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King Tut, whose real name was Tutankhamun, is perhaps the best known Pharaoh of ancient Egypt in the world today. In his time, he was a relatively minor king. He was just a boy, thought to be nine years old, at the time of his appointment as ruler of Egypt. It is thought that his rule only lasted nine years, from 1333 to 1324 BC, and in relation to other Pharaohs and other periods of ancient Egyptian history Tutankhamun’s time on the throne was largely uneventful.
Yet it is true that Tutankhamun’s modern day fame is greater than almost any other Pharaoh, perhaps only excluding the great Ramesses II, whose reign was eventful, and Khufu, whose tomb is none other than the Great Pyramid at Giza. So why has this seemingly unimportant and short-lived ruler become the symbolic image of ancient Egypt? The answer lies in the archaeologist Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, the last great discovery to be made in Egypt.
The discovery restored ancient Egypt to the world’s interest and imagination. Press coverage was huge, and importantly was in an age when mass communication could make one event the talk of the world in a matter of hours. The death mask of Tutankhamun’s mummy ranks alongside the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid as one of the definitive images of ancient Egypt. Made of solid gold and adorned with the blue horizontal lines around the head dress, it shows the face of the young king and has toured the world along with other examples of the three and a half thousand objects contained within the tomb.
The reason for Tutankhamun’s continuing fascination and importance was the relative intactness of the tomb when discovered by Howard Carter. Many of the larger tombs of more significant kings had been plundered and looted over the centuries. It is thought that looters perhaps forgot Tutankhamun’s burial chambers. As a result, the tomb has revealed more about burial practices and contents than any other tomb, and reveals to archaeologists what other tombs may have lost. Those wanting an Eygpt Holidays to see this historical place can now do so directly from the UK, with airlines like Fly Monarch flying directly into Luxor, just west of the Valley of the Kings, where the tomb of King Tut is situated.
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