Tutankhamun's treasure was buried with so much wealth to ensure the comfort and well-being of the pharaoh in the afterlife, according to the beliefs of ancient Egypt.
The time of Tutankhamun, around 1336-1327 BCE, corresponds to a particular period of ancient Egypt. He ascends to the throne when he is still just a kid, around nine years old. His reign comes right after the so-called Amarna period, marked by the troubled reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who had imposed a radical religious reform by primarily worshipping the sun god Aton. Tutankhamun, advised by those close to him, restores some order to all of this: he abandons the exclusivity of the solar cult of Aton to return to the traditional deities like Amon, thus reinstating religious and social stability. Despite this effort to return to normalcy, his time remains tumultuous and confusing, caught between tradition, power struggles, and attempts at economic and religious reconstruction. It is this troubled period, with a weakened monarchy, an uncertain religious context, and underlying political struggles that gives increased symbolic importance to the tomb of this young ruler, partly explaining why it is filled with so much wealth.
In ancient Egypt, death was not just an end: it was rather a beginning, a step towards a new form of eternal life. The main idea was that the soul had to succeed in a journey to the afterlife, a kind of other world filled with challenges before being judged by the god Osiris. To help the deceased pass these trials, many practical or symbolic items were provided, such as amulets, jewelry, or valuable objects with protective powers. One of the keys to this magical journey was also the Book of the Dead, a sort of spiritual manual that helped the deceased navigate the traps and dangers along the way. Finally, to live eternally, it was essential to preserve the body: hence the extreme importance of proper mummification, which had to keep the deceased in good condition so that he could welcome his soul upon its return.
The treasures accompanying Tutankhamun in his tomb had a very specific function: to ensure the young pharaoh an eternal life as comfortable and luxurious as the one he had known on earth. For the ancient Egyptians, after death, you needed practical objects, weapons, jewelry, furniture, food, and even statuettes of servants (called ushabtis) meant to work on your behalf in the afterlife. They firmly believed that the soul, or ka, continued to live after death and needed the same pleasures as during earthly life. On the other hand, gold was not just precious but directly symbolized the flesh of the gods, which is why it often covered royal funerary masks. The wealth deposited with Tutankhamun was not merely for displaying status but actually to facilitate his transition to the other world, while clearly marking his power and divine origin.
Egyptian funeral rites were meticulously organized because successfully transitioning to the afterlife was not something that could be improvised. The first imperative was to preserve the body at all costs. The Egyptians practiced mummification, so that the deceased could recognize their own body in the other world. Most of the organs were removed from the body and preserved separately in special jars called canopic jars. The corpse was then dried with salt, coated with resins, and carefully wrapped in linen strips. For a pharaoh, this process took about 70 days. During this time, priests and artisans worked to prepare the tomb, filled with all the necessities: furniture, food, jewelry, and sacred texts, pleasantly referred to as The Coffin Texts or more commonly The Book of the Dead. At the end of the ceremony, there was a symbolic opening of the deceased's mouth. This involved symbolically awakening their senses so that they could fully enjoy their afterlife. Finally, the tomb was sealed while reciting incantations to protect the place from thieves or evil spirits.
Several reasons explain why Tutankhamun's treasure was so laden with riches. First, he died very young, around 18 years old, so his priests probably hastily gathered everything they could find, including items originally intended for other royal members. Moreover, Tutankhamun's tomb was quite small compared to those of other pharaohs; imagine having to fit everything that should have been in a large tomb into a confined space! Nearly 5,000 items are thus found crammed everywhere, with little organized storage. Another plausible explanation: Tutankhamun's successors may have wanted to quickly erase his memory by stashing in his tomb a lot of objects related to his reign, like a kind of great sacred storage. Finally, it is also possible that his sudden death forced the priests to try to ensure his journey to the afterlife by symbolically multiplying protections, offerings, and treasures to guarantee him a comfortable royal eternity.
The funerary mask of Tutankhamun, made of solid gold inlaid with precious stones, weighed approximately 11 kg and was intended to represent the eternal and immortal face of the pharaoh.
As of today, the tomb of Tutankhamun remains the only nearly intact discovery of a pharaoh's burial site in the Valley of the Kings, which explains its exceptional fame.
Nearly 5,300 precious objects were found in the tomb chamber of Tutankhamun, including furniture, statuettes, chariots, and even jars of food intended to ensure his eternal sustenance.
Howard Carter, the British Egyptologist who discovered the tomb in 1922, took nearly ten years to excavate, meticulously document, and empty the tomb due to its exceptional wealth.
Even though many royal tombs were very rich, most were looted in ancient times. As a result, very few discovered tombs have presented comparable or greater intact wealth. That of Tutankhamun remains exceptional for its complete and preserved contents.
The tomb of Tutankhamun gained worldwide fame mainly because it was discovered almost intact in 1922 by the British archaeologist Howard Carter. The wealth and remarkable state of preservation of the treasures found made it an exceptional discovery in archaeology.
Tutankhamun died at a very young age, around 18 or 19 years old. Although several hypotheses have been proposed regarding the causes of his death, such as illness, injury, or infection, no definitive theory has yet reached a consensus among specialists.
To prevent looting, the ancient Egyptians built deeply buried and sealed burial chambers, sometimes with complex systems of hidden entrances, false chambers designed to deceive robbers, and curses intended to scare off would-be thieves.
The treasure of Tutankhamun included various precious items, such as gold jewelry inlaid with gemstones, funerary masks, beautifully decorated furniture, chariots, weapons, statues, and various ritual objects meant to accompany the pharaoh into the afterlife.
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