On November 4, 1922, an archaeological team led by British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the entrance to the tomb of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, shocking the world. Prior to this, the pharaonic tombs around ancient Egypt had long been excavated by invaders, and it was not easy for Tutankhamun's tomb to be lucky enough to survive 3200 years in the desert.
After an investigation by the Egyptian government, more than 5,000 luxurious funerary objects were unearthed from the tomb, making Tutankhamun, who only lived in the world for 19 years, the most well-known pharaoh today. Some people say that most of the understanding of Egypt's ancient civilization today comes from this pharaonic tomb.
So, what did the Carter team find in the Tutankhamun cemetery look like? What kind of secrets are hidden in this?
Since the eighteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose I of ancient Egypt, each generation of pharaohs has built an underground burial chamber in the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes in advance during the reign of each generation. Over 500 years, Thebes has had more than 30 underground tombs of pharaohs.
However, among the successive pharaohs, Tutankhamun was slightly special, he came to the world at the age of 9, and died violently at the age of 19, perhaps because of his sudden death in his early years, so that he did not have time to build a luxurious pyramid mausoleum for himself in advance. And this mausoleum may also be because of its inconspicuous appearance, so it can escape the theft of outsiders again and again.
In 1917, Howard Carter, superintendent of ancient Egyptian Nubian ruins in southern Cairo, came to the Valley of the Kings. Since coming to Egypt at the age of 16, Carter has been deeply attracted to the ancient Egyptian civilization, and after years of research, he firmly believes that there must be unknown and unexhumed pharaonic tombs in this place that has been stolen countless times.
Under Carter's leadership, the archaeological team began excavations. One evening in 1922, Carter found a small round hole in the door of an ancient tomb, and he stuck a lit candle into the hole, and the faint light of the candle broke through the darkness that had been silent for thousands of years.
Through the candlelight, Carter saw a stone staircase about six feet long, and he immediately realized that it was part of a staircase hidden underground. Over the next few days, Carter led the team to dig down carefully, and when they reached the 12th step, they found the entrance, and the outer door seal at the entrance fully confirmed that it was a mausoleum built for the pharaoh.
This mausoleum is the burial place of Tutankhamun, the 18th pharaoh of the New King period of ancient Egypt. The discovery of this mausoleum made the pharaoh, who had only lived for 19 years, a well-known figure.
On February 16, 1923, Carter and his team finally opened the entrance door, and at first, the team found only the sarcophagus of King Tutankhamun, the burial tomb, and the funerary dolls.
In fact, Tutankhamun's sarcophagus and funerary items were originally prepared for one of his ancestors, because no one expected Tutankhamun to die so early, and it was too late to prepare for him, so he had to take someone else's use for him.
There are a large number of murals throughout the cemetery, most of which are mainly religious activities and rituals; each room in the cemetery is covered with thousands of furniture, utensils, statues, weapons, royal staffs and other funerary items with unique shapes and exquisite workmanship, all decorated with gold, silver and pearls, and its luxury and integrity are jaw-dropping.
Knowing that the treasures of the cemetery were much more than that, Carter led the archaeological team through more than two months of excavation work, which finally found the location of the burial chamber, where the mummy of King Tutankhamun was located.
After entering the burial chamber, the archaeological team found the coffin of King Tutankhamun, which was divided into three overlapping humanoid coffins, and the outside of the humanoid coffin was specially equipped with an outer contour layer for protection, and each outer contour layer was just the size of the coffin that could wrap the coffin inside, and the design was very fine.
Among them, the innermost layer of the humanoid coffin weighs up to 110.9 kilograms, the whole body is made of 22K pure gold, and the outermost layer of the coffin is large enough to serve as a garage for medium-sized cars. The mummy inside the coffin is also covered with a gold mask, weighing about 10.23 kilograms, and the mask is carved with the royal emblem of the eagle and snake, and the beauty of the whole mask is rare in the world.
Carter's team also excavated a large amount of clothing in his mausoleum, and next to these costumes was a wooden model similar to his body shape. From these artifacts, it can be seen that Tutankhamun was also a fashionable man, who loved to be popular when he was alive.
Not only that, but Carter and the others also discovered the scarf that Tutankhamun had used for his baptism. According to the identification of textiles who have been in the industry for many years, if this scarf is sewn manually, it is about 11 hours a day to sew, and the uninterrupted work can be completed for 9 months.
According to statistics, Carter and others have unearthed more than 10,000 cultural relics from the tomb of King Tutankhamun, in addition to magnificent golden masks, strange animal statues, and countless Egyptian-style murals with Egyptian characteristics. It took Carter a full 5 years to find Tutankhamun's grave. After finding it, it took another 8 years to clean it up.
What was the origin of this pharaoh with endless treasures? It has always been a mystery who Tutankhamun's parents were, and archaeologists have analyzed from an inscription that Tutankhamun was the son of a pharaoh, but it is impossible to know who this pharaoh really is.
From a time perspective alone, Tutankhamun is most likely the birth of Amenhotep IV and Empress Nefertiti. During the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, the struggle between theocracy and the kingship was particularly fierce, and Amenhotep IV took the opportunity to launch the Reformation. For a time, ancient Egypt directly took the status of the god Amun, and the sun god Atun was respected by everyone.
In order to consolidate his rule, Amenhotep IV changed his name to Echnathon, which means "beneficial to the god of Atun", and moved the capital of the country to Ekhtatun to re-establish a government, hoping to completely understand the old forces. Unfortunately, this massive reform ended in failure.
After the death of Ekhnathon, the 9-year-old Tutankhamun inherited the position of pharaoh, his original name was "Tutankhatun", which means the image of "Amun", and he wanted to use this name to express to everyone that his faith had changed from worshiping the god Atun to worshiping the god Amun, in order to gain the recognition of the public.
In order to alleviate the conflict, Tutankhamun once again advocated the restoration of the old religion and took the initiative to move the capital back to Thebes. Tutankhamun's series of moves were indeed recognized by the old forces, and his position was secured. Unfortunately, during his 10 or so years in power, he died unexpectedly.
It can be seen that if calculated according to such a timeline, it is not impossible for Tutankhamun, as the heir of the previous generation of pharaohs, to sit on unlimited wealth. But why did such a wealthy pharaoh die young? What's the secret behind it?
In fact, when Carter and others excavated the tomb of Tutankhamun, in addition to the shocking infinite treasures in the tomb, the world was also confused about the early death of the pharaoh. It is said that the archaeological team at that time made important discoveries when they unveiled the pure gold mask of the mummy's head.
Just as the archaeological team unveiled all the coverings on the mummy's face in turn, they were surprised to find a very obvious scar on the young pharaoh's face near the left earlobe.
The archaeological team also found that Tutankhamun's tomb is very special, and the reason why it has not been discovered for many years is most likely because the entire tomb looks very ordinary and is not specially built for the royal family.
Not only that, the decoration in the tomb is very sloppy, most of the valuable treasures are not used by Tutankhamun in daily life, and the names of many objects on the surface have traces of modification, which is enough to see that these objects were not used by Tutankhamun himself in the first place.
In addition, even mummies are not made as the most common method, that is, soaking with preservative spices, and Tutankhamun mummies are directly poured on the body with barrels of spices. It can be seen that Tutankhamun probably died in a sudden event.
According to the research of scholars at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, it turned out that Tutankhamun had a clear shadow of blood clots in his brain cavity, which confirmed that Tutankhamun's hindbrain had suffered a violent blow. It can be found that all the evidence points to the fact that the pharaoh who died young was actually killed by murder! The most suspected criminal was the regent Ayi at that time.
As mentioned above, Tutankhamun inherited his father's throne at the age of 9, and when he was young, he did not have the ability to run the country at first, and when his father reigned, Ay was the prime minister, so when Tutankhamun reigned, the real power was gathered in the hands of Ayi, who was deeply trusted by the pharaohs of all generations.
Ayi's reason for murdering Tutankhamun is very simple, because he covets the throne of Pharaoh, and there is all kinds of evidence that after Tutankhamun's death, Ayi did become the new pharaoh.
On the frescoes of Tutankhamun's tomb is a painting of Ayi presiding over Tutankhamun's funeral, while ancient Egypt had always stipulated that only the next heir could preside over the pharaoh's funeral.
However, this conjecture has also been rejected by many well-known scholars, who have shown that "everyone likes to speculate, but to this day there is no evidence to prove these speculations." ”
In fact, in order to verify whether Tutankhamun died of murder, the Egyptian Archaeological Department and the United States research team launched a joint operation, they placed the mummy under high-tech equipment, directly on its skull, ribs and other places for stereoscopic photography, to find out the real cause of death.
Unfortunately, the results did not indicate that Tutankhamun died of murder, and there is no evidence that he was hit the back of the head and that he was less likely to suffer a chest injury.
However, through CT scans, the researchers found that Tutankhamun's thigh bone had been fractured, indicating that he had injured his thigh before he died, and in that underdeveloped era, Tutankhamun was most likely infected with bacteria and eventually died.
"Atrocities without disputes are stupid", as technology becomes more advanced, many unsolved mysteries in the past have finally found the most correct answers, and the secret of Tutankhamun's sudden death is finally no longer just an untrue rumor.
Although, in 1922, the tomb of the pharaoh, which had been buried for more than 3,000 years, was finally excavated, it can be said that until now, the history of Tutankhamun's discovery has not been completed.
Now that almost a century has passed since 1922, experts show that only 30% of the study of Tutankhamun and his mausoleum has been carried out, leaving a lot of room for future generations of scholars to discover more of the pharaoh's "secrets".
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