Travel back to the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt and witness King Tutankhamun and the sacred belongings of the pharaoh.
Step back in time to the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt and behold the treasures of King Tutankhamun, including his opulent burial chamber filled with golden artifacts, intricately carved statues, precious jewelry, and ceremonial objects.

Explore the rich symbolism and religious significance of these items, which were meticulously crafted to accompany the young pharaoh into the afterlife. This journey offers a glimpse into the splendor and mystique of one of history’s most famous archaeological discoveries, shedding light on the beliefs and culture of ancient Egyptian royalty during this pivotal period.

There are some secrets of the pharaohs, however, that can be revealed only by studying their mummies. By carrying out CT scans of King Tutankhamun’s mummy, we were able in 2005 to show that he did not die from a blow to the head, as many people believed.

Our analysis revealed that a hole in the back of his skull had been made during the mummification process. The study also showed that Tutankhamun died when he was only 19—perhaps soon after he suffered a fracture to his left leg. But there are mysteries surrounding Tutankhamun that even a CT scanner cannot reveal. Now we have probed even deeper into his mummy and returned with extraordinary revelations about his life, his birth, and his death.

To me the story of Tutankhamun is like a play whose ending is still being written. The first act of the drama begins in about 1390 B.C., several decades before Tutankhamun’s birth, when the great pharaoh Amenhotep III assumes the throne of Egypt. Controlling an empire stretching 1,200 miles from the Euphrates in the north to the Fourth Cataract of the Nile in the south, this king of the 18th dynasty is rich beyond imagining. Along with his powerful queen Tiye, Amenhotep III rules for 37 years, worshipping the gods of his ancestors, above all Amun, while his people prosper and vast wealth flows into the royal coffers from Egypt’s foreign holdings.

If Act I is about tradition and stability, Act II is revolt. When Amenhotep III dies, he is succeeded by his second son, Amenhotep IV—a bizarre visionary who turns away from Amun and the other gods of the state pantheon and worships instead a single deity known as the Aten, the disk of the sun. In the fifth year of his reign, he changes his name to Akhenaten—”he who is beneficial to the Aten.”

He elevates himself to the status of a living god and abandons the traditional religious capital at Thebes, building a great ceremonial city 180 miles to the north, at a place now called Amarna. Here he lives with his great wife, the beautiful Nefertiti, and together they serve as the high priests of the Aten, assisted in their duties by their six cherished daughters. All power and wealth is stripped from the Amun priesthood, and the Aten reigns supreme.

The art of this period is also infused with a revolutionary new naturalism; the pharaoh has himself depicted not with an idealized face and youthful, muscular body as were pharaohs before him, but as strangely effeminate, with a potbelly and a thick-lipped, elongated face.

The end of Akhenaten’s reign is cloaked in confusion—a scene acted out behind closed curtains. One or possibly two kings rule for short periods of time, either alongside Akhen­aten, after his death, or both. Like many other Egyptologists, I believe the first of these “kings” is actually Nefertiti. The second is a mysterious figure called Smenkhkare, about whom we know almost nothing.

What we know for sure is that when the curtain opens on Act III, the throne is occupied by a young boy: the nine-year-old Tut­ankhaten (“the living image of the Aten”). Within the first two years of his tenure on the throne, he and his wife, Ankhesenpaaten (a daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti), abandon Amarna and return to Thebes, reopening the temples and restoring their wealth and glory. They change their names to Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun, proclaiming their rejection of Akhenaten’s heresy and their renewed dedication to the cult of Amun.