![]() Toward the end of Akhenaten’s reign in 1336 B.C. If another mummy is found in Tut’s tomb, inscriptions on the burial artifacts identifying the individual could help resolve this question. Knowing who Tut’s parents were could help to clarify what kind of royal intrigue surrounded his ascension to the throne at age nine. Egyptologist Marianne Eaton-Krauss, an expert on Tutankhamun who has taught at universities in Germany, also points out that whereas these mummies are clearly close relatives of Tut, it is difficult to establish precise familial relationships using only DNA. An DNA analysis of several mummies found in the Valley of the Kings seems to indicate that Tut’s father is the person buried across the valley from him in tomb KV55 and his mother is buried farther to the west in KV35, but the identities of those mummies is unknown. It is possible that Tut’s father was the pharaoh Smenkhkara, who was the ruler immediately preceding Tutankhamun. But it is not even certain that Akhenaten was Tutankhamun’s father. Some scholars believe that the boy’s mother was Akhenaten’s principal wife, Nefertiti whereas others believe his mother was one of his secondary wives named Kiya. Who were Tut’s parents?Īround the year 1341 B.C., during Akhenaten’s reign, a royal child was born and named Tutankh aten “the living image of Aten.” Sometime after Akehnaten’s death he was renamed for the traditional solar deity, Amun and his name became Tutankh amun. Still, there are other mysteries about Tut that are likely to go unanswered. If there are new chambers to be explored, answers about the lives of Tut and his royal relatives could be closer than ever. ![]() As with any great discovery, Tut’s tomb raised a number of new important questions about Egyptian history, such as who his predecessors and successors were and what other figures might also be buried in his tomb. Those cults quickly reasserted their power, and it was during this time of upheaval that Tutankhamun took the throne. Soon after Akhenaten’s death, the nation returned to worshipping the traditional deities. This shift took power away from the wealthy and powerful priests of the traditional Egyptian gods. The pharaoh Akhenaten, whose reign ended four years before Tut’s began, had changed Egypt’s official religion, which involved worshipping a pantheon of gods, to a monotheistic cult devoted to the sun god Aten. But he ruled at a time when his nation was undergoing a profound change. According to former Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass, natural cracks in the rock can reflect radar waves in ways that make them look like man-made chambers, so another round of scanning is planned to confirm that the chambers do exist.Īt first glance, Tutankhamun seemed to be a minor figure in Egyptian history-very few written records refer to him. Ground-penetrating radar is notoriously difficult to use on the rock in the Valley of the Kings. Now his analysis of those scans is complete, and they suggest that there might be other chambers, possibly containing burials, hidden behind the walls of the boy king’s tomb. In November 2015 radar specialist Hirokatsu Watanabe conducted a series of ground-penetrating radar scans. In the past 10 years two more chambers have come to light: one is a storage area for coffins and burial supplies, the other contains the mummy of a woman who was a singer at the Temple of Karnak. But Tut’s tomb was not, in fact, the last secret the valley held. ![]() Untouched by looters before its discovery, the tomb’s dazzling golden artifacts captured the public’s imagination and made him one of Egypt’s most famous and intensively studied mummies. ![]() ![]() Tut ruled Egypt for only a decade, from 1332 to 1322 B.C., and died around age 19. Archaeologists thought the last burial chamber in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings had been discovered even before Howard Carter opened the unsullied tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. ![]()
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