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region; however, his true greatness as a pharaoh and his contributions
to Egyptian life and culture will never be known. Tragically, Tut’s life
was cut short at the age of 19.
Conspiracy theories and speculation abound when it comes to
what (or who) killed Tut at such a young age but the truth, according
to forensic examinations of his remains, suggests it came down to
poor genetics.
According to History.com, Tut’s remains tell us he was tall but
physically frail, with a crippling bone disease in his clubbed left foot.
He is the only pharaoh known to have been depicted seated while
engaged in physical activities like archery. Traditional inbreeding in the
Egyptian royal family also likely contributed to the boy king’s poor
health and early death. DNA tests published in 2010 revealed that
Tutankhamun’s parents were brother and sister, and that King Tut’s
wife Ankhesenamun was also his half-sister. Their only two daughters
A view of one of the immersive rooms at were stillborn.
Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Experience
Because Tutankhamun’s remains revealed a hole in the back of the
skull, some historians had concluded that the young king was
So, who were these two men born millennia apart but now forever
linked through history? And, what have we learned about both in the assassinated, but recent tests suggest that the hole was made during
century that has passed since they first met? mummification. CT scans in 1995 showed that the king had an
infected broken left leg, while DNA from his mummy revealed
evidence of multiple malaria infections, all of which may have
King Tut contributed to his early death.
Although many details of After he died, Tutankhamun was mummified according to Egyptian
Tutankhamun’s short reign religious tradition, which held that royal bodies should be preserved
remain lost to time, historians and provisioned for the afterlife. Embalmers removed his organs and
have spent years trying to piece wrapped him in resin-soaked bandages, a 24-pound solid gold portrait
together the pharaoh’s life and mask was placed over his head and shoulders, and he was laid in a series
legacy since Carter’s discovery. of nested containers – three golden coffins, a granite sarcophagus and
Born during ancient four gilded wooden shrines, the largest of which barely fit into the
Egypt’s 18th Dynasty—which tomb’s burial chamber.
stretched from 1550 BCE to
1295 BCE—Tut began his life
under a different name:
Tutankhaten.
Genetic testing has verified
that King Tut was the
grandson of the great pharaoh
Amenhotep III, and almost
certainly the son of Akhenaten,
a controversial figure in the
history of the 18th dynasty
of Egypt’s New Kingdom
(c.1550-1295 B.C.).
Akhenaten upended a
centuries-old religious system The back of Tutankhamun’s
solid gold funerary mask.
to favor the worship of a single
deity, the sun god Aten, and
moved Egypt’s religious capital from Thebes to Amarna. In honor of
the new deity, he changed his own name to Akhenaten and named his
son Tutankhaten, meaning “living image of Aten.”
After Akhenaten’s death, two intervening pharaohs briefly reigned
before the nine-year-old prince took the throne. Showing the three layers of King Tut’s sarcophagus
Tutankhamun reversed Akhenaten’s reforms early in his reign, during an exhibition held at Luxor Las Vegas.
reviving worship of the god Amun, restoring Thebes as a religious
center, and changing the end of his name to reflect royal allegiance to Because of his tomb’s small size, historians suggest King Tut’s death
the creator god Amun. He also worked to restore Egypt’s stature in the must have been unexpected and his burial rushed by Ay, who succeeded
him as pharaoh. The tomb’s antechambers were packed to the ceiling
with more than 5,000 artifacts, including furniture, chariots, clothes,
weapons, and 130 of the lame king’s walking sticks.
The entrance corridor was apparently looted soon after the burial,
but the inner rooms remained sealed. The pharaohs who followed King
Tut chose to ignore his reign; despite his work restoring Amun,
Tutankhamun was tainted by the connection to his father’s religious
upheavals. Over the years, the tomb’s entrance became clogged with
stone debris, built over by workmen’s huts, and forgotten … until
February 16, 1923, when Howard Carter broke through and entered
his burial chamber.

The British archaeologist Howard Carter leaning on the lid of the second coffin in
the tomb of Tutankhamen, in October 1925. He had discovered the tomb’s
entrance three years earlier.

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