Even though King Tut's tomb yielded a considerable amount of treasure, the operation was actually somewhat hurried by historical standards. Since the king passed away suddenly and at a young age, it was unlikely that a tomb befitting a king would be prepared. It was rumored that it was intended for a low noble or possibly as a subsidiary tomb because others, including Queen Nefertiti, received relatively lavish burials.

It took so little time to prepare his tomb that paint splatters from when King Tut lived there were still visible. It proves that even those who were considered to be gods on Earth were not really exempt from the social conventions of their period.

This entry isn't included since we think it makes for a cheap laugh. Well, maybe a little, but mostly it offers an intriguing look at how much religious conservatism influenced Tutankhamun's life and the unexpected ways it did so. He wasn't embalmed in a manner that caused his member to protrude at a 90-degree angle from his torso in honor of his virility specifically; rather, it was done to mimic the mythological killing of Osiris, the god of death, by his brother Seth. It purportedly made him more close to the gods, whom he had spent a significant portion of his reign working to restore to their rightful place, in death.

Given the prior paragraph, it could seem especially outrageous that Howard Carter's team was careless enough to shatter King Tut's head while excavating his remains. But when you understand the actual condition of his body when it was discovered, it makes a lot more sense. We're accustomed to seeing pictures of merely sarcophagi-wrapped mummies. That is not how Tutankhamun's body was preserved; rather, the body was resin-sealed inside the sarcophagus, effectively having the famous golden death mask bonded to it.

In fact, this was a very typical part of mummification, and it was so effective that there are even hair samples from certain mummies. Thus, in 1922, his body was wrenched out in bits rather than delicately taken out. With such careless handling of the body, it is less remarkable that a skull fracture happened that might have been mistaken for a severe blow than it is that investigators were able to identify the one injury on his body that had partially healed and was the true cause of death.

According to a 2002 Time magazine article, British film producer Anthony Geffen engaged former FBI profiler Greg Cooper to oversee the forensic examination of Tutankhamun's remains because he thought the mummy had been murdered. It had happened before. A comparable examination of the remains had been ordered by Howard Carter in 1925, but there had been no indication of wrongdoing.

A University of Liverpool researcher asserted in 1968 that he had discovered proof of a hit to King Tut's back of the skull. The main suspect was his Vizier Ay, which made the claim that he had married Tutankhamun's wife and ascended to the throne all the more intriguing. However, in the 3,300-year-old case, General Horemheb, Chief Treasurer Maya, and even Ankhesenamun were thought to be suspects.

By 2005, it has been proved to be false. No one in King Tut's time was to blame for the damage to the back of his head. It belonged to Howard Carter and was sustained when the body was being removed. This was demonstrated by the discovery that none of the embalming fluid used to heal his body had entered the skull, as it would have done if a fracture had existed at the time of death.

Even at that time, Egyptian analysts acknowledged that there was a chance King Tut had been poisoned, but there was no proof of that and the required tissue for testing was not on hand, as though the conspiracy hypothesis had to be maintained in some way.

Its falsity was established by 2005. The injury to King Tut's head's back was not the fault of anyone in his day. It belonged to Howard Carter and was damaged during the removal of the body. The fact that none of the embalming fluid that was used to preserve his body had entered the skull, as it would have done if a fracture had existed at the time of death, served as evidence of this. Egyptian analysts admitted that there was a possibility that King Tut had been poisoned even at that time, but there was no confirmation of it and the necessary tissue for testing wasn't available, as though the conspiracy theory needed to be upheld in some way.

The amount of archery supplies found inside Howard Carter's tomb during excavation was astounding. 14 standard bows were available. Additionally, there were 32 composite bows, which served as a prototype for later, more potent compound bows and whose design had been acquired from Asia. Additionally, he was carrying more than 400 arrows with him into the afterlife, which is a sizable supply for even the most ardent dead hunter.

Inbreeding was widespread by the time King Tut was born, as seen by the status of his own marriage, and he was one of many kings who suffered as a result. He never outgrew his adolescence, but one factor that contributed to his need for a cane was the fact that he had a clubfoot. There were numerous canes in his grave as if to act as a harsh reminder of this fact in the afterlife. It would have been challenging for him to stand in a chariot, thus it must have been even more challenging for him to become a proficient archer.

The worst of it, though, wasn't that. He also developed a significantly compromised immune system as a result. This meant that he battled bouts of malaria for years, not only till the end of his life. He fought with malaria tropica, a particularly dangerous variety of the illness, according to National Geographic.

In fact, his body is the oldest one ever found with even a tiny amount of malaria, much less enough to show a lifetime's worth of various strains. He had a partially healed fracture in his left thighbone, which was discovered in 2005. An infection from this fracture became the child king's most likely cause of death. Since he only lived to be 19 years old, it almost looks like a coincidence.

The marriage of King Tutankhamun to Ankhesenamun, his sister from a different mother, is the one aspect of his reign that is the most awkward to talk about today. Even though she married the nine-year-old monarch when she was only 13 years old, the record shows that he wasn't her first or even her second husband. Ankhesenamun, the father of King Tut, was one of her former spouses when she was just 11 years old, which only served to make things more unpleasant for a modern person. Even before King Tutankhamun assumed the throne, she had a brief marriage to Smenkhare, a de facto temporary ruler.

According to what we know about the pair, it was reported that their marriage was happy because the two had been close friends since they were young (at least, to the extent they had been able to mature before being compelled to wed.) Tragically, Ankhesenamun twice gave birth to stillborn girls, which ended the lineage of the clan and prevented the king from having an heir.

The newborn daughters of King Tut were laid to rest in his tomb, but his wife was not given the same honor. She requested in a letter to the Hittite king that he send one of his sons for a marriage when Tut passed away in 1324. The attempt was unsuccessful, and she eventually wed the aforementioned Vizier Ay, reportedly reluctantly, making him the next Pharaoh. Her humiliations were not over, and Ay's tomb makes no mention of her. The fact that her burial wasn't supposed to have been discovered until July 2017 was evidence of how poorly she had been handled after passing away.

In addition to alienating many of his citizens by disparaging the ancient religion, Akhenaten harmed Egypt by failing to maintain good connections with other countries, which led to the loss of trade partners and even local tax collections inside Egypt. Additionally, Tutankhamun worked to mend fences with the Asians and Nubians who lived nearby.

There is evidence to imply that there were conflicts with both of these opponents and that it wasn't all friendly overtures and trade agreements. None of them, though, were anywhere close to being so serious as to put the Egyptian kingdom's survival in jeopardy or necessitate the Boy King's personal participation. It was a crucial step in keeping the empire from falling apart and saving the economy.

Tutankhamun's reign is typically regarded as lacking in accomplishments because he passed away at the comparatively young age of 19, and because his primary claim to fame occurred so many years after his passing. But he went far further in mending the religious rifts, pleasing all the doubters of the idea of putting a nine-year-old in charge by bringing back the ancient religion and returning the nation's capital to Memphis. The Medinet Habu temple, the temple at Karnak, and the expansion of the temple at Soleb were all ordered by him after he rebuilt the outdated temples and statues and sufficiently stabilized the economy.

The enormous, relatively unharmed monument that still stands in the temple at Medinet Habu stands out in particular. These may appear specialized, but given the conditions of his ascent to power, they had an impact on Egyptian society long after Tut was gone. He was prepared to hear reason when necessary, despite the fact that his actions were also partly the result of the advice he received from people like General Horemheb and Vizier Ay.

Anyone would find it challenging to become king of one of the most powerful countries in the world at the age of nine, but Tutankhamun did so in extremely trying circumstances. It wasn't even because Egypt faced a specific threat of conquest, starvation, or any other external crisis. It was as a result of Akhenaten, his father.

The conversion of Egypt from polytheism to Aten worship under Akhenaten's 17-year rule was one of his most important achievements. Akhenaten took quite drastic steps to achieve this goal, which went against literally thousands of years of religious tradition. He commanded the destruction of Amun statues and the closure of the ancient temples.

In addition, he relocated the capital from Thebes to Amara, despite the fact that doing so required the 20,000 people he brought to the desert wasteland to start over from scratch. By alienating many of the common people of his Kingdom as well as the priests, Akhenaten had become so despised by the time of his death that Tutankhamun had changed his name from the original Tutankhaten in order to separate himself from his father's legacy. It was impossible to tell if he died naturally because his body was so poorly preserved after his death.