⚱️

Tutankhamun

Boy Pharaoh of the Egyptian New Kingdom, Famed for the Intact Excavation of His Tomb

One Legend Remembered for Life · Small Roles, Famous Names

The New Kingdom of EgyptThe Discovery of Tutankhamun’s TombThe Restoration of Traditional Polytheism

Who they are

Tutankhamun (c. 1341–c. 1323 BC, acceding around age nine and dying around nineteen) was a pharaoh of the Egyptian New Kingdom who, after his accession, under the direction of his regent ministers, abolished the radical monotheistic reform of the previous pharaoh Akhenaten and restored the traditional polytheistic system, his own name "Tutankhamun" meaning "the living image of the god Amun," a direct embodiment of this religious restoration. He himself, young during his reign and with no especially notable political or military achievement, was originally a young monarch of very low presence in the long line of Egyptian pharaohs, but in 1922 the British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered his all-but-intact, unlooted tomb in the Valley of the Kings, unearthing over five thousand exquisite grave goods including the famous gold mask, an archaeological discovery that astonished the world, and Tutankhamun thereby leapt from a historically obscure boy pharaoh to one of the most recognizable symbols of ancient Egyptian civilization in modern popular culture.

Primary sourcesThe 1922 archaeological report of Howard Carter’s excavation of Tutankhamun’s tombInscriptions on the tomb’s grave goods

Key stories

Howard Carter’s Discovery of the Century

In November 1922, after years of hard searching in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings, the British archaeologist Howard Carter at last discovered the all-but-intact, undisturbed tomb of Tutankhamun; when he first peered inside through a gap in the tomb door by candlelight, his patron Lord Carnarvon anxiously asked "can you see anything," and Carter answered, "wonderful things." The gold mask, gilded inner coffin, and over five thousand grave treasures unearthed from the tomb are among the most important archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century.

The Legend of the "Pharaoh’s Curse"

Shortly after the tomb’s excavation, the patron Lord Carnarvon died unexpectedly of an infection from a mosquito bite, and the media loudly hyped the so-called "Pharaoh’s Curse" that would fall on those who disturbed the tomb’s peace; this legend was thereafter widely spread through repeated Hollywood dramatization, though modern statistical analysis shows that the average lifespan of the archaeological team members who actually took part in the excavation was no significantly different from ordinary people, the "curse" being more a product of media hype and popular-cultural imagination.

Version differences

On the exact cause of Tutankhamun’s death (chariot-accident trauma, complications of malaria, hereditary bone disease, and others), modern archaeology and forensics propose several differing hypotheses with no settled conclusion, and the media-hyped supernatural death rumors such as the "Pharaoh’s Curse" lack scientific basis.

Relationships

Children

👑Nefertiti

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

The urban legend of "Tutankhamun’s curse"After several of the participants in the 1920s tomb excavation died in succession, the media hyped the urban legend of the "Pharaoh’s Curse"; modern statistical study has noted that the distribution of the relevant people’s deaths shows no anomaly, and this legend is more a product of the sensational media reporting of the time.

Appears in

The Dawn of the Bronze AgeHatshepsut and Nefertiti: Women Rulers of Egypt

← Back to Figures