47 Fun Facts About Tutankhamun

To which dynasty of ancient Egypt did Tutankhamun belong?

The Eighteenth Dynasty's royal bloodline ended with Tutankhamun, who died without an heir, and within decades an army commander's family had founded a new dynasty.

About how old was Tutankhamun when he died?

Examinations and scans of the mummy put his age at death at about 18 or 19, which is why he is remembered as the 'boy king'.

Which god's cult at Thebes did King Tut restore to prominence, undoing Atenism?

Amun's temples got their wealth and priests back, and the king and queen swapped the -aten in their names for -amun to mark the change.

From which capital, built by Akhenaten, did Tutankhamun move the royal court early in his reign?

Akhenaten's capital at Amarna was abandoned within a few years, and Thebes, home of the old gods, regained its place as Egypt's great religious centre.

What relationship between Tutankhamun's parents did the 2010 DNA study report?

Full brother and sister, both children of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye; the study's authors suggested such inbreeding may explain the king's frail health.

Which of Akhenaten's daughters did Tutankhamun marry?

Ankhesenpaaten, Akhenaten's third daughter, changed her name to Ankhesenamun when the court turned back to the old gods.

How old was Tutankhamun when he became pharaoh?

He became pharaoh at eight or nine, so powerful advisers governed in his name and steered the return to the traditional religion.

Which part of Tutankhamun's gold mask came off in 2014 and was hastily glued back with epoxy?

The beard came off when the mask was taken out of its case, and museum staff stuck it back with epoxy that left visible traces until conservators redid the repair in 2015.

Which instruments from Tutankhamun's tomb were played live on BBC radio in 1939?

Trumpets of silver and bronze, silent for over 3,000 years, were sounded by an army bandsman for an estimated 150 million listeners; the presenter claimed the silver one had shattered in an earlier attempt.

Atenism, the religion that Tutankhamun's reign reversed, centred on the worship of what?

The sun disc, called the Aten, had been raised above every other god by Akhenaten, who stripped the old priesthoods of their wealth; the boy king was first named Tutankhaten in its honour.

After Tutankhamun died, an Egyptian queen, probably his widow, asked which foreign power for a husband?

The Hittites recorded the letter in their own annals: their king sent a son, who died on the way to Egypt, so the plan to put a foreign prince on the throne came to nothing.

Tutankhamun was one of the few pharaohs to be what during his own lifetime?

Worshipped as a god in his own lifetime, Tutankhamun had temples to his deified form built in Nubia, an honour most kings received only after death.

DNA tests published in 2010 found traces of which disease in Tutankhamun's mummy?

Malaria parasites of the most severe strain showed up in his samples, and the study's authors argued that a bout of it finished off a king already weakened by a bone disorder.

What proved Tutankhamun's leg broke before death rather than during modern handling?

Embalming substances were found inside the fracture of his left femur on the 2005 CT scan, so the break had to predate mummification; it was probably suffered days before his death.

More than 130 of which objects, some worn from use, were found in Tutankhamun's tomb?

Walking sticks and staves filled the tomb; the 2010 study's authors took them as proof he needed a cane, though other scholars read them as badges of royal rank.

CT scans of Tutankhamun's skull showed which facial trait shared with his royal relatives?

An overbite ran in the family line, and the reconstructions built from the 2005 scans gave the king the same slightly protruding front teeth.

What did the 1968 X-ray find inside Tutankhamun's skull that briefly fuelled a murder theory?

Two loose bone fragments showed up in Ronald Harrison's 1968 X-ray; the 2005 CT scan showed they came from the embalming or the modern unwrapping, not from a blow to the head.

Which successor is shown performing the opening-of-the-mouth ritual on Tutankhamun's burial chamber wall?

Ay, already an elderly man, is shown performing the rite that an heir carried out for the dead king, which legitimised his own claim to the throne.

Which commander-in-chief of Tutankhamun's army eventually became pharaoh himself?

Horemheb rose from the army to the throne and then turned on the memory of the kings he had served, erasing their names and taking over their monuments.

The search for Tutankhamun's missing mortuary temple led in 2021 to the discovery of what?

The lost city of Aten, a settlement from Amenhotep III's reign with rooms still full of everyday objects, was hailed as one of the most important finds since Tutankhamun's own tomb.

What is the usual explanation for Tutankhamun's unusually small tomb?

His own tomb was not finished when he died young, so a smaller one was adapted, though some Egyptologists suspect his successor simply swapped tombs and kept the grander one.

Under which designation is Tutankhamun's tomb known in the Valley of the Kings?

KV62 lay hidden under flood debris and the remains of ancient workmen's huts, which is why robbers and excavators alike missed it for some 3,000 years.

Which American excavator wrote in 1912 that the Valley of the Kings was 'exhausted'?

Theodore Davis had found a pit of Tutankhamun's embalming leftovers and mistook another small find for the king's tomb, so he gave up the valley before the real one emerged.

Who led the excavation that found Tutankhamun's tomb?

Howard Carter had searched the valley for years with little to show, and his patron had agreed to pay for only one more season when the tomb finally turned up.

Which aristocrat financed the search for Tutankhamun's tomb?

The 5th Earl of Carnarvon began digging at Thebes as an amateur, soon felt the need of expert help, and so formed the partnership that found the tomb.

What was uncovered on 4 November 1922, the first sign of Tutankhamun's tomb?

A rock-cut step, found beneath the remains of ancient workmen's huts, proved to be the top of a sunken staircase leading down to a sealed doorway.

Roughly how many objects were catalogued from Tutankhamun's tomb?

About 5,000: his is the only royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings found nearly intact, so its contents survived where other kings' burial goods had been stripped in antiquity.

How long did it take to clear and catalogue Tutankhamun's tomb after its discovery?

Ten years: thousands of fragile objects had to be recorded and conserved before they could be moved, and the last of them did not reach Cairo until 1932.

The blade of a dagger found in Tutankhamun's tomb was made of iron from what source?

The iron came from a meteorite: a 2016 X-ray fluorescence study showed the blade's nickel and cobalt levels match meteoritic iron; a miniature headrest, an Eye of Horus amulet and chisel blades were also iron.

Erased names show some of Tutankhamun's burial goods were first made for whom?

A predecessor: traces of the name Neferneferuaten, probably a woman who reigned just before him, lie under his own on pieces such as the small coffins that held his organs.

Where has Tutankhamun's mummy been on public display since 2007?

In his own tomb: the mummy was moved from its sarcophagus into a climate-controlled glass case there, to shield it from the heat and moisture that crowds of visitors bring in.

How long after Tutankhamun's tomb was found did the dig's sponsor die, fuelling talk of a curse?

Five months on, he died in Cairo of blood poisoning after cutting open a mosquito bite while shaving, and newspapers were quick to blame the pharaoh's curse.

Tutankhamun's coffins show him holding a crook and flail in the guise of which god?

Osiris, god of the dead, was the model for all three coffins and the gold mask, because a dead king was identified with the god who ruled the afterlife.

Which US president had a pet dog named King Tut?

Herbert Hoover's Belgian shepherd King Tut featured in his 1928 campaign photographs; 1920s Tut-mania also produced the Tin Pan Alley hit 'Old King Tut' by Harry Von Tilzer.

Which comedian had a 1978 novelty hit with the song 'King Tut'?

Steve Martin wrote it to mock the trinkets, T-shirts and posters sold around the touring exhibition, and performed it on Saturday Night Live dressed as a pharaoh.

Tutankhamun was buried beside the ancient city of Thebes, known today by what name?

Luxor stands on the site of Thebes, where New Kingdom pharaohs chose hidden tombs in a valley across the Nile instead of conspicuous pyramids.

The American tour of Tutankhamun's treasures grew out of a 1974 deal between Egypt's Anwar Sadat and which president?

Richard Nixon agreed it with Sadat on a visit to Egypt weeks before he resigned over Watergate, and millions of Americans later queued for hours to see the show.

Which museum, fully opened in 2025, became the permanent home of Tutankhamun's treasures?

The Grand Egyptian Museum, beside the Giza pyramids, shows the whole tomb collection in one place, where the old museum in Tahrir Square put only part of it on show.

Which Egyptian priest-historian's king list names a 'Rathotis' often identified with Tutankhamun?

Manetho, a priest writing in Greek around 300 BC, kept a nine-year king called Rathotis, even though Egypt's own official king lists had skipped Tutankhamun altogether.

Which woman, known from her tomb at Saqqara, was Tutankhamun's wet nurse?

Maia's tomb at Saqqara, found in 1996, shows the young king seated on her lap, and its excavator has since argued she was really his sister Meritaten.

The reincarnated princess in the 1932 horror film The Mummy is named after which relative of Tutankhamun?

His wife lent her name to the film's princess, a touch of authenticity from a screenwriter who had reported on the opening of the tomb as a journalist.

Besides the king, whose two mummies were buried in Tutankhamun's tomb?

His daughters, two infants, one born months premature and one near full term, lay in small coffins in the Treasury; with no surviving child, the family's line died with him.

Tutankhamun's wife was a daughter of Akhenaten and which famous queen?

Nefertiti bore Akhenaten six daughters, and the third married Tutankhamun, probably her own half-brother, a match that kept the throne inside the royal family.

Highclere Castle, home of the man who paid for the Tutankhamun dig, is known to TV viewers as which house?

Downton Abbey was filmed at Highclere, and the visitors the series drew paid for repairs the family could not otherwise afford; the castle also shows Egyptian antiquities he collected.

What was the innermost of Tutankhamun's three nested coffins made of?

Solid gold, some 110 kilograms of it, formed the innermost coffin, to the excavators' surprise, since the two outer coffins were only wood covered in gold sheet.

The Treasures of Tutankhamun tour opened in 1972 in which city?

London's British Museum showed the treasures fifty years after the tomb's discovery; they toured the Soviet Union next and reached the United States only once Egypt had moved closer to Washington.

Which Egyptian archaeologist led both the 2005 CT scan and the 2010 DNA study of Tutankhamun's mummy?

Zahi Hawass, then Egypt's antiquities chief, used the scans to rule out the old theory that the king was killed by a blow to the head.