Tutankhamun is the most famous pharaoh of ancient Egypt. But who was he, and what sort of world was he born into?
WORDS: DANNY BIRD
Ask most people to name a figure from ancient Egypt, and there’s a high chance that they will say Tutankhamun. However, prior to the discovery of his lavish tomb in the early 20th century, virtually all knowledge of the so-called Boy King and his brief reign had been lost to history. The reason for this obscurity lies in the controversial era through which he lived. Born during the New Kingdom (c1550–1075 BC), a period when Egyptian civilisation reached its zenith both culturally and territorially, Tutankhamun was a member of the ruling 18th Dynasty, a bloodline that boasted some of Egypt’s most renowned rulers, including the female pharaoh Hatshepsut and his grandfather, Amenhotep III.
Despite this impressive lineage, the Boy King entered a world where the traditions that had defined Egyptian civilisation for centuries were in disarray. Prior to his birth, the pharaoh known as Akhenaten had banished most of Egypt’s extensive pantheon of gods and goddesses, replacing them with the worship of a new solar deity known as the Aten (meaning ‘sun-disc’). Akhenaten persecuted the powerful cult of Amun based in Thebes and moved the royal court to an area of Middle Egypt unconnected to any other divinity. This new capital city, known today as Tell el-Amarna, was named Akhetaten (‘horizon of the Aten’) and became the centre of Akhenaten’s revolution. It was here that the young Tutankhamun was likely born in the middle of the 14th century BC.
But Tutankhamun was not his birth name at all – rather, he was originally called Tutankhaten (meaning ‘the living image of the Aten’) in honour of the new state god. The precise nature of his family history is disputed by Egyptologists, though most accept Akhenaten as his probable father, and in 2010, DNA analysis confirmed that an unidentified mummy discovered in the Valley of the Kings known as the ‘Younger Lady’ was Tutankhamun’s mother. The DNA evidence also shows that Tutankhamun’s parents were either full siblings or the third couple in a line of successive first cousin marriages.
CHILD OF THE SUN
That so little is known, confusing or unanswerable about Tutankhaten’s childhood and the so-called Amarna period more generally is due to subsequent pharaohs’ censure of Akhenaten’s religious changes. Indeed, among the 76 names recorded in a list of
