FERTILE SOIL The ancient Egyptians believed their pharaohs were reincarnations of Horus the god of light in human form That made Tutankhaten or King Tut as people know him today divine As a pharaoh Tut was responsible for maintaining ma’at or order and harmony in Egypt This was a daunting task for someone who was only nine years old King Tut’s funerary mask has become a symbol of Egypt past and present CHAPTER 1 7
King Tut’s Mask Howard Carter found King Tut in the innermost chamber of Tut’s tomb The ancient pharaoh’s mummy lay inside three nested coffins The innermost one was made of solid gold A magnificent solid gold mask covered the young pharaoh’s face bearing the royal insignia of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt a vulture and a serpent respectively The mask’s expression is serene The beauty and appeal of the young pharaoh’s face have made it the best-known artifact found in the tomb and a symbol of the splendor of ancient Egypt Today King Tut’s mask shines as brightly as ever at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo Egypt Tut took the throne in 1333 BCE As a member of the royal family Tut would have been well prepared for his role as pharaoh Young royals studied reading writing literature mathematics and foreign languages Their schooling included athletics such as archery ball games boating swimming and wrestling In his spare time Tut may have played in the courtyards with his many half brothers and half sisters swam and fished in the Nile Tut likely enjoyed a game of senet As royalty he ate and drank the finest foods and wines the land provided and lived in a palace filled with beautiful statues and wall paintings Perhaps as an attempt to bring order and harmony to Egypt or simply as a political move Tut set about restoring the gods his predecessor Akhenaten had banished especially Amun king of the gods Akhenaten had forced his people to worship only one god Aten the sun disk Young Tut not only brought back the old gods and temples his 8
father had banned he changed his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamen or living image of Amun 1 These acts were the most significant of the young pharaoh’s rule He died while still a teenager in 1323 BCE He lay nearly forgotten for thousands of years until Howard Carter discovered Tut’s tomb in 1922 CE Although robbers had entered in ancient times fabulous riches remained in Tut’s tomb While he was relatively unimportant as a ruler during his life the treasures in his tomb made King Tut the best-known Egyptian of all time and Egyptomania Egyptomania fascination with ancient Egypt dates as far back as the 300s BCE to ancient Greece The ancient Romans were interested in Egypt too Roman emperors in the first centuries CE collected Egyptian statues and obelisks and built their own Egyptian-style statues and buildings The Romans even built pyramid tombs and worshiped some of the Egyptian gods Few Europeans visited Egypt from 641 CE when it came under Islamic rule until the late 1600s but people continued to study and imitate the Egyptian artifacts already in Europe When the French military commander Napoléon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798 taking along scholars as well as soldiers Egyptomania exploded again and continued throughout the 1800s Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922 fanned the flames Today the mummies pyramids and other artifacts of this ancient culture continue to intrigue people 9
