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In the latest in our series charting the contested reputations of key historical figures, Joyce Tyldesley and Catharine Edwards discuss the life and legacy of Egyptian queen Cleopatra
In the latest in our series charting the contested reputations of key historical figures, Joyce Tyldesley and Catharine Edwards discuss the life and cultural afterlife of Egyptian queen Cleopatra – from her association with feminine beauty to the focus on her romantic relationships. Want to hear more? Browse more episodes in our Great Reputations podcast series
Life in Ancient Egypt: what was it like?
Egypt's pharaohs have left an impressive legacy of stone architecture, monumental inscriptions and religious art, allowing us to reconstruct their achievements with a fair degree of certainty. But what was daily life like for the ordinary Egyptian? Here, Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley shares 10 lesser-known facts
Who were the ‘ordinary people’? Imagine the population of ancient Egypt arranged in a social pyramid: the pyramid base is supported by slaves, servants and the serfs; and tenant farmers work the estates owned by the king, the elite and the temples. Next come the skilled and semi-skilled artisans; the soldiers, sailors and those employed on the great state projects (the building sites, tombs and temples). Above them are the educated professional classes, including scribes, accountants and doctors. Finally come the nobility; the elite who control much of Egypt’s wealth. The royal family remain exclusive and aloof at the top of the pyramid, while the king, or pharaoh – the only mortal who is deemed able to communicate effectively with the state gods – is superior to everyone. The family Egypt had the highest birth rate in the ancient world. And yet, things were far from perfect. Illnesses and accidents could not be avoided, and there was no welfare programme to protect the unfortunate. The family provided the only reliable support mechanism and was therefore an institution of immense importance, with marriage a practical rather than a romantic bond, designed to create a viable economic unit. Everyone, even the gods and goddesses, married. An unmarried man was seen as incomplete, and schoolboys were advised to wed early and father as many children as possible. Destined to follow in their parents’ footsteps, boys were trained in the trades and professions by their fathers and uncles, while girls stayed at home to learn from their mothers. In their early teens girls would marry and the cycle would start again. Mistress of the house Husbands and wives had complementary but differing roles within the marriage. While the husband worked outside the home, earning the rations that would feed his family, the wife or ‘mistress of the house’ ran the household, providing food, drink, clothing and cleaning services as needed. To reflect this traditional allocation of duties, the Egyptian artists depicted women as pale skinned ‘indoor’ people, while men appeared as darker skinned ‘outdoor’ workers. Childcare, cooking and cleaning were considered important, but they have little impact on the archaeological or written record. Consequently we know less about Egypt’s women than we do about its men. One thing we do know, however, is that women had the same legal rights as men of equivalent social status. This allowed them to own their own property and to live alone without the intervention of a male guardian. Childbirth Most married women spent much of their lives either pregnant or breast-feeding. With little medical advice available, amulets and charms bearing the figures of the pregnant hippopotamus goddess Taweret and the dwarf demi-god Bes were used to protect both the mother and her unborn child. Read more | Midwifery and childbirth: a historical A–Z guide The mother prepared for birth by removing her clothing and loosening her hair. In a wealthy household she may have retreated to a specially constructed birthing hut; this was a privilege available to few. The mother squatted on birthing bricks for the delivery, and a midwife used a sharp obsidian or flint knife to cut the umbilical cord. If something went wrong, there was very little the midwife could do to help. Mothers breastfed their babies for up to three years. The home The Egyptians built their towns and cities from mud-brick, reserving stone for their temples and tombs. Building with this material was both cheap and fast, but unfortunately, over time, almost all the mudbrick houses and palaces have crumbled and dissolved. Fortunately, the workmen’s village of Deir el-Medina – home of the royal tomb-builders – has survived relatively intact. Here the terraced houses were long, narrow and dark, with a wooden front door opening directly onto the main street. Each house included two living or public rooms, a storeroom or bedroom, and a kitchen equipped with a mud-brick oven. The roof over the kitchen was made from matting that would allow smoke and cooking smells to escape. Stairs gave access to the rest of the roof, which could be used as an additional living space. Food and drink Egypt was a very fertile land, and under normal circumstances no one went hungry. Food could be homegrown, earned in the form of rations (there was no money), hunted, fished or bartered at market. Water could be obtained from wells, the Nile, or irrigation canals built by the Egyptians. Grain – wheat or barley – was the principal source of carbohydrate. Everyone ate vast quantities of bread, even the gods, whose temples received daily offerings of hundreds of loaves. Vegetables and fish were widely available, and the typical peasant family ate a healthy diet rich in bread, fish, onions and pulses supplemented by occasional small game and fowl. The elite ate meat on a more regular basis. Chicken, which is consumed in vast quantities in modern Egypt, was not available. Beer, a mild, thick, slightly sweet beverage best drunk through a filtering straw, was the main drink of the masses, consumed at every meal. Wine made from grapes grown in the Nile Delta was a privilege of the elite. Clothes Many painted tomb walls show Egypt’s elite dressed in gleaming white, intricately pleated garments as they walk through the fields or enjoy a tasty banquet. This is very much an idealised image. Archaeological evidence indicates that most women dressed in practical, plain, sleeved dresses similar in style to the simple galabiyahs worn by modern Egyptian villagers. These dresses were made from linen; cotton and silk being unknown in ancient Egypt. Woven sandals and a shawl for warmth completed the outfit. Men had a similar wardrobe, although the long outer garment would be removed and replaced by a kilt when working in the fields. These simple garments would have been very valuable; they would have been handed down, patched and darned, until at the end of their useful life, they were used as mummy wrappings. Laundry was done in the canal or the Nile, with natron, a salt-rich mineral, as a cleaning agent. Health Egypt’s doctors were considered the best in the ancient Mediterranean world. They employed a combination of scientific techniques (observation and diagnosis) and magical rituals (spells and charms) to bring about their cures. Patients might be treated with a prescription – human milk being considered a particularly effective ingredient – or by minor surgery. There was some specialisation among doctors, with Egypt’s gynaecologists offering not only the treatment of female illnesses, but also the provision of fertility and pregnancy tests and (unreliable) contraceptive measures. Although mummification made the Egyptians aware of the arrangement of the internal organs, their understanding of the body systems was inaccurate. They believed that there was a network of ‘canals’ centred on the heart, which included the blood vessels, tear-ducts, and nerves. Obstructions within this system would cause floods and droughts in different areas of the body. Religion The Egyptian pantheon included several thousand deities. These gods might be arranged in a loose hierarchy, with nationally recognised state gods at the top, locally significant gods in the middle, and demi-gods and supernatural beings at the bottom. While the king and his priests worshipped the important state gods in their state temples, his subjects were almost entirely excluded from state religion. Instead, they worshipped an eclectic mix of local gods, demi-gods and supernatural beings; the spirits and ancestors who never developed formal cults, but who undoubtedly had an enormous influence on the lives of the ordinary people. Magic was, at all levels of society, a real and potent power that could be used to protect the innocent and ward off harm. It could not be separated in any meaningful way from either formal religion or science. Life after death In Ancient Egypt death was not necessarily the end of life. The Egyptians believed it was possible to live again, if the corpse was preserved in a lifelike form so that it might form a bridge between the spirit of the deceased and the land of the living. So, as soon as possible after death, the body was taken to the undertaker’s workshop. Here it was laid on a sloping embalming table, stripped, and washed. Read more | How to make an Egyptian mummy in 6 steps The brain was immediately discarded. This was usually achieved by breaking the ethmoid bone (the bone separating the nasal cavity from the skull cavity) and poking a long-handled spoon up a nostril. The heart, in contrast, was left in place. Next an incision was made in the left flank, then the stomach, intestine, lungs and liver drawn out. The finger- and toenails were tied in place and the corpse packed with natron salt. It was left for up to 40 days, until entirely dry. Finally the desiccated body was washed, oiled and bandaged. Not everyone could afford this treatment, however. The vast majority of the population were buried unmummified, in simple desert graves. What kind of an afterlife did these Egyptians expect? We will probably never know. Joyce Tyldesley, senior lecture in Egyptology at the University of Manchester, is the author of Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt (Allen Lane 2010) and Tutankhamen’s Curse: the developing history of an Egyptian king (Profile 2012). You can follow Joyce on Twitter @JoyceTyldesley
The forgotten women in Tutankhamun’s tomb
What can the treasures uncovered in Tutankhamun’s tomb tell us about women in the young pharaoh’s life, including his young wife Ankhesenamun? As we approach the 100th anniversary of the tomb’s discovery, Joyce Tyldesley shares the evidence, including two tiny, baby mummies…
In November 1922, a team led by Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun (reigned 1336-1327 BCE). We can attend Tutankhamun’s funeral via the painted scenes in his burial chamber. On the east wall we see the mummified king lying in a coffin resting on a bier that stands on a boat that is itself standing on a wooden sled. Twelve of Egypt’s highest ranking dignitaries, all dressed in white linen, have assembled to drag the funerary sled across the desert to the Valley of the Kings. On the north wall the funeral procession has reached the tomb. Tutankhamun’s mummy has been propped upright and his successor, King Ay, has dressed in a priestly leopard skin to conduct the rituals that will allow the dead king to live again. Read more | The female 'kings' of ancient Egypt Nowhere in these scenes do we see Tutankhamun’s widow, Ankhesenamun (formerly also Ankhesenpaaten). If we want to learn more about the woman who supported her husband in life and death, we need to take a closer look at some of Tutankhamun’s 5,000 grave goods. Ankhesenamun, Tutankhamun’s wife The ‘Little Golden Shrine’, a doored box covered in thick gold foil, is one of Tutankhamun’s most enigmatic grave goods. A series of engraved panels on the golden exterior shows the king and queen together. Ankhesenamun fastens a collar round her husband’s neck, receives water that he pours into her cupped hand and supplies him with arrows as he shoots ducks in the marshes. Howard Carter believed that these scenes reflected the daily life of the king and queen, with Ankhesenamun playing a minor role: “The dominant note is that of friendly relationship between the husband and wife.” A century later, with a far better understanding of the complexities of Egyptian royal art, we interpret these scenes as a reflection of Ankhesenamun’s religious power as she assumes the role of a priest to prepare her husband for his coronation and the New Year ceremonies that will follow. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/2B25YAT-5a87402.png" width="620" height="413" alt="In this carving on the artefact known as the 'little golden shrine', Ankhesenamun receives water that Tutankhamun pours into her cupped hand" title="In this carving on the artefact known as the 'little golden shrine', Ankhesenamun receives water that Tutankhamun pours into her cupped hand" /> Ankhesenamun is equally prominent on the decorated back panel of Tutankhamun’s golden throne. Here we see the royal couple inside a floral pavilion. Ankhesenamun stands before her husband and extends her hand towards him. She wears an elaborately pleated robe, a short wig and a complicated crown incorporating cow horns, a sun disc and two tall feathers. Tutankhamun, dressed in a pleated kilt, tall crown and colourful jewellery, sits in an elaborate chair with his feet on a footstool. At first sight, this too appears to be a charming domestic scene, but in fact we are watching an anointing ritual with Ankhesenamun acting as priest. In pictures | The glittering treasures of Tutankhamun Who is this powerful queen? Ankhesenamun was the third daughter born to the ‘heretic pharaoh’ Akhenaten and his consort Nefertiti. As it is highly likely that Akhenaten was Tutankhamun’s father, she was either her husband’s sister or half-sister. While Tutankhamun’s early years are shrouded in mystery, we can follow Ankhesenamun’s childhood via the art commissioned by her father. We see her as a naked baby clambering over her mother’s shoulder, and as a growing young girl attending various state functions with her parents. It seems likely that she had married Tutankhamun by the time that he inherited the throne. Egypt was now ruled by an eight-year-old king and his teenage sister-wife. As the queen consort, Ankhesenamun took precedence over all her husband’s other wives. She was an essential component of her husband’s rule, with the king and queen forming a partnership that would serve the gods and ensure that Egypt prospered. Her most obvious duty was to support Tutankhamun and provide him with a family which would ideally include a male heir. However, she was more than a baby-machine and her responsibilities were varied and complex. She might contribute to diplomatic correspondence, perform important female-based religious rituals, and even serve as her husband’s deputy. A few consorts are known to have ruled Egypt temporarily, acting on behalf of an absent husband or an infant son. The women who ‘protect’ the dead king If the Little Golden Shrine and the golden throne confirm Ankhesenamun’s role in supporting Tutankhamun’s living kingship, his quartzite sarcophagus hints that she also had the power to support him in death. The sarcophagus trough, which is carved with funerary texts, is protected by four carved goddesses, one standing at each corner, looking towards Tutankhamun’s head. Isis, Nephthys, Serket and Neith extend their winged arms to encircle the sarcophagus and in so doing eternally embrace and protect the dead Tutankhamun. The same four goddesses surround and protect the canopic chest which houses Tutankhamun’s preserved viscera. Close examination has revealed that the four sarcophagus goddesses originally had human arms rather than feathered wings. Initially carved as women, or as one woman four times, they were subsequently re-carved as goddesses, presumably to reflect Tutankhamun’s evolving religious views. Here we can draw a parallel with Akhenaten’s smashed granite sarcophagus trough, fragments of which have been recovered from his looted tomb. These show that Akhenaten intended to be protected in death by four versions of his consort Nefertiti, one standing at each corner of his sarcophagus. It is possible that Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus base was recycled from an earlier burial. But if it was indeed purpose-made, we can deduce that he originally intended to spend eternity in Ankhesenamun’s protective arms. Two baby princesses: Tutankhamun's daughters? Ankhesenamun is not the only female to offer her protection to the dead king. The Treasury, the modern name given to a small room opening off the Burial Chamber, housed the most sacred and intimate of Tutankhamun’s grave goods, including his canopic shrine. Here, resting on a jumbled heap of artefacts where it had been placed by the necropolis workers who restored the tomb after an ancient robbery, the excavation team found a plain wooden box whose displaced lid had originally been tied in place. Inside the box were two tiny, anthropoid coffins. The coffins had been tied with linen ribbons, and sealed with the cemetery seal. Both coffins were made of wood, both had been painted with resin, and both bore standard funerary inscriptions that named the deceased as ‘Osiris’. Each coffin held an inner coffin covered in gold foil, and each inner coffin held a small, well-bandaged mummy. The first mummy wore a golden funerary mask. Carter, who had not expected to find human remains in the tiny coffin, passed the mummy to the anatomist Douglas Derry, who identified the well-preserved body of a premature baby girl. The second tiny mummy lacked a mask. Derry unwrapped this mummy himself, revealing a second premature baby girl. Recent medical tests indicate that these are likely to be Tutankhamun’s daughters. We do not know why two baby girls would be included amongst the grave goods in a king’s tomb. Nor, as Tutankhamun’s is the only substantially intact 18th Dynasty royal tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings, do we know if this was standard practice. Is it a coincidence that both babies were female? Or, as we might suspect, were they included in his burial so that they might add their feminine protection to that offered by Ankhesenamun? Ankhesenamun after Tutankhamun Egypt had no role for a childless, widowed consort. We should therefore not be too surprised that Ankhesenamun disappears when Tutankhamun dies. We can imagine her retiring from public life and retreating to a harem palace, where she might spend the next thirty or forty years in luxurious obscurity. However, one curious story suggests that Ankhesenamun may have retained some authority after her husband’s death. The Deeds of Suppiluliuma is a biographical account of the reign of the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, written after his death. It has survived on a fragmented series of clay tablets, written in cuneiform ‘wedge’ script. Embedded within the history is an intriguing tale. A widowed queen of Egypt has written to the king of the Hittites, asking him to send one of his sons to marry her and take the Egyptian throne. Frustratingly, the name of the letter writer, “Dahamunzu”, is simply a phonetic version of the Egyptian queen’s title ta hemet nesu or “King’s Wife”. Because we know that Suppiluliuma was one of Akhenaten’s correspondents, we know that we are looking for a queen who was widowed after Akhenaten’s death. Could this be Ankhesenamun? Read more | Love, sex and marriage in ancient Egypt The Hittite king was confused by the request. Everyone knew that the Egyptians would find the idea of a foreigner ruling Egypt abhorrent. He was, however, tempted: Egypt was a great prize. Eventually he sent a son, Zannanza, who died on the journey to Memphis. Whether or not this was a natural death is unclear; but it certainly caused a rift in the already lukewarm relationship between Egypt and the Hittites. There is no mention of this correspondence in the Egyptian records, and we are left questioning whether this is a genuine appeal for help made by a desperate Ankhesenamun, or whether it might have be a trap designed to cause diplomatic friction between Egypt and the Hittites. Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley teaches a suite of online courses in Egyptology at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Tutankhamun: Pharaoh, Icon, Enigma (Headline, 2022)
Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun: was the tomb really cursed?
Joyce Tyldesley examines Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun – and gets to the bottom of those curse stories
On 26 November 1922 Howard Carter stood before a sealed door blocking a dark corridor. Behind him stood his patron Lord Carnarvon. Both men knew that they were standing in the tomb of the 18th-Dynasty boy king Tutankhamun – the sealing on the now dismantled outer door had made that clear. But the outer door had also shown the unmistakable signs of more than one forced entry. Was Tutankhamun still lying undisturbed in his tomb? Or had the ancient robbers once again thwarted the modern archaeologists? Nervously, his hands trembling, Carter forced a small hole in the left hand corner of the doorway, lit a candle, and peered inside. “Presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold – everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment – an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by – I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, ‘Can you see anything?’ it was all I could do to get out the words ‘Yes, wonderful things’.” The next day the doorway was unblocked and an electric light installed. Carter and Carnarvon found themselves standing in the antechamber, an untidy room packed with everything that an Egyptian king could possibly need for an enjoyable afterlife. But Carter’s attention was fixed on the northern wall. Here, blocked, plastered, sealed and guarded by two large statues of Tutankhamun, was the doorway to the burial chamber. Once again, the sealed doorway had been breached by a robber’s hole. Carter and Carnarvon knew that the anteroom must be emptied before the wall could be dismantled, but that would take many weeks of hard work. Desperate to know if the tomb was intact they returned that night and crawled through the robber’s hole. To their delight they found that the burial chamber was almost completely filled by a golden shrine, its seals still intact. Swearing each other to secrecy they crawled back and sealed the hole. Why was the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb so special? Tutankhamun is the only New Kingdom (c 1550–1070 BC) monarch to have been discovered undisturbed in his own sarcophagus. Dying at just 20 years of age, before his tomb was complete, he was interred in a small-scale courtier’s tomb with a restricted number of grave goods. His tomb was robbed at least twice in antiquity and Carter estimated that thieves stole more than half of his jewellery. Nevertheless, his burial has provided Egyptologists with the most substantial and diverse collection of royal artefacts ever recovered. They offer a rare opportunity to understand aspects of New Kingdom life, including crafts and technologies, art styles, clothing and foods, religion and funerary beliefs. Meanwhile the king’s body is the subject of a research project conducted by the Egyptian Antiquities Service under the supervision of Dr Zahi Hawass. If there is one disappointment, it is the almost complete lack of non-ritual written material in the tomb. His personal history remains a mystery and we cannot name his parents with any degree of certainty. The burial chamber would be officially opened on 17 February 1923 in the presence of an invited audience of Egyptologists and government officials. The public was fascinated by the activities in the Valley of the Kings. Those who could travel to Egypt did, though there was little for them to see. Those who could not visit in person relied upon the newspapers that carried almost daily reports from the Valley. Soon the small, sleepy town of Luxor was swamped with visitors and the expedition found itself living in near siege conditions. As a means of recovering some of the money that he had spent looking for Tutankhamun, Carnarvon decided to sign an exclusive deal with The Times. This incensed the reporters from the other newspapers, and did nothing to stop their demands for information. Denied official access to the tomb, they now printed sensational gossip in place of facts. Who was Howard Carter? Howard Carter was a gifted artist who became an Egyptologist by accident. Born on 9 May 1874, the youngest of the seven surviving children of the animal painter Samuel Carter and his wife Martha, he was raised in the Norfolk village of Swaffham, where he came under the patronage of the Amhersts of Didlington Hall. William Amherst Tyssen-Amherst was a keen amateur Egyptologist with a private museum. It was on his recommendation that the Egypt Exploration Fund employed the 17 year-old Carter as a draughtsman. Carter gained valuable experience working on the rock tombs of Beni Hassan, at the desert city of Amarna, and at Hatshepsut’s Deir el-Bahari mortuary temple. Then, in 1899, he was offered a permanent position with the Egyptian Antiquities Service. He spent five productive years in Luxor as antiquities inspector for Southern Egypt before moving to Cairo to become inspector for Northern Egypt. Here his career received an unexpected check. An argument with a group of drunken Frenchmen led to his resignation from the antiquities service, and in October 1905 he started a new life as an artist and antiquities dealer. Carter lived a hand to mouth existence until he was introduced to Lord Carnarvon, a wealthy amateur Egyptologist in need of a professional partner. Together in 1917 they determined to discover the tomb of Tutankhamun. Carter was prepared to strip the Valley of the Kings down to the bedrock if necessary. Carnarvon, who was funding the mission, was at first equally enthusiastic, but by 1922 was having second thoughts. The partners agreed that the 1922–3 season of excavation would be the last. Digging started on 1 November 1922. Just three days later the entrance to Tutankhamun’s tomb was revealed. His great discovery saw the end of Carter’s career as an excavator. He was to spend the next decade recording and preserving the tomb and its contents. When the tomb was finally empty, the publication of the results became his top priority. But his health was starting to fail and the publication was never completed. Howard Carter died in London on 2 March 1939. In late February 1923 the excavation was closed to allow the exhausted excavators a brief holiday. While Carter stayed in Luxor, Carnarvon and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, sailed south to spend a few days at Aswan. During this trip Carnarvon was bitten on the cheek by a mosquito. Then, soon after his return to Luxor, he accidentally sliced the scab off the bite while shaving. He soon started to feel unwell. With his condition worsening he travelled to Cairo for expert medical attention. But it was too late. Blood poisoning set in and pneumonia followed. A younger, fitter man may have been able to throw off the infection, but the 57-year-old Carnarvon was still suffering the effects of a severe motor accident in 1901 that had left him weak and vulnerable to chest infections. He died on 5 April 1923. Here was a dramatic Tutankhamun story that everyone could report. News of the death travelled fast, stimulating intense debate. For the first time the general public, made sensitive to the plight of the defenceless dead by the First World War and the major flu epidemic that followed it, started to question the archaeologists’ easy assumption that the dead were a legitimate target. Would Carter be happy if someone attempted to dig up the recently deceased Queen Victoria, asked one indignant Times correspondent? For some observers this was far more than a question of ethics. They believed that the excavation had put the lives of the archaeologists at risk. Anyone with a taste for popular fiction understood just how dangerous the ancient Egyptians could be. Victorian literature was filled with accounts of vengeful mummies who strangled, poisoned and possessed their victims, with one of the most sensational works, Lost in a Pyramid, or, The Mummy’s Curse, being penned by Louisa May Alcott, more famous today as the author of Little Women. Already, before Carnarvon’s death, novelist Marie Corelli had warned against tampering with the unknown: “I cannot but think that some risks are run by breaking into the last rest of a king of Egypt whose tomb is specifically and solemnly guarded, and robbing him of his possessions”. Britain, in 1923, was a land looking for comfort. The old religious certainties, already weakened by the scientific advances of the Victorian age, had been further eroded by the horrors of the First World War. Now the country was experiencing a wave of interest in all aspects of the occult as seances and ouija boards offered a glimmer of hope that the bereaved could contact those who had “passed over”. Theosophy, an occult attempt to reach spiritual enlightenment partially inspired by the spiritual forces or “elementals” of the ancient Egyptians, was all the rage False reports started to emerge from the tomb. Many people believed that an engraved plaque – “Death comes on swift wings to he who disturbs the tomb of the pharaoh” – had been discovered and suppressed by Carter. It hadn’t; the plaque quite simply did not exist. Carter himself had little patience with the curse theorists. He made his feelings plain in an interview with the New York Times: “It is rather too much to ask me to believe that some spook is keeping watch and ward over the dead Pharaoh, ready to wreak vengeance on anyone who goes too near”. Inevitably, his vehement denial sparked rumours that Carter was collaborating with “the authorities” to hide the evidence of a dangerous curse. Testing the curse theory How could the long-dead Tutankhamun have killed anyone? The idea that his burial might have been booby trapped with poison was a popular one. It is theoretically possible that the sealed chamber could have housed a cocktail of microscopic spores and, indeed, a black fungus was found growing inside the tomb. However the Egyptian scientists simply did not have the knowledge necessary to set such a sophisticated trap. Could Carnarvon have been killed accidentally? Maybe he had been infected by poisonous bat-droppings? Or had been poisoned by a mosquito which had drunk embalming fluids? It was left to the more practically minded to point out that the sealed tomb could not have housed a bat colony, while the lack of water in the Valley of the Kings meant that there were no mosquitoes. This injection of common sense did little to halt speculation. Many “experts”, most notably Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of two popular tales of ancient Egypt, preferred the idea of an intangible curse implemented by “elementals”. In 1934 Egyptologist Herbert Winlock attempted to disprove the curse theory by studying the statistics. He found that only six of the 26 people present at the opening of the tomb had died within a decade. Time was to prove that, of those who had first visited the burial chamber, only Carnarvon had died suddenly at the relatively young age of 57. Howard Carter died aged 64, some 16 years after Carnarvon, while Lady Evelyn, who had been present on the first, clandestine, visit to the burial chamber, did not die until 1980. Professor Douglas Derry who, it might be argued, committed the gravest desecration by autopsying and dismembering the king’s body, reached the grand age of 87. In 2002 Mark Nelson of Monash University, Melbourne, confirmed Winlock’s results, finding that the 25 people most likely to have been exposed to the curse died at an average age of 70. To set these figures into context, life expectancy at birth for men born in 1900 was 47 years, while those who lived to the age of 65 might be expected to reach the age of 76. The curse: suspicious deaths or just coincidence? On 6 April 1923 the Daily Express printed a story telling how, at the exact moment of Carnarvon’s death the previous day, Cairo was plunged into darkness. No explanation could be found for this unexpected power failure although anyone who has visited the Egyptian capital will confirm that power cuts are by no means rare events. Far more intriguing is the story of Carnarvon’s three-legged fox terrier, Susie. Susie had been left behind in England. At exactly the moment of her master’s death, the dog sat up and howled. In later versions of the anecdote Susie actually died. However, it has proved impossible to trace this story to its source. One violent death attributed to Tutankhamun was that of Professor HG Evelyn-White, classicist and archaeologist at Leeds University, who committed suicide in a taxi in 1924. The newspapers were thrilled to report that the Professor had left a suicide note stating: “I know there is a curse on me”. Another “curse victim” was Richard Bethell, an assistant to Howard Carter, who died of apparently natural causes at the Bath Club in 1929. After hearing the sad news his father, Lord Westbury, an amateur Egyptologist, threw himself out of a seventh-story window. On the way to the cemetery Lord Westbury’s hearse knocked down and killed an eight-year-old boy. Many people believe that the British Museum owns a cursed coffin lid that has been blamed for a variety of disasters including the sinking of the Titanic. The lid, known to believers as the coffin of the magical priestess of Amen-Re, is an ordinary 21st-Dynasty coffin lid belonging to an unnamed lady. Writer and broadcaster Dr Joyce Tyldesley is honorary research fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at Liverpool University, and teaches Egyptology at Manchester University This article was first published in the November 2005 issue of BBC History Magazine
Your guide to Tutankhamun, plus 8 fascinating facts
Tutankhamun's status as ancient Egypt’s most famous pharaoh was cemented when his intact tomb was discovered by archaeologist Howard Carter in November 1922. But how much do you know about the famous 'boy king'? Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley brings you the facts about King Tut...
When was Tutankhamun born? We don’t have any record of Tutankhamun’s birth, and we don’t even know who his parents were (a subject that is hotly disputed by Egyptologists). This is therefore an opportunity for some archaeological detective work. His mummy shows us that Tutankhamun died when he was about 18 years old. Wine-jars stored in his tomb are labelled with the years of his reign. As the oldest of these jars is dated to “year 10”, we can deduce that Tutankhamun inherited his throne as an eight-year-old boy in c1336 BC. He was almost certainly born at Amarna, the new royal city built by his predecessor and probable father, the “Heretic Pharaoh” Akhenaten. Akhenaten had been a highly unusual king. He had turned his back on the traditional gods and goddesses, choosing instead to worship just one god: a sun-disk known as “the Aten”. Following Akhenaten’s death, Tutankhamun (and his advisors) reversed the religious experiment, restored the traditional pantheon, and repaired the state temples which had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Tutankhamun seemed set for a glorious reign: but then he suddenly died. Who was Tutankhamun? A brief biography Titles: Nebkheperure Tutankhamun was Pharaoh, or King, of Egypt. Born: c1344 BC Died: c1327 BC Parents: It seems likely that his father was Pharaoh Akhenaten: his mother is unknown, but could have been Queen Nefertiti Siblings: At least six full- or half-sisters: Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten (who was also his wife), Neferneferuaten, Neferneferure, Setepenre: at least one full- or half-brother, Smenkhkare. Known for: The discovery of his near-intact tomb by Howard Carter, packed with grave goods. Tomb discovered: In November 1922. How did Tutankhamun die? It is not known exactly how Tutankhamun died. His body suffered damage at various stages – immediately before or immediately after death; during the curiously hasty mummification process; within the tomb (where a chemical reaction caused it to ignite in its coffin); and while being extracted from the coffin. Obvious damage to Tutankhamun’s chest and legs suggests an accident – perhaps a chariot or hunting accident, or death on the battlefield. Others have suggested that Tutankhamun may have been murdered Read more | How did Tutankhamun die? Tutankhamun: life, death and legacy Member exclusive | Browse and listen to all episodes in our podcast series exploring the life and legacy of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun Listen to all episodes now Do we know what Tutankhamun looked like? We have many images of Tutankhamun, ranging from colossal stone statues to small golden figures. These show him as a fit, handsome and vigorous young man confidently driving a chariot or hunting in the desert. However, these are not portraits: they are royal propaganda which presents all of Egypt’s kings in the same idealised way. We cannot assume that Tutankhamun actually looked like his official images. Tutankhamun’s mummy shows that he had a damaged foot. Some experts believe that this is proof the living Tutankhamun had mobility problems: others believe that the damage to his foot was caused by the application of tight bandages during his mummification. Because of this difference of opinion, modern reconstructions of Tutankhamun vary. Some show him leaning on a walking stick, others as an athletic young man. Why is King Tut so famous? Tutankhamun’s is the only near-intact royal tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings. The mummified king was found lying in a nest of golden coffins, surrounded by more than 5,000 precious grave goods. Nothing like this had ever been seen before. Instantly, Tutankhamun became an ancient world celebrity. Where is Tutankhamun now? Tutankhamun’s mummy still lies in his original tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. Read on for eight fascinating facts about the young pharaoh… His original name was not Tutankhamun Tutankhamun was originally named Tutankhaten. This name, which literally means “living image of the Aten”, reflected the fact that Tutankhaten’s parents worshipped a sun god known as “the Aten”. After a few years on the throne the young king changed his religion, abandoned the Aten, and started to worship the god Amun [who was revered as king of the gods]. This caused him to change his name to Tutankhamun, or “living image of Amun”. In pictures | The glittering treasures of Tutankhamun Tutankhamun was not, however, the name by which his people knew him. Like all of Egypt’s kings, Tutankhamun actually had five royal names. These took the form of short sentences that outlined the focus of his reign. Officially, he was: (1) Horus Name: Image of births (2) Two Ladies Name: Beautiful of laws who quells the Two Lands/who makes content all the gods (3) Golden Horus Name: Elevated of appearances for the god/his father Re (4) Prenomen: Nebkheperure (5) Nomen: Tutankhamun His last two names, known today as the prenomen and the nomen, are the names that we see written in cartouches (oval loops) on his monuments. We know him by his nomen, Tutankhamun. His people, however, knew him by his prenomen, Nebkheperure, which literally translates as “[the sun god] Re is the lord of manifestations”. Tutankhamun has the smallest royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings The first pharaohs built highly conspicuous pyramids in Egypt’s northern deserts. However, by the time of the New Kingdom (1550–1069 BC), this fashion had ended. Most kings were now buried in relative secrecy in rock-cut tombs tunnelled into the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile at the southern city of Thebes (modern-day Luxor). These tombs had inconspicuous doors, but were both spacious and well decorated inside. Cemeteries carried their own potent magic, and dead kings were thought to have powerful spirits that might benefit others. Burial amongst his ancestors would have helped Tutankhamun to achieve his own afterlife. It therefore seems likely that Tutankhamun would have wished to be buried in a splendid tomb in either the main valley or in an offshoot, the Western Valley, where his grandfather, Amenhotep III, was buried. But, whatever he may have intended, we know that Tutankhamun was actually buried in a cramped tomb cut into the floor of the main valley. It may be that Tutankhamun simply died too young to complete his ambitious plans. His own tomb was unfinished, and so he had to be buried in a substitute, non-royal tomb. However, this seems unlikely, as other kings managed to build suitable tombs in just two or three years. It seems far more likely that Tutankhamun’s successor, Ay, a king who inherited the throne as an elderly man, made a strategic swap. Just four years after Tutankhamun’s death, Ay himself was buried in a splendid tomb in the Western Valley, close by the tomb of Amenhotep III. The unexpectedly small size of Tutankhamun’s tomb has led to recent suggestions that there may be parts as yet undiscovered. Currently Egyptologists are investigating the possibility that there may be secret chambers hidden behind the plastered wall of his burial chamber. He was buried in a second-hand coffin Tutankhamun’s mummy lay within a nest of three golden coffins, which fitted snugly one inside another like a set of Russian dolls. During the funeral ritual the combined coffins were placed in a rectangular stone sarcophagus. Unfortunately, the outer coffin proved to be slightly too big, and its toes peeked over the edge of the sarcophagus, preventing the lid from closing. Carpenters were quickly summoned and the coffin’s toes were cut away. More than 3,000 years later Howard Carter would find the fragments lying in the base of the sarcophagus. All three of Tutankhamun’s coffins were similar in style: they were “anthropoid”, or human-form coffins, shaped to look like the god of the dead, Osiris, lying on his back and holding the crook and flail in his crossed arms. But the middle coffin had a slightly different style and its face did not look like the faces on other two coffins. Nor did it look like the face on Tutankhamun’s death mask. Many Egyptologists now believe that this middle coffin – along with some of Tutankhamun’s other grave goods – was originally made for the mysterious “Neferneferuaten” – an enigmatic individual whose name is recorded in inscriptions and who may have been Tutankhamun’s immediate predecessor. We do not know what happened to Neferneferuaten, nor how Tutankhamun came to be buried in his or her coffin. Tutankhamun loved to hunt ostriches Tutankhamun’s ostrich-feather fan was discovered lying in his burial chamber, close by the king’s body. Originally the fan consisted of a long golden handle topped by a semi-circular ‘palm’ that supported 42 alternating brown and white feathers. These feathers crumbled away long ago, but their story is preserved in writing on the fan handle. This tells us that that the feathers were taken from ostriches captured by the king himself while hunting in the desert to the east of Heliopolis (near modern-day Cairo). The embossed scene on the palm shows, on one face, Tutankhamun setting off in his chariot to hunt ostrich, and on the reverse, the king returning in triumph with his prey. Ostriches were important birds in ancient Egypt, and their feathers and eggs were prized as luxury items. Hunting ostriches was a royal sport that allowed the king to demonstrate his control over nature. It was a substitute for battle and, as such, was a dangerous occupation. We can see that Tutankhamun’s body was badly damaged before he was mummified. Is the placement of his ostrich fan so close to his body significant? Is this, perhaps, someone’s way of telling us that the young king died following a fatal accident on an ostrich hunt? Tutankhamun's heart is missing The ancient Egyptians believed that it was possible to live again after death, but thought that this could only be achieved if the body was preserved in a lifelike condition. This led them to develop the science of artificial mummification. Essentially, mummification involved desiccating the body in natron salt, then wrapping it in many layers of bandages to preserve a lifelike shape. The body’s internal organs were removed at the start of the mummification process and preserved separately. The brain, its function then unknown, was simply thrown away – the heart, rather than the brain, was regarded as the organ of reasoning. As such, the heart would be required in the afterlife. It was therefore left in place and, if accidentally removed, immediately sewn back; though not always in its original location. Tutankhamun, however, has no heart. Instead he was provided with an amuletic scarab inscribed with a funerary spell. This may have happened simply because the undertakers were careless, but it could also be a sign that Tutankhamun died far from home. By the time his body arrived at the undertakers’ workshop, his heart may have been too decayed to be preserved. One of Tutankhamun’s favourite possessions was an iron dagger Howard Carter discovered two daggers carefully wrapped inside Tutankhamun’s mummy bandages. One dagger had a gold blade, while the other had a blade made of iron. Each dagger had a gold sheath. Of the two, the iron dagger was by far the more valuable because, during Tutankhamun’s lifetime (he reigned from c1336–27 BC), iron, or “iron from the sky” as it was known, was a rare and precious metal. As its name suggests, Egypt’s “iron from the sky” was almost entirely obtained from meteorites. Several other iron objects were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb: 16 miniature blades, a tiny headrest and an amulet. The fact that these pieces are not particularly well made, combined with their small size, suggest that they were made by local craftsmen who struggled to work the rare meteorite iron. The dagger blade, however, is very different. Beautifully crafted, it is likely to have been imported to Egypt from a region accustomed to working iron. The royal diplomatic archives tell us that, several years before Tutankhamun’s birth, king Tushratta of Mitanni sent a metal dagger to Egypt as a gift to his new son-in-law, Amenhotep III. Given the rarity of good quality iron artefacts at this time, it is possible that Amenhotep’s dagger was inherited by his grandson, Tutankhamun, and eventually buried with him. Given its prominent location within the mummy bandages, it may even be that Tushratta’s dagger was used in Tutankhamun’s mummification ritual. On the podcast | Tarek El Awady discusses the remarkable artefacts buried with Egypt’s iconic boy king His trumpets have entertained an audience of more than 150 million Tutankhamun’s grave goods included a small collection of musical instruments: one pair of ivory clappers, two sistra (rattles) and two trumpets, one made from silver with a gold mouthpiece and the other made of bronze partially overlaid by gold. This would not have made a very satisfactory orchestra, and it seems that music was not high on Tutankhamun’s list of priorities for his afterlife. In fact, his trumpets should more properly be classified as military equipment, while his clappers and sistra are likely to have had a ritual purpose. On 16 April 1939, the two trumpets were played in a BBC live radio broadcast from Cairo Museum, which reached an estimated 150 million listeners. Bandsman James Tappern used a modern mouthpiece, which caused damage to the silver trumpet. In 1941 the bronze trumpet was played again, this time without a modern mouthpiece. Some, influenced by the myth of “Tutankhamun’s curse”, have claimed that the trumpets have the power to summon war. They have suggested that it was the 1939 broadcast which caused Britain to enter the Second World War. Tutankhamun was buried in the world’s most expensive coffin Two of Tutankhamun’s three coffins were made of wood, covered with gold sheet. But, to Howard Carter’s great surprise, the innermost coffin was made from thick sheets of beaten gold. This coffin measures 1.88m in length, and weighs 110.4kg. If it were to be scrapped today it would be worth well over £1m. But as Tutankhamun’s final resting place it is, of course, priceless. Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley teaches a suite of online courses in Egyptology at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Tutankhamun: Pharaoh, Icon, Enigma (Headline, 2022) This article was first published by HistoryExtra in 2016 and reviewed and updated by the author in 2022
15 minutes of fame | Joyce Tyldesley chooses Queen Tiye
As part of our series exploring lost or lesser-known figures from history who deserve their 15 minutes of fame, Ellie Cawthorne interviews Joyce Tyldesley about the life of Queen Tiye
Who was Queen Tiye? Queen Tiye was queen consort to Amenhotep III, who ruled Egypt for almost 40 years from roughly 1390 BCE. Tiye was also the mother-in-law of Nefertiti, and the probable grandmother of Tutankhamen. Thanks to a royal proclamation from Amenhotep III himself, historians know that Queen Tiye was born to two ‘commoners’: her father Yuya and mother Thuya. Despite her humble birth, Tiye went on to be Amenhotep’s right-hand woman, ruling Egypt alongside him, and one of their children Akhenaten later succeeded the throne as Amenhotep IV. Queen Tiye’s life At the time of Tiye’s life, explains Tyldesley, kings had many wives, who were grouped into “secondary queens” and the queen consort. As queen consort, Tiye would have had a lot of power, because she was the queen who appeared in all official writings and art. Tiye’s importance can be seen in her appearance on important monuments and tombs, and the property that belonged to her. Tyldesley also highlights Tiye’s widespread significance in the religious and diplomatic spheres – in Egypt and beyond, Tiye was associated with a goddess, and after her husband’s death, she appears in diplomatic correspondence. It is difficult to know if Tiye’s power was atypical for the time, Tyldesley explains, because comparative power is hard to judge due to uneven levels of evidence for each life. For example, while Tiye’s daughter-in-law Nefertiti appears unusually powerful because of a wealth of representation based on her life in a city that worshipped the royal family, Tyldesley admits explains that for Tiye, it seems that she was simply unusual because she was powerful. Read more about the female 'kings' of ancient Egypt Though not to the same extent as Nefertiti, historians do have access to various depictions of Tiye – from statues, to tombs, to figurines. One is a figure of Tiye’s head that shows her as an older woman. This was unusual, Tyldesley explains, because queens were generally depicted as “eternally young and eternally slender”. This representation of Tiye shows her as a woman who had “acquired real wisdom [and was] to be respected”. This could be, Tyldesley believes, an artist’s celebration of Tiye reaching a great age at a time when many did not. Why does Queen Tiye deserve her 15 minutes of fame? Tyldesley believes that Queen Tiye deserves her 15 minutes of fame because she has been unfairly overshadowed by those that followed her. For those studying ancient Egypt 100 years ago, Tyldesley explains, Queen Tiye would have been seen as the dominant figure of her time. However, in more recent years, history has focused on Nefertiti, placing her as an unusually powerful woman, a living goddess. But all this evidence could also apply to Queen Tiye,” explains Tyldesley, “and Nefertiti is not so much as an unusually powerful woman, but she is the daughter-in-law who is following in the footsteps of the powerful Queen Tiye.” Tiye, as a strongly influential figure in ancient Egypt who held a lot of power, “deserves to be remembered as the Egyptians would have seen her and not as we see her today”. Professor Joyce Tyldesley was talking to Ellie Cawthorne. Tyldesley is the author of several books on ancient Egypt, including 2018’s Nefertiti’s Face: The Creation of an Icon (Profile Books, 2018), and the upcoming Tutankhamun – Pharaoh, Icon, Enigma Listen to the full interview and find more episodes in our 15 minutes of fame podcast series Article compiled by Isabel King