• Submitted By: prynne
  • Date Submitted: 10/05/2008 5:24 PM
  • Category: History Other
  • Words: 1203
  • Page: 5
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Part of the famous Valley of the Kings across from Luxor, on the west bank, lays the tomb of Tutankhamun. It is the most famous because it was the only one found
almost completely intact. Sadly, that isn’t the case anymore. Due to tourists, the paintings and fabrics of the tomb are being worn away . It was never meant to be found and walked through and have its treasures removed, the Egyptians would be horrified if they knew what was happening to one of their king’s tombs.

Tutankhamun was the youngest ruler in Egyptian history. There is some discrepancy as to when he was born and the year he died, but CT scans show that he only lived to 18 or 19 years old. He was born to a very unorthodox king, Akhenaten, who believed that all the gods that the people of Egypt were devoted to weren’t real. It was his decision that there was just one god who lived in the sun, so he changed the religion of Egypt. Akhenaten had originally named his son Tutankhaten, which meant ‘Living image of the Sun Disc’. Tutanhkamun later changed the ‘aten’ on his name to ‘amun’, because he was a believer of the old traditional religion, and Amun was the name of the old chief god . Akhenaten had at least two wives, but no-one knows exactly how many. Tutankhamun is believed to have been the son of one of Akhenaten’s lesser wives, Kiya. Kiya died when Tutankhamun was very young though, so he was left to be brought up by Nefertiti, Akenaten’s main wife, who also birthed six daughters . He did not have very much of a childhood, starting his reign on Egypt at age 9. Since he was only a child, he had two advisors, Ay, who was the chief priest, and Horemheb, commander-in-chief of the army. Tutankhamun probably didn’t really have much rule over Egypt at all . Ay took over as Pharaoh when the young king died.

Tutankhamun married his half sister, Ankhensenamun at around eight years old, and she was roughly thirteen. She was Tutankhamun’s half sister, the third born daughter of Akhenaten and...

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