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King Tut
JUNE 2005
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In Learn More the National Geographic magazine team shares some of its best sources and other information to expand your knowledge of our featured subjects. Special thanks to the Research Division.
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 Did You Know?
King Tut's wife, his half sister (or niece) Ankhesenamun, seems to have been the marrying type.
In ancient Egypt it was acceptable for royalty to marry within the family, probably in order to help preserve dynastic succession. King Tut's predecessor Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti, had at least six children, but presumably no sons, as only girls are pictured in sculptures and reliefs of the family. This lack of boys in the main royal line (Akhenaten may have had a son or two, but by other, secondary, wives) made the question of dynastic succession a pressing problem.
Although it's difficult to sort out the tangled webs of late 18th-dynasty royal relationships, a likely story is this: Akhenaten himself married perhaps two of his own daughters by Nefertiti, one of them Ankhesenamun, in the hopes of producing a royal male heir. When Akhenaten died, Ankhesenamun may have been married off to the next king, mysterious Smenkhkare (if "he" was not actually a "she"—the idea has been floated that Smenkhkare might have been Nefertiti herself, ruling as a pharaoh). After Smenkhkare's disappearance from the records, the princess married young King Tutankhamun, who died at the age of 19 before he could father an heir.
Finally, when aged Aye, the vizier, took over as king in the wake of Tut's death, Ankhesenamun may have married him too. It's likely that Aye was either her grandfather or her great-uncle. This would mean that during a relatively short time in her youth she was married to her father, two of her half brothers (or one and an uncle), and her grandfather or great-uncle.
It's little wonder she sent letters abroad to the Hittites begging them to send her a young prince to marry and make king.
—Elizabeth Snodgrass
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Related Links
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs
www.kingtut.org/
This is the official website for National Geographic's touring exhibition of King Tut's treasures. Here you can find a photo gallery of artifacts included in the exhibition, see when the exhibit is coming to a city in your region, buy advance tickets, and access educational materials.
Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation
www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/gri/4tut.html
Oxford University's Griffith Institute has assembled and put online an impressive collection of original materials related to Howard Carter's discovery and excavation of King Tut's tomb. Browse or search the full collection of all 5,398 objects found in the tomb and see Harry Burton's original photographs of many of them. Access Carter's excavation notes from 1922 into the late 1930s and read other contemporary accounts of the discovery and excavation of the tomb.
Theban Mapping Project
www.thebanmappingproject.com/
The Theban Mapping Project is the most detailed survey ever of the Valley of the Kings. The project's website has two main interactive atlas features (the Atlas of the Valley of the Kings and the Atlas of the Theban Necropolis) as well as articles on tomb development, mortuary beliefs, history, and Thebes today (modern Luxor and Karnak).
BBC History: Egyptians
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/
A fabulous resource for anyone who's interested in general information on ancient Egypt, the BBC's website offers articles on everything from the Great Pyramid to the Amarna period to the deciphering of hieroglyphs and the story of the Nile. An interactive sidebar allows for exploration of Khufu's pyramid complex, or you can create hieroglyphic postcards, embalm a mummy, or build your own pyramid.
The Egyptian God Aten Before and After Akhenaten
touregypt.net/featurestories/aten.htm
"The mythology of the Aten, the radiant disk of the sun, is not only unique in Egyptian history, but is also one of the most complex and controversial aspects of ancient Egypt." This article by Jimmy Dunn gives a good, chronological explanation of the Akhenaten heresy and how the Aten was viewed before and during Akhenaten's reign.
KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt
www.egyptology.com/kmt/
This magazine, according to its home page, "began in 1990 as an English-language periodical devoted exclusively to articles on the culture, history, personalities, arts and monuments of ancient Egypt—as well [as] features on archaeology, past and present. If you are fascinated by Kemet (Kmt—the "Black Land"—what the ancient Egyptians called their country), KMT is for you!" Many top Egyptologists are contributors.
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Bibliography
Baines, John, and Jaromir Malek. Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt. Checkmark Books, 2000.
Bongioanni, Alessandro, and Maria Sole Croce, eds. The Illustrated Guide to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The American University in Cairo Press, 2001.
Forbes, Dennis C. Tombs. Treasures. Mummies. Seven Great Discoveries of Egyptian Archaeology. KMT Communications, 1998.
Ikram, Salima. Death and Burial in Ancient Egypt. Pearson, 2003.
Leek, F. Filce. The Human Remains From the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Griffith Institute, 1972.
Shaw, Ian, and Paul Nicholson. British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. The American University in Cairo Press, 1996.
Reeves, Nicholas. The Complete Tutankhamun. Thames and Hudson, 1990.
Reeves, C. N., Nicholas Reeves, and Richard H. Wilkinson. The Complete Valley of the Kings. Thames and Hudson, 1996.
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NGS Resources
Hawass, Zahi. Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt: Unearthing the Masterpieces of Egyptian History. National Geographic Books, 2004.
Hawass, Zahi. "Egypt's Forgotten Treasures." National Geographic (January 2003), 74-87.
Zivie, Alain. "Mystery of the Sun God's Servant." National Geographic (November 2003), 52-9.
Carter, Howard. The Tomb of Tutankhamen. National Geographic Books, 2003.
Price, Sean. "Treasures of the Tomb: Discovering King Tut's Incredible Riches." National Geographic Kids (formerly World). (November 2002), 20-3.
Williams, A. R. "Death on the Nile." National Geographic (October 2002), 2-25.
Hawass, Zahi. "Egypt's Hidden Tombs Revealed." National Geographic (September 2001), 32-41.
Gore, Rick. "Pharaohs of the Sun." National Geographic (April 2001), 34-57.
Hawass, Zahi. "Abusir Tomb: Egyptian Priest's Undisturbed Burial Discovered." National Geographic (November 1998), 102-13.
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