaten's predecessors, toward administering the country from that central location rather than the more outlying site of Thebes. With Amun restored as Egypt's preeminent deity, Thebes once again became its greatest center of religious activity. Tutankhamun enriched and endowed
16644-513: The royal family as intermediaries for the worship of the Aten. There is only one known instance of the Aten talking. In the Hymn to Aten, a love for humanity and the Earth is depicted in Aten's mannerisms: "Aten bends low, near the earth, to watch over his creation; he takes his place in the sky for the same purpose; he wearies himself in the service of the creatures; he shines for them all; he gives them sun and sends them rain. The unborn child and
16790-599: The same graphemes are used for the pulmonic stops ( ⟨ ⲧ ϫ ⲕ ⟩ ), the existence of the former may be inferred because the stops ⟨ ⲡ ⲧ ϫ ⲕ ⟩ /p t c k/ are allophonically aspirated [pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ] before stressed vowels and sonorant consonants. In Bohairic, the allophones are written with the special graphemes ⟨ ⲫ ⲑ ϭ ⲭ ⟩ , but other dialects did not mark aspiration: Sahidic ⲡⲣⲏ , Bohairic ⲫⲣⲏ 'the sun'. Thus, Bohairic does not mark aspiration for reflexes of older *d ḏ g q : Sahidic and Bohairic ⲧⲁⲡ */dib/ 'horn'. Also,
16936-433: The script was supplanted by an early version of Coptic (about the third and fourth centuries), the system remained virtually unchanged. Even the number of signs used remained constant at about 700 for more than 2,000 years. Middle Egyptian was spoken for about 700 years, beginning around 2000 BC, during the Middle Kingdom and the subsequent Second Intermediate Period . As the classical variant of Egyptian, Middle Egyptian
17082-480: The southern Saidic dialect, the main classical dialect, and the northern Bohairic dialect, currently used in Coptic Church services. Most surviving texts in the Egyptian language are written on stone in hieroglyphs . The native name for Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is zẖꜣ n mdw-nṯr ("writing of the gods' words"). In antiquity, most texts were written on the quite perishable medium of papyrus though
17228-619: The spoken language of the time, similar to the use of classical Middle Egyptian during the Ptolemaic Period. Coptic is the name given to the late Egyptian vernacular when it was written in a Greek-based alphabet, the Coptic alphabet; it flourished from the time of Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324) , but Egyptian phrases written in the Greek alphabet first appeared during the Hellenistic period c. 3rd century BC , with
17374-457: The subject of considerable debate and major studies. Hawass and his team postulate that his death was likely the result of the combination of his multiple weakening disorders, a leg fracture, perhaps as the result of a fall, and a severe malarial infection. However, Timmann and Meyer have argued that sickle cell anemia better fits the pathologies exhibited by the king, a suggestion the Egyptian team has called "interesting and plausible". Murder by
17520-468: The sun-disk as a deity is in The Story of Sinuhe from the 12th Dynasty , in which the deceased king is described as rising as a god to the heavens and "uniting with the sun-disk, the divine body merging with its maker". Aten was extensively worshipped as a solar deity during the reign of Amenhotep III where it was depicted as a falcon-headed god like Ra. While Aten was the preeminent creator deity of
17666-487: The throne, Tutankhamun took the throne name Nebkheperure. He reigned for about nine years. During Tutankhamun's reign the position of Vizier was split between Upper and Lower Egypt . The principal vizier for Upper Egypt was Usermontu . Another figure named Pentju was also vizier but it is unclear of which lands. It is not entirely known if Ay, Tutankhamun's successor, actually held this position. A gold foil fragment from KV58 seems to indicate, but not certainly, that Ay
17812-459: The throne, who already had a grandson, Ramesses II , who would then go on to found the Ramesside dynasty and become the greatest pharaoh of ancient Egypt. This initiated a new royal bloodline that replaced the royal bloodline that ended with the death of Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun was buried in a tomb that was unusually small considering his status. His death may have occurred unexpectedly, before
17958-612: The throne. However, Nakhtmin never became pharaoh because he died before he could. Horemheb succeeded the throne as pharaoh after Ay's death. As pharaoh, Horemheb saw to it that the restoration of the traditional ancient Egyptian religion that Tutankhamun was previously spearheading was completed, restabilizing the nation. Notably, during the standard damnatio memoriae process that each new Egyptian pharaoh undertakes, Horemheb defaced Ay's tomb, but left Tutankhamun's untouched, presumably out of respect. In due course, Horemheb had selected then civilian military officer, Ramesses I , as heir to
18104-476: The tomb with about twenty appointed witnesses that included Lord Carnarvon, several Egyptian officials, museum representatives and the staff of the Government Press Bureau. On 17 February 1923 at just after two o'clock, the seal was broken. Letters published in 2022 of correspondence between Rex Engelbach and Alan Gardiner , reveal that Howard Carter had stolen objects from the tomb, such as
18250-589: The two children of Tutankhamun and his sister-wife queen Ankhesenamun were both stillborns, and Tutankhamun was the last of the royal male siblings, there was no immediate heir apparent to assume the throne as Ankhesenamun's husband. Records in Horemheb's tomb state that Tutankhamun appointed him "lord of the land" as Iry-pat (heir designate), which is essentially the designated hereditary prince to maintain law. However, queen Ankhesenamun preferred to not marry someone of lesser status than royal queen status. Horemheb
18396-629: The use of a cane, many of which were found in his tomb. However, none of them show the wear expected of essential aids; the wear on his sandals, where present, is also even on both feet. The presence of such a number of sticks is not unexpected, as canes were a symbol of status in ancient Egypt. Genetic testing through STR analysis rejected the hypothesis of gynecomastia and craniosynostoses (e.g., Antley–Bixler syndrome) or Marfan syndrome . Genetic testing for STEVOR, AMA1, or MSP1 genes specific for Plasmodium falciparum revealed indications of malaria tropica in 4 mummies, including Tutankhamun's. This
18542-644: The values given to those consonants by the neuere Komparatistik , instead connecting ⟨ꜥ⟩ with Semitic /ʕ/ and /ɣ/ . Both schools agree that Afroasiatic */l/ merged with Egyptian ⟨n⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨ꜣ⟩ , and ⟨j⟩ in the dialect on which the written language was based, but it was preserved in other Egyptian varieties. They also agree that original */k g ḳ/ palatalise to ⟨ṯ j ḏ⟩ in some environments and are preserved as ⟨k g q⟩ in others. The Egyptian language has many biradical and perhaps monoradical roots, in contrast to
18688-504: The whole was usurped by Horemheb. The Restoration Stele was usurped by Horemheb; pieces of the Temple-of-Nebkheperure-in-Thebes were recycled into Horemheb's own building projects. In ancient Egypt, pharaohs were venerated after their deaths through mortuary cults and associated temples as deities . This form of apotheosis was relegated to deceased pharaohs, but Tutankhamun was one of the few pharaohs who
18834-444: Was clubbed and had bone necrosis of the second and third metatarsals ( Freiberg disease or Köhler disease II ). However, the clubfoot diagnosis is disputed. James Gamble instead suggests that the position is a result of Tutankhamun habitually walking on the outside of his foot due to the pain caused by Köhler disease II; this theory has been refuted by members of Hawass' team. The condition may have forced Tutankhamun to walk with
18980-404: Was a full sister of her husband . Tutankhamun acceded to the throne around the age of nine following the short reigns of his predecessors Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten . He married his half-sister Ankhesenpaaten , who was probably the mother of his two infant daughters . During his reign he restored the traditional polytheistic form of ancient Egyptian religion , undoing a previous shift to
19126-462: Was a militaryman of peasant birth and was, as the military commander-in-chief, technically a servant of queen Ankhesenamun. The vizier Ay , while of some royal blood, was an established vizier, and also technically a servant of queen Ankhesenamun. Ankhesenamun's spousal preferences ignited a series of disruption in the fulfillment of king Tutankhamun's will on throne heirship. Seeking to resolve her spousal dilemma, Ankhesenamun inadvertently generated
19272-411: Was born in the reign of Akhenaten , during the Amarna Period of the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt . His original name was Tutankhaten or Tutankhuaten, meaning "living image of Aten ", reflecting the shift in ancient Egyptian religion known as Atenism which characterized Akhenaten's reign. His parentage is debated as they are not attested in surviving inscriptions. He was certainly a prince, as
19418-502: Was born prematurely at 5–6 months of pregnancy and the other at full-term, 9 months. DNA testing has suggested the anonymous mummy KV21A is their mother but the data is not statistically significant enough to allow her to be securely identified as his only known wife, Ankhesenamun. Tutankhamun's death marked the end of the royal bloodline of the Eighteenth Dynasty. A genetic study, published in 2020, revealed Tutankhamun had
19564-410: Was considered to have been everywhere and intangible as Aten was the sunlight and energy in the world. Therefore, he did not have physical representations that other traditional ancient Egyptian gods had, instead represented via the sun disc and reaching rays of light tipped with human-like hands. The explanation as to why the Aten could not be fully represented was that the Aten was beyond creation. Thus
19710-476: Was invited by William Garstin and Gaston Maspero to excavate for George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon in the Valley. The Earl of Carnarvon and Carter had hoped this would lead to their gaining the concession when Davis gave it up but had to be satisfied with excavations in different parts of the Theban Necropolis for seven more years. After a systematic search beginning in 1915, Carter discovered
19856-557: Was more 'singular' and referred only to the Aten himself. The early form was Re-Horakhti who rejoices in the Horizon, in his name Shu, which is the Aten. The later form was Re, ruler of the two horizons, who rejoices in the Horizon, in his name of light, which is the Aten. Ra-Horus, more usually referred to as Ra-Horakhty ( Ra who is Horus of the two horizons ), is a synthesis of two other gods, both of which are attested from very early on in ancient Egyptian religious practice. During
20002-473: Was moved back to Thebes and the city of Akhetaten was abandoned. As part of the restoration of the traditional cults, the king initiated building projects, in particular at Karnak in Thebes, where he laid out the sphinx avenue leading to the temple of Mut . The sphinxes were originally made for Akhenaten and Nefertiti; they were given new ram heads and small statues of the king. At Luxor temple he completed
20148-494: Was not performed. Instead, incense and food-stuff offerings such as meats, wines, and fruits were placed onto open-air altars. A common scene in carved depictions of Akhenaten giving offering to Aten has him consecrating the sacrificed goods with a royal scepter. Instead of barque-processions, the royal family rode in a chariot on festival days. Elite women were known to worship the Aten in sun-shade temples in Akhetaten. Aten
20294-428: Was published by Adolf Erman in 1894, surpassed in 1927 by Alan Gardiner 's work. Middle Egyptian has been well-understood since then, although certain points of the verbal inflection remained open to revision until the mid-20th century, notably due to the contributions of Hans Jakob Polotsky . The Middle Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 14th century BC, giving rise to Late Egyptian. This transition
20440-479: Was recorded; or the Afroasiatic family has so far been studied with an excessively Semitocentric approach; or, as G. W. Tsereteli suggests, Afroasiatic is a sprachbund , rather than a true genetic language family. The Egyptian language can be grouped thus: The Egyptian language is conventionally grouped into six major chronological divisions: Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using both
20586-424: Was referred to as a Priest of Maat along with an epithet of "vizier, doer of maat." The epithet does not fit the usual description used by the regular vizier but might indicate an informal title. It might be that Ay used the title of vizier in an unprecedented manner. An Egyptian priest named Manetho wrote a comprehensive history of ancient Egypt where he refers to a king named Orus, who ruled for 36 years and had
20732-468: Was taking place in the later period of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (known as the Amarna Period ). Original Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian texts were still used after the 14th century BCE. And an emulation of predominately Middle Egyptian, but also with characteristics of Old Egyptian, Late Egyptian and Demotic, called " Égyptien de tradition " or "Neo-Middle Egyptian" by scholars,
20878-430: Was the focus of Atenism , the religious system formally established in ancient Egypt by the late Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten . Exact dating for the Eighteenth Dynasty is contested, though a general date range places the dynasty in the years 1550 to 1292 BCE. The worship of Aten and the coinciding rule of Akhenaten are major identifying characteristics of a period within the Eighteenth Dynasty referred to as
21024-400: Was to be spelt phonetically. Two temples were central to the city of Akhetaten. The larger of the two had an "open, unroofed structure covering an area of about 800 by 300 metres (2,600 ft × 1,000 ft) at the northern end of the city". Doorways had broken lintels and raised thresholds. Temples to the Aten were open-air structures with little-to-no roofing to maximize the amount of sunlight on
21170-606: Was used as a literary language for new texts since the later New Kingdom in official and religious hieroglyphic and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian or Demotic. Égyptien de tradition as a religious language survived until the Christianisation of Roman Egypt in the 4th century. Late Egyptian was spoken for about 650 years, beginning around 1350 BC, during the New Kingdom of Egypt . Late Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant Middle Egyptian as
21316-513: Was worshiped in this manner during his lifetime. A stela discovered at Karnak and dedicated to Amun - Ra and Tutankhamun indicates that the king could be appealed to in his deified state for forgiveness and to free the petitioner from an ailment caused by sin . Temples of his cult were built as far away as in Kawa and Faras in Nubia . The title of the sister of the Viceroy of Kush included
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