CHAPTER IIITUTANKHAMEN
Duringthe course of the excavations in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings made on behalf of the late Mr Theodore M. Davis in the years 1906 and 1907, a series of objects were discovered bearing the name of Tutankhamen. In all probability they were stolen from his tomb during the reign of Horemheb, only a few years after the pharaoh was buried.
Under a large rock, found tilted on one side near the foot of a high hill, the late Mr Edward Ayrton, who was in charge of Mr Davis’s Exploration in 1906, found a beautiful blue glaze cup bearing the cartouche of Tutankhamen. In the following year, when the late Mr E. Harold Jones was superintending the work, a rock-cut chamber was found; and as it contained so many objects bearing the name of Tutankhamen it was assumed by Mr Davis that he had discovered that king’s tomb. Hence thevolume published in 1912 giving an account of the work of 1906, 1907, and 1908 (during the last of which the tomb of Horemheb was found on the south side of the chamber already mentioned) was entitledThe Tombs of Harmhabi[Horemheb]and Touatânkhamanou[Tutankhamen] (Theodore M. Davis’ Excavations: Bibân el Molük), and the late Sir Gaston Maspero gave accounts of all that was then known of the lives of both Horemheb and Tutankhamen. It is only right to add that Sir Gaston Maspero did not regard the chamber opened by Mr Harold Jones as the tomb of Tutankhamen. For in the closing paragraph of his report on the scanty information we have of Tutankhamen’s life and achievements, he states: “I suppose his tomb was in the Western Valley, somewhere between or near Amenôthes III [Amenhotep III, the last royal mummy known to have been buried at Thebes before Tutankhamen, because Akhenaton and Smenkhara were buried at El Amarna, and removed to Thebes later] and Aiya [Ay, the successor of Tutankhamen]: when the reaction against Atonu and his followers was complete, his mummy and his furniture were taken to a hiding-place, as those of Tiyi and Khuniatonu had been,probably under Harmhabi, and there Davis found what remained of it after so many transfers and plunders. But this also is a mere hypothesis, the truth of which we have no means of proving or disproving as yet.”
Although Sir Gaston was right in assuming that the chamber discovered in 1907 was not Tutankhamen’s tomb, his hypothesis that the latter might have been in the neighbourhood of his predecessor (Amenhotep III) and his successor (Ay) has been shown by Mr Howard Carter’s recent discovery not to be true. The chamber seems to have been nothing more than a safe (perhaps cut out by the workmen who were making a tomb for Horemheb) in which plunderers of the tombs of Tutankhamen and Ay hid their spoil. Why they were unable to rescue all the gold they stole and so hid away is not apparent. The chamber was buried at a depth of 25 feet and was almost filled with mud, which had been swept into it by the rain of many centuries. In this room was found a broken box containing several pieces of gold stamped with the names of Tutankhamen and his wife Ankhsenamen, and others bearing the name of his successor called the King’s Father-in-law Ay and his wife Tiy, but without any title or prenomen. In the mud was found thevery beautiful statuette made of fine translucent aragonite commonly called “alabaster.” Apart from its value as a wonderful work of art this figure is interesting as the broad scarf around the loins is tied in the Syrian fashion. Unfortunately there is no inscription on it. M. Daressy makes the tentative suggestion that it may represent Ay before his succession to the throne.
When it is recalled that in the recently discovered tomb parts of the gold plating were found to have been torn off the throne and other pieces of furniture brought to light by Lord Carnarvon’s expedition, it is interesting to note that the inscribed sheets of gold found in 1908 represent scenes of Tutankhamen’s triumphs and captured prisoners such as would have adorned the tomb furniture that has been found mutilated. Other pieces of gold represent similar scenes from furniture plundered from the tomb of Tutankhamen’s successor Ay.
A few days after the discovery of the chamber containing these stolen objects a pit was found, some distance away from it, in which there were large earthenware pots containing debris from a tomb, such as wreaths of leaves and flowers and small bags of powdered substance. The cover of one of these jars was broken andwrapped around it was a piece of linen bearing an inscription in ink which refers to the sixth year of Tutankhamen’s reign.
In this volume, as I have already mentioned, the late Sir Gaston Maspero collected together the few scraps of information available in 1912 with reference to the life and reign of Tutankhamen.
In the British Museum there are two models of lions sculptured from red granite, one of which was made at the instigation of Amenhotep III for a temple in the Soudan. The other one may have been carved for Tutankhamen, who claims that he “repaired the monuments of his father Amenhotep.” For nearly a century scholars have been discussing the question whether the use of the word “father” was intended to refer to his parentage, whether, in fact, Tutankhamen was a brother or half-brother of his father-in-law the heretic king Akhenaton, or whether the word was used simply as a term of respect for his predecessor. The problem still remains unsolved, for Tutankhamen’s elevation to the throne was due to his marriage with the daughter of Akhenaton, the customary method in ancient Egypt for establishing a right to the kingship.
Fig. 4.—Tutankhamen receiving Ethiopian tribute from Huy.[After Lepsius.
Fig. 4.—Tutankhamen receiving Ethiopian tribute from Huy.[After Lepsius.
[After Lepsius.
At the time of his marriage and succession he belonged to the Aton faith, which his father-in-law had established, and his name was Tutankhaton. But as soon as Akhenaton died, Tutankhaton and his wife Ankhsenpaaton abandoned the heresy and returned to the orthodox faith of Amen. As a token of their conversion they changed their names to Tutankhamen and Ankhsenamen and left Akhenaton’s capital for Thebes, the headquarters of the priesthood of Amen, who no doubt were responsible for Tutankhamen’s sudden return to the old religion.
The little information we possess of his reign is derived mainly from the inscriptions upon the Theban temples restored by him after his return to the orthodox faith, though many of these records are palimpsests, for Horemheb replaced Tutankhamen’s name on most of them. The two other chief sources of information are: (a) the piece of linen found in 1907, which is the only certain evidence that he reigned as long as six years; and (b) a remarkably interesting series of wall-pictures in the tombs of Huy at Kurnet (Murrai), which afford the only record we have of Tutankhamen’s relations with Ethiopia and Asia. These pictures are among the most familiar records of ancient Egyptian life, having been used by Champollion, Lepsius, Brugsch and Piehl, and the inscriptions describing the scenes have been translated into English by Professor Breasted.[1]
Fig. 5.—Part of the Asiatic tribute presented to Tutankhamen by Huy.[After Lepsius.
Fig. 5.—Part of the Asiatic tribute presented to Tutankhamen by Huy.[After Lepsius.
[After Lepsius.