Toutânkhamon (born v. -1345, died in -1327) is the eleventh Pharaon of (Nouvel Empire). Manéthon calls it Toutânkhamon (Chébres). Its start date of reign is the object of controversies among the Egyptologists.

One locates his reign at the neighborhoods of -1336/-1335 with -1327.

When, the November 4th 1922, the British archeologist Howard Carter discovers the burial of Toutânkhamon and its incredible richnesses, it offers to a young sovereign, with the quite unobtrusive reign, the unique opportunity to enter the history.

Genealogy

See also: Family tree of the XVIIIe Egyptian dynasty

Toutânkhaton of its name of birth, would have been born with Thèbes or Amarna where it grows in the royal family circle. Its name means “the alive image of the Aton god”, i.e. a terrestrial reincarnation of Aton.

The filiation of Toutânkhaton remains a mystery. His/her mother is Tiyi, the large royal widow of the Pharaon Amenhotep {{a simple wife of the royal harem, or is III}}, or Kiya mysterious secondary wife of Amenhotep {{IV}}, known also under the name of Akhénaton, or, as he by a large majority of specialists, is allowed today the son of Amenhotep {{IV}} and of the queen Néfertiti?

Its origins thus remain very obscure, more especially as during the reign of Horemheb, one of its successors, his name and that of the preceding sovereigns amarniens are unobtrusive.

Titulature

Reign

In the year -1338, Akhénaton dies of one testing disease; he succeed a queen of the name of Ânkh-Khéperourê, recognized today like the older sister of Toutânkhamon, Mérytaton. She quickly disappears (for unknown reasons) and Toutânkhaton goes up on the throne High and Low-Egypt, although he is yet only one nine year old child. It is legitimated by marrying Ânkhésenpaaton, born at the end of the year from Akhénaton, the third girl of Néfertiti and Amenhotep {{IV}}, which will be his royal wife under the name of Ânkhésenpaamon.

Too much young person to reign, it is the divine father Aÿ and the general Horemheb who hold the true administrative and military capacity. The Counter-Reformation is strongly started. Under the influence of the priests and flatterers of the old religion, who handle it, the child-Pharaon joins again with the traditions and takes the name of Toutânkhamon, signs of Amon, the restored excommunicated god, while his wife becomes Ânkhésenpaamon. Strictly political conversion? They make him restore the worship Amon IEN and leave Akhetaton to turn over to Thèbes then to Memphis, which becomes again the capital of the empire. However, it does not seem that the royal couple gave up the religion atonienne completely as the throne testifies some where one can see the solar disk Aton to tighten the cross of life to the Pharaon and his wife.

Toutânkhamon establishes the restoration of the temples damaged under the episode amarnien and is made set up in the west of Thèbes a new temple. It does not have time to be made build its residence of eternity, disappearing abruptly in -1327, at eighteen years, by disease, accident or under the blows of an assassin, without to have been able to strengthen its capacity. Without heir, with him the line Ahmosis disappears. It is buried with the haste in small fall which had not been built for him. At the end of seventy days, one buries it according to the royal funerary rites in his house of eternity: Momification, death mask, coffins and sarcophagi, quadruple vases canopes for the internal organs, furniture and objects funerary, toys and memories of the Pharaon child.

The tomb initially planned for him was going to become that of its successor Aÿ. About the reasons of its death, we do not know anything if it is not that the examination of its mummy revealed a wound with the bottom of the cranium which could let suppose that he did not die of a natural death. Some go even until advancing that its death would have been caused by blows received with the back of cranium by somebody acting on the order of one of its two successors. The last indices raised during an examination to the scanner of the mummy, in February/March 2005, draw aside the track of a blow on the head and let suppose that he would have died of the continuations of a systemic infection caused by a wound on the level of the legs (tetanus, septicaemia?). The cause of its death remains however always mysterious to date (consecutive wound with an accident, an attempted murder or a combat)…

Since November 4th, 2007, its mummy is installed in a window protecting it from moisture and reveals for the first time the face of the king to the public.

“Legend”, such an allotted to Mérytaton (and with more certainty), makes that its widow, Ânkhésenpaamon, begged the king hittite Suppiluliuma to send a son to him, to go up on the throne, which it accepted while making leave the prince Zannanzach (or Zananza) who never arrived. One does not know what becomes the widow, some advance a marriage with its successor Aÿ who succeeded the young Pharaon.

Burial

The fabulous treasure found in the tomb of Toutânkhamon, which is one of the only burials to have been intact discovery, and while at the same time it acts of an unimportant Pharaon, lets forecast richness of the other tombs in their country of origin, lost forever.

According to the newspaper of Casing, fall it from Toutânkhamon concealed 171 objects: furniture, including one splendid throne, several beds, of which one surprising reads with the two long gilded cows, which testify to a technical skill seldom equalized in the continuation of times; jewels; statuettes, heads and masks; canes (approximately 130), vases, ranges, etc