![]() On their walls, the pharaohs carved the deeds of which they were most proud. Constructed on the west bank of the Nile, not far from the Valley of the Kings-the realm of the dead-these temples are some of Egypt’s most famous monuments. Inscriptions indicated they came from the Mansion of Nebkheperure at Thebes, a previously unknown mortuary temple started by Tutankhamun and finished by his successor, Aye, as a memorial to the young king after his untimely death.ĭuring the New Kingdom, every pharaoh built a mortuary temple where priests made offerings for the soul of their deceased king. He noticed that the collection included some 200 additional blocks, including ones that featured Tutankhamun’s name, but they didn’t belong to the Luxor colonnade. Ultimately, the team found more than 1,500 repurposed blocks.Įgyptologist Ray Johnson was among the researchers who studied the temple stones. While removing later structures built atop the avenue, experts discovered that the foundations of these medieval-era buildings contained inscribed blocks taken from the ancient temples in the area.Īs the blocks accumulated, Egyptologists from the University of Chicago’s Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental Institute (based at Chicago House in Luxor) decided to see if any were from the Tutankhamun colonnade, which was missing the top few feet of its walls. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get credit for his devotions: Instead, his name has been erased and replaced by that of the later pharaoh Horemheb.įor many years, the Egyptian Antiquities Organization (now the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities) had planned to uncover the ancient pathway of sphinxes that led from Karnak to Luxor. Tutankhamun is prominently featured in the reliefs on the west wall of the colonnade, where he makes offerings to the godly trinity. The decorations show marvelous details of the joyous procession from Karnak to Luxor and back at the end of the festival. At the opening of the festival, statues of the three gods were taken from their shrines in Karnak Temple, placed in divine ships known as barques and sent one and a half miles along the Nile to Luxor Temple, where they remained for a week of celebrations. Opet was the ancient name for Karnak, home of the traditional Theban trinity of Amun (the father), Mut (the mother) and Khonsu (their son). Tutankhamun decorated the Colonnade Hall with scenes of the most glorious of Thebes’ festivals-the Opet Festival. When Tutankhamun succeeded Akhenaten, the boy-king returned to Thebes and was advised to complete the decoration of the hall to show he was like his grandfather, not his father, and would give the people back their religion. When Amenhotep’s son Akhenaten became king, he banished the gods of Egypt and moved to Amarna, leaving the Luxor columns and walls bare for more than a decade. ![]() Tutankhamun’s first major building project in Thebes was the completion of a monument begun by his paternal grandfather, Amenhotep III, who built a 150-foot-long colonnaded hall at Luxor Temple but died before it was decorated. ![]() For evidence of this, look to the boy-king’s lost monuments. If Tutankhamun was, in fact, relatively healthy, it’s possible he played another role, too: that of a warrior. It’s worth noting, however, that ancient Egyptian officials were often depicted with walking sticks as a sign of their authority. Some supporters of the sickly pharaoh theory point to the more than 130 walking sticks found in Tut’s tomb. ![]() But the pharaoh’s legs appear to be symmetrical no signs of asymmetrical wear appear on the dozens of pairs of shoes and sandals buried alongside him. If Tutankhamun’s condition were as severe as the archaeologists argued, he would likely have had asymmetry in the bones of the lower legs and perhaps even the pelvis. Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the WorldĮxplores the 100 years of research on Tutankhamun that have taken place since the tomb's discovery Buy
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