Dan Snow's History Hit - 3. Tutankhamun: The Life of a Boy Pharaoh

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

3/4. How much do we know about Tutankhamun, his short life and even shorter reign? Dan unravels the complicated legacy of Tutankhamun's predecessor Akhenaten who changed the very fabric of Egyptian society, leaving his son Tutankhamun to change it back. In life, the boy pharaoh was plagued by health complications and died aged 18, leaving very little information about his life. Dan and Egyptologist Dr Campbell Price look to his tomb to see what it can tell us about his reign, death and funeral.Listen to episode one - Tutankhamun: The Valley of the Kings.Listen to episode two - Tutankhamun: The Discovery of a Lifetime.This podcast was written and produced by Mariana Des Forges and mixed by Dougal PatmoreIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

On November 1st, 1922, Howard Carter began his final search to find the missing tomb of Tutankhamun. He'd been given one last chance by Lord Carnarvon, who was ready to pull the plug after funding a fruitless, costly, five-year search. five years such. November the 4th, 1922. At about 10am I discovered beneath almost the first hut attacked the first traces of the entrance of the tomb. This comprised the first step of the northeast corner of the sunken staircase. Quite a short time sufficed to show that it was the beginning of a steep excavation cut in the bedrock,

about four meters below the entrance of Ramesses VI's tomb. 5th November 1922. Towards sunset we had cleared down to the level of the 12th step, which was sufficient to expose a large part of the upper portion of a plastered and sealed doorway. Here before us was sufficient evidence to show that it really was an entrance to a tomb. I examined this exposed portion of the sealed doorway and noticed that the only decipher the verge of perhaps a magnificent find, probably one of the missing tombs that I had been seeking for many years. I was much puzzled by the smallness of the opening

in comparison with those of other royal tombs in the valley. Could it be the tomb of a noble, buried there by royal consent? Or was it a royal cache? Had I known that by digging a few inches deeper I would have exposed seal impressions showing Tutankhamen's insignia distinctly, I should have fervently worked on and set my mind at rest. But as it was, it was getting late. The night had fast set in. The full moon had risen high in the eastern heavens. I refilled the excavation for protection.

I returned home and cabled to Lord Carnarvon in England. The following message. At last have made wonderful discovery in valley. The magnificent tomb with seals intact, recovered same for your arrival. Congratulations. The name Tutankhamun carved on the sealed stone door. The discovery was about to set off a worldwide craze that would be dubbed Tutmania. But what do we actually know about the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun, his short life and even shorter reign?

You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. This is our special mini-series marking the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. From Egypt, we're telling the dramatic story of the Valley of the Kings, this once magnificent royal cemetery, many of its greatest tombs lost beneath the shifting desert sands. It's extraordinary the kind of exploration he had to do. Pitch blackness, bats flying around, dust in your face, not really knowing what you were going to see next or what would happen next. Snakes, the possibility of a

ceiling falling down on you. Every explorer determined to find the ultimate prize, an intact undisturbed tomb and in it the legendary royal treasure of the pharaohs. Once they saw all the treasures and they were basically cluttered everywhere. This kind of treasure hasn't been found before. This is episode three, the life of a boy pharaoh. The life of a boy pharaoh. Tutankhamun ascended to the throne at the astonishingly young age of nine, and then died at 19.

So there wasn't a whole lot of time to get much done. But his reign was actually pretty important for Egypt. His father, Akhenaten, during his time as pharaoh, changed everything in Egyptian culture, from art to architecture, the country's capital, and most importantly, religion. And it would fall to Tutankhamen to change it back. Akhenaten changed Egypt from a polytheistic society to a monotheistic one. Some admired him, while many despisedised him and he became known as the heretic king. His artistic and religious reforms are called the Amarna revolution.

Whether driven by religious fervour or a political desire to distance himself from the priesthood of Amun, Akhenaten's reign was a remarkable step away from the status quo. Akhenaten was the son of Amenhotep III, whose reign saw the building of some of Egypt's most impressive temples and monuments. His was a powerful empire. Kaleen and John Darnell are Egyptologists who've just written a book called Egypt's Golden Couple about Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. By the reign of Amenhotep III, Egypt is allied with the kingdom of Mitanni in far northern Mesopotamia. Egypt controls Nubia to the south as far as the confluence of the Nile and the Atbara there in the far south. Egypt sends out military mining expeditions, trade expeditions throughout the eastern desert

and the western desert. So it's a very expansive empire. It's really the wealthiest state of the ancient North African, Near Eastern, Mediterranean world of the time. I always think it wins as the greatest sequence of rulers in history. I mean, from Thutmose I, Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep. I mean, there's a run of extraordinary pharaohs here. They're extraordinarily interesting rulers from the early through the middle 18th dynasty, really the entire 18th dynasty. Certainly, there's no shortage of characters, of interesting characters throughout the 18th dynasty. And whatever they do, they do it with gusto and on a massive scale. I would say that certainly the

success of the 18th dynasty was greatly helped by the ability of the pharaohs who ruled from Tammuz I all the way through Amenhotep III and Akhenaten to make really effective decisions. But of course, Egypt has huge natural advantages. The annual flooding of the Nile makes it so easy to farm, to produce surplus. And really since the time of the pyramids, the ancient Egyptian state had a very well-developed bureaucracy. So even if the king wasn't involved in every aspect of decision-making, which he certainly couldn't have been, or she couldn't have been in the case of Hatshepsut, they really have established a well-oiled hierarchy

in administration, religion, and the military that really kept things going and running smoothly, even if, say, the king wasn't as involved in day-to-day decisions. Amenhotep III's prosperous reign meant his son Akhenaten inherited a stable and powerful Egypt when he came to the throne in 1352 BC, over 3,000 years ago. Initially, his name was Amenhotep IV after his father, but later he changed it. He married one of Egypt's most famous queens, Nefertiti. We don't know anything about Nefertiti's childhood, and in fact the name Nefertiti, which means the beautiful one has

come, has arrived, may not even be her name. Just as Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaten, Nefertiti might have been a name that she adopted when she became queen. But additional evidence does suggest that her father was Ai, who ultimately becomes pharaoh after the death of Tutankhamen. And Ai might himself be the son of Yuya and Tuya, which would make Akhenaten and Nefertiti first cousins on both their maternal and paternal sides. Initially as pharaoh, Akhenaten continued his father's policies. He encouraged trade and ensured good diplomacy and foreign affairs, a strong military and infrastructure building. But within only a few years, concern for the lives of his people fell by the wayside

as he became obsessive about his religious devotions. This is when he changed his name to Akhenaten and moved the capital from Thebes, which is now Luxor, to new untouched ground in the middle of Egypt. He built an entirely new city on virgin territory, calling it Akhataten, now modern-day Amarna. By moving the capital, Akhenaten is taking control of everything to this one city. So rather than having the administration and the religious cults spread throughout Egypt in terms of major royal patronage, instead he's totally concentrating this on himself and on his capital city. The ancient Egyptians were polytheistic. They knew that one

individual deity couldn't be everything. Just like now, when we go to the doctor, optician, or dentist, we have friends, teachers, and partners, and parents, all different people who contribute to our life in different ways. the ancient Egyptians saw gods in the same way. Different gods for different things. Osiris is the lord and judge of the dead. Geb, god of the earth and growing things. Amun, or Amun-Ra, is god of the sun and air and in some periods was considered supreme king of the gods. When Akhenaten made his reforms, Egypt now only worshipped one god, Aten. He praised Aten as the creator, the giver of life, the nurturing spirit of the world. He promoted Aten to the supreme and only god. Pharaohs were seen as having divine powers. They were the mediator between their people and the gods.

Although there was a bit of flexibility. Akhenaten seems to have made himself and his wife Nefertiti gods as well. Akhenaten and Nefertiti considered themselves to be gods as well. So by definition, Akhenaten is not a monotheist because he forms a trinity with Aten and Nefertiti. So the idea of Aten being the only god is because Aten is the only god that yet exists. One god for the Egyptians is what exists at the beginning of time. And so that's what Akhenaten is doing. He's going back to the beginning of time. Aten is the only god, yet, that has been created because he created himself.

And then Akhenaten and Nefertiti are the first generation of additional gods to be created. Akhenaten made this trinity the centre of religious culture and life. Worship of other gods was eventually banned and their temples closed. Temples weren't seen as places of worship, more like earthly homes for the gods was eventually banned and their temples closed. Temples weren't seen as places of worship, more like earthly homes for the gods. The priest wasn't there to lead a congregation, but as a caretaker of the statue of the god. These temples were grand complexes with staff who cooked, cleaned, brewed beer, stored grain, copied manuscripts, taught students, served as doctors, dentists, nurses, people who interpreted dreams, signs and omens for visitors who came searching for answers. The temples were important for businesses outside the complexes too.

They supported entire industries. The harvest and processing of papyrus depended on the temples, as did amulet makers, jewellers and weavers. When Akhenaten decided to close the temples and abolish the traditional religious beliefs, social and economic systems across the country suffered. But surprisingly, there isn't much evidence to say that there was major unrest in the cities in response to these changes. The reign of Akhenaten is seen as a bad blip in Egyptian history when nothing really went right. The gods were abandoned, so the gods in turn abandoned Egypt. And Akhenaten is very quickly erased from king lists, and he's simply referred to obliquely when referred to at all as the rebel of Akhenaten. If you want more Tutankhamun or ancient Egypt content, sign up for a monthly subscription to History Hit with code DANSNOW to get 50% off your first three months and a free trial.

I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, kings and popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Akhenaten has a complicated legacy. Regarded as a heretic in the centuries after,

many now see him as a visionary who challenged the established order, led innovations in art, and figured out how to consolidate power around himself as king. At the time of his death, there was turmoil. A situation inherited by the boy believed to be his son, Tutankhamun. Who exactly Tutankhamun's mother was is still something of a mystery. It's understood that Nefertiti was Tutankhamun's mother was is still something of a mystery. It's understood that Nefertiti was Tutankhamun's stepmother and another woman who was Akhenaten's sister was Tutankhamun's birth mother. Inbreeding was a pattern throughout almost all ancient Egyptian dynasties and was certainly the case in this family. It was potentially the cause for at least some of the pain Tutankhamun suffered throughout his life. Tutankhamun had a

cleft palate, curved spine and most likely a weakened immune system. He had a clubbed foot and some of the bones in his toes were dying from a degenerative disease. This probably caused his foot to swell from inflammation, making it impossible to walk comfortably. As for his personality, Dr Campbell Price, curator of the Egypt and Sudan collection at the Manchester Museum, says it's difficult for us to really know. Although he was very young, maybe nine years old when he came to the throne and would have been surrounded by advisors and people to make decisions for him, he was a significant character. He must have had his own mind. We just don't know exactly what that mind was. He never

left us any letters detailing his own point of view. We do know that Tutankhamun, perhaps forced to by his advisors, reversed the reforms made by Akhenaten. He restored the ancient polytheistic belief system. He reopened temples and businesses that depend on them were restored. For that, he would have been respected. But Tutankhamun didn't really live long enough to see his reforms through. His successor, the former vizier, or sort of prime minister, Ai, carried them on. It was Horemheb, the military general turned advisor and then pharaoh after Ai, who finished the job. When he took the throne, Horemheb made it his life's mission to erase the Amarna period from the record. He razed the city of Akhataten and dumped the ruins of its monuments into pits as fill for his own monuments. So it's Horemheb who took the credit for restoring Egypt,

not Tutankhamun, which just adds to why we don't know a huge amount about him. Egyptian history did rather lump him in with his predecessors, the problematic Amarna kings like Akhenaten. So his name was removed, which in part, of course, helped disguise him and struck him off the list. So when people might have been looking for tombs in the Valley of the Kings, he wasn't there. So his kind of reflected lack of glory because of the Amarna period might have helped the tomb survive pretty much intact into modern times. Do we only remember him because of the astonishing wealth of the finds that were made in his tomb that was almost entirely intact? Or is he an important historical figure in his own right,

coming as he does at the end of this controversial reign? One of the things that John and I wrote about in an earlier book was the significance of Tutankhamen's reign. So not just his golden treasures, but things that are accomplished historically during his nine years on the throne. Now, whether he was making most of those decisions, obviously, you know, a 10 year old isn't necessarily going to be in command of the decisions. Obviously, you know, a 10-year-old isn't necessarily going to be in command of the army, but there are expeditions into the eastern desert. There are campaigns in Nubia, and he seems to continue a fairly successful series of strategies in the northeastern portion of Egypt's empire. One of the things we can say about the reign of Tutankhamun is there was considerable activity in the southeastern desert of Egypt.

There seems to have been a major military campaign against rebel groups in the south. There is activity in the northeastern frontier. We have evidence even of a possible sort of reform of the border patrols in the Egyptian deserts. We have evidence for a type of bipartite oversight of the sort we find for the high Roman Empire. So actually, the reign of Tutankhamen was on its way, no doubt, to being somewhat significant with regards to,

let's say, foreign affairs in Egypt, just as we see developing for his father and his grandfather. And unfortunately, he isn't around then long enough to become a great ruler, let's say, in his own right. One of the unfortunate things about Tutankhamen is appealing to popular sentiment right after the discovery of the tomb. Carter and a number of people emphasize this tragic boy king aspect to Tutankhamun. And certainly it's tragic that he died so young, but he's not important just because he's the tragic boy king who gave his life for tourism as he's been presented to the modern world. Tutankhamun died aged 19. Testing with DNA technology suggests he had raging malaria and a broken leg,

both compounded by underlying health conditions. He was buried in the Valley of the Kings, across from the newly restored religious centre of Thebes, now Luxor. In his tomb, buried with him, were were the fetuses of two stillborn daughters. They would all lie undisturbed for over 3,000 years. In the burial chamber in Tutankhamun's tomb there's a representation of the funeral which is very intriguing because it may be a rare case where the representation, the actual painting, was done after the main event had taken place. Because we know that they were painting really until the last minute and the tomb was sealed.

We don't absolutely know for sure in what order objects were brought to the tomb. We know from later royal burials that it's likely that the king's tomb was partly already stocked with objects by the time the burial took place. Maybe that was the case in Tutankhamun's time. But I suspect at least the mummy or the inner coffin, that solid gold inner coffin, would have been brought in a cortege, on a bier, on a sledge, and behind that would come various important objects and various important people. We know that the people themselves probably had a meal, had a funerary feast, because evidence of that, of the remains of food and of floral collars that they were wearing,

were found elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings, buried elsewhere. So although it would be a very solemn and probably very sad occasion, remember he only died 18, 19 years old, it would still have been today a social occasion. It would have been something people, I guess, would have been privileged to attend, if not actively enjoyed.

I suspect they probably did have music at the funeral. Whether that was what we imagine from a kind of great state occasion, brass band, probably not. But we know from the tomb there are ritual rattles called sistra, may have been shaken. These were all parts of religious rituals in temples which were being emulated because the burning of incense, the performance of dancing, the making of music were things that made the status of the king or the god more divine. So what you wanted was more divinity, more godliness of the king or the god more divine so what you wanted was more divinity more godliness for the king and so those actions would have provided that i guess i think in the day of tootin carmen you know um in any pre-modern situation news of the king proclamation of the death of the king would have had to have been taken on

on foot, maybe by boat to certain regional centers and then disseminated from there. So we know that the ancient Egyptian dating system was very precise and was to the day of when a king died and a new king took over. So the people with the king would agree the date he had died and then the same day the new pharaoh would take over or the next day the new pharaoh would take over. So that was an agreed moment. And then it was simply about telling everyone, A, the pharaoh had died.

And the euphemism that is used for that event is the falcon has flown to heaven. The falcon has flown to heaven. The king has died. And then immediately, you know, there's a new dating system. We've gone from whatever year date the previous king was on to year one, day one. And so you just simply begin again. 26th of November, 1922. After clearing nine metres of the descending passage in about the middle of the afternoon, we came upon a second sealed doorway, which was almost the exact replica of the first.

The seal impressions were of Tutankhamun and of the royal necropolis, but not in any way so clear as those on the first doorway. Feverishly, we cleared away the remaining last scraps of rubbish on the floor of the passage before the doorway, until we had only the clean sealed doorway before us. After making preliminary notes, we made a tiny breach in the top left-hand corner to see what was beyond. Darkness and the iron testing rod told us that there was empty space. Perhaps another descending staircase in accordance to the ordinary royal Theban tomb plan.

Or maybe a chamber. Candles were procured, the all-important tell-tale foul gases when opening an ancient subterranean excavation. I widened the breach and by means of the candle looked in and while Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn and Calendar with the Reese's waited in anxious expectation. Tomorrow I follow Howard Carter's journey

into the burial chamber of Tutankhamun. Beyond that mud door is the corridor that I'm in now, a shaft going further down into the earth and then they came to the door of the tomb itself. Make sure to download the final episode in the story of Tutankhamun, and as always, if you've enjoyed it so far, please leave us a review. This episode was written and produced by Marianna Desforges and mixed by Dougal Patmore. You've been listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. Bye for now.