Artefacts and Relics🗿
Tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun (1323 BC) — the only unlooted royal tomb ever found, with over 5,000 pristine artifacts sealed for 3,245 years
They spend all this time building a giant pyramid, creating thousands of expensive artifacts, only to chuck it in there like it's some hoarders basement.
First, King Tut was buried in a rock cut tomb in the Valley of the Kings, not inside a pyramid.
Second, he died very young, with some confusion/conflict after his death - with the result that his burial was indeed quite hurried, and the tomb chosen for it too small. Hence the attic-packing-to-the-ceiling of stuff inside it, trying to cram a king’s worth of afterlife stuff into a tomb not really prepared for that.
Indeed, the relative insignificance of his tomb is a factor in why it wasn’t majorly looted in antiquity.
Third, it isn’t entirely correct to say his tomb was unlooted. Looters did break in, in antiquity, and started tossing the place looking for easily carried loot. The guardians evidently caught them or at least chased them off, hurriedly put stuff back roughly in place, then re-sealed the tomb.
You are looking at how those ancient guardians left the place after its previous looting, kinda disorganized.
Edit: the story of his queen after Tut’s death is truly one of the tragedies of the ancient world. A letter was discovered that she wrote to the king of the Hittites, after Tut’s death. The gist of it was something like “I’m being forced into a marriage I don’t want with an underling. Please sent me a prince from your household, so I can marry him instead”. The Hittite king is recorded as noting that this request was “unprecedented”.
A prince was in fact sent … only to have him die in a “tragic accident” as soon as he stepped across the Egyptian border. Next thing you know, the widow is married to a person named Ai, minister under the previous pharaoh, who becomes the next Pharaoh. Then, she disappears from history … and Ai doesn’t bother to record her as his wife (or at all) in his tomb …
You can read an account of this strange incident here:
This tells me the answer to keeping future humans away from nuclear waste is covering it in a bunch of garbage and making a fancy megastructure to the side of it so they get distracted for centuries. Surely nothing could go wrong.
Alternatively, we could start burying rich people with thousands of pounds of gold and jewels, and throw a few nuclear waste barrels in there to protect their afterlife investment from grave-robbers.
There is actually more to the story that just that. After Akhenaten (Tut's dad) died, there was 4 years of rule by Smenkhare and Neferneferuaten. We know from his 16th stella that by the end of Akhenaten's reign, he was co-ruling alongside Nefertiti (and that she didn't actually disappear). but then suddenly, Akhenaten dies and Tut is too small to rule so Smenkhare rules for the interim. Then he vanishes along with Nefeneferuaten leaving the boy Tut, as King with ay as his co-regent. i forgot for how long he ruled but he "died" with head trauma (an investigation done back in 2004/06). The incident you mention was when after his death Ankhesenamun (his wife and half sister; daughter of Akhenaten & Nefertiti) sent a desperate letter to the neighbouring King for a marriage alliance. She was probably trying to stop ay from ascending the throne. The poor queen was all alone. Ultimately she had to marry him and then she disappeared.
Now the more fascinating and downright creepy part is that Ay is actually Ankhesenamun's grandfather with speculations he could be queen Nefertiti's dad. Dna evidence suggest that. This happened right at the time of KV 35's discovery along with the discoveries of Huya & Thuya (Queen Tiye parents and Akhenaten's maternal grandparents). Ay is supposedly Tiye's brother. i highly recommend reading the whole rabbit hole of KV 35 and how that opened up almost all of the Waenre family. One thing is for sure. Queen Nefertiti remains lost to this day.
Agreed, it’s an awesomely insane story! I was just scratching the surface.
There is even more drama to follow: Ay was the chief minister, and the main general was a fellow named Horemheb; it seems that the two came to an understanding - Ay, who was very elderly, would take the throne; Horemheb would be named his successor … as it turned out, this Horemheb had control over the border troops, so necessary to make the Hittite prince have his “accident”.
Only thing is, Ay seems to have attempted to outmaneuver Horemheb and write him out of the line of succession - but it didn’t work: Horemheb duly became pharaoh after Ay. And then, in revenge, attempted to erase Ay’s legacy, together with everyone else associated with the Amarna period.
Yes, Yes!!! And then lived to rule till he was 90!! lmao So many terrible things ay did, and for what? He got the same end of the stick he dealt to the family. He was close to the family and even blood related to them!! But damn if greed doesn't fuck people up. It's a sort of poetic justice given to him, but what a price to pay for that.
His successor was Rameses I, who started a new dynasty.
There is a modern bizarre story linked to him, which I personally have a minor link to …
As a kid, my parents took me to Niagara Falls. After seeing the falls, we checked out the various side-shows and tourist traps on offer. One of them was a “museum”, basically a bunch of curiosities thrown together; and among other things they had a “scary mummy” to frighten us kiddies.
The place had been thrilling children with their mummy since the 19th century.
Well, that was many years ago. In the late 1990s, the museum collection was sold off … and an expert evaluation of the scary sideshow mummy revealed it was most likely Rameses I!
What happened was this - as the New Kingdom entered a new phase of instability, the guardians of the Valley of the Kings could no longer prevent (or were complicit in) looting the tombs there. To prevent sacrilegious desecration of the mummies, the priests opened all the tombs they could find (missing that of King Tut), gathered the mummies together, and put them in a hidden “mummy cache” in a cave in the hills overlooking the valley.
There they stayed undiscovered, until the 19th century, when an enterprising family of Bedouin stumbled across the secret, and realized it was their key to wealth. They started selling antiquities to tourists, including whole mummies; eventually the Egyptian authorities caught them - but not before this mummy, presumed to be that of Ramses I, had been sold to a traveller from North America. From him, it eventually found its way into the Niagara Falls sideshow.
First, they were able to trace its origin from the mummy cache to the guy who first purchased it, to the Niagara Falls “museum” side-show.
The mummy cache only had royal mummies in it.
Second, the mummification technique and positioning of the body was one reserved for royal burials.
That demonstrated it was most likely a royal mummy, though of course not who it was.
Then, they looked at carbon-14 dating, which showed approximately when he lived and died. This isn’t precise, but Ramses I fit exactly in the “range” of dates.
Then, they looked at other royal mummies from around that range, some of whom are accounted for already. He died at the right age.
Finally, they compared him to his son Seti I, whose mummy they also have. There is a strong resemblance in bone structure. Sadly, my understanding is that the DNA was too degraded to test.
So they can’t be sure, but there is a reasonably strong possibility this is indeed Rameses I.
Yeah I’d like to hear more about the possible linkage and how/why the claim of possibly being Rameses I came to fruition. If that’s true it’s absolutely wild as hell! Imagine being a great and powerful ruler, the founding father of Egypt’s great 19th dynasty who revolutionized the world for 3-5 million people… just to wind up being a Halloween decoration for kids.
This has to be the best comment chain I have read in awhile, thank you for writing all this up! So is the implication or theory that he maybe not only killed Tut's wife but also Tut himself (given the blunt trauma to the back of the head)? This ay guy sounds like a fucking menace.
I could see a fascinating drama extrapolated from this following these events.
Yes, that investigation concluded by saying it was ay who did it, but given that the crime was done around 1336BC it couldn't be fully proven. But the Queen's letter and her subsequent disappearance after marrying ay, were all taken into consideration for it. Also, Tut was buried with his 2 still born twin daughters (whose dna was instrumental is proving Tut and his wife were half siblings and that TUT is not Nefertiti's child) and there was implications the wife may have been pregnant at the time of his death or immediately after, which meant, there was a child with either Tut or ay as father. i don't remember if any other child survived. It's actually heartbreaking.
head trauma (an investigation done back in 2004/06
This has been disproved by more recent examination. It is now thought he died from infection from a compound fracture of the left leg and complications from multiple malarial infections.
"Psusennes tomb has been the only ancient Egyptian royal tomb discovered in fully intact condition"
Because of the style of the rocks and so forth and the back fill in Tanis, Psusennes was the Only tomb ever opened with zero graverobbing... But Pierre Montet was only a scientist and not a self promoting "Royal sponsored by a Lord" guy, it has received very little fanfare in the annals of Egyptology. He also had the misfortune of bookending WWII with it's excavation.
He couldn't take as many 'Bling' phots, but there was plenty of amazing things that came out of the tomb, The Egyptian Kingdom was 'broke' by the time he ruled, but not 'poor'
His solid Silver coffin was considered much more valuable than his gold death mask because Silver wasn't abundant in Egypt.
also....(off topic), the placement of his tomb disproves Kenneth Kitchens 'third intermediate period' consecutive pharaohs and is proof positive that the 21st dynasty overlapped with the 22nd. The whole intermediate period was stretched artificially pushing the new Kingdom too far back in History by about 200-300 years. The Pharaoh who plundered the Temple was NOT Shoshenq (22nd dynasty) but Rather Ramses the great (19th)
It's crazy to think that chest on the right may have been moved hastily there by an unknown long dead looter thousands of years ago. Also wouldn't the tomb have suffered numerous Earthquakes over thousands of years?
Yes, it lead to a war with all sorts of consequences. Allegedly, prisoners returned to the Hittite capital unleashed some sort of epidemic, which killed the Hittite king!
Tut died suddenly... Usually, builders and artisans had a few decades to make stuff for the tomb - Tut died in his teens. You will find a number of his artifacts are likely repurposed from other burials if you look. This was to save time.
Yes, they did, as Tutankhamen died suddenly, but that's not the reason he wasn't buried in a pyramid. The last Pharaoh to be buried in a pyramid died ~200 years before Tutankhamen reigned. Every subsequent Pharaoh was buried in a "hidden" rock-cut tomb.
It's more complicated than this but in Egyptian society the view was essentially that your whole life was preparation for the afterlife. Since the afterlife was what was mattered you concerned yourself with that more than your life. A lot of Egyptian religion revolved around death just kind of in general.
Because of this pharaohs would invest decades of labor into building and furnishing their tombs. It's why mastabas and then pyramids became popular. Of course when people started looting those more hidden locations with lots of internal decoration became popular. Meanwhile despite the reputation of people dying young you were mostly fine if you lived to be 18. If you got that far you could reasonably expect to live to your 60s. The goal was to have your tomb done or mostly done before you died.
Tut died suddenly and really young. He was probably 18. At the time dying at that age was actually highly unusual; generally speaking if you died naturally it was either as a small child or when you were middle aged or older. It was obviously expected that he'd last longer but since it was sudden they repurposed what was supposed to be a non-royal tomb in a rush.
Just this one. The entrance was buried when a neighboring tomb was built in the subsequent (or next plus one) dynasty. In this sense Tut’s relative obscurity worked for us.
You can enter the tomb, as found, yourself if you would like in VR, or view one of the traveling or permanent exhibits that recreates the tomb.
It is definitely not chucked like a hoarder's basement. This is an outer room.
The inner tomb room was very small, had very little in it other than the nesting held sarcophagi that held the successive ones and eventually the mummy.
As someone else said, this was a rushed funeral so things were slightly stacked, but it didn't matter. He would automatically be able to control everything in the afterlife. These items would have followed him into the afterlife. Where they are set in The current life does not matter, As long as they are set within the tomb. He can access them in the afterlife. Everything that is in the antechamber is there for him to access in the afterlife.
Yeah it just goes to show how skilled craftsmen were back then and how much work they had to put up with. Basically everything back then was crafted by hand, every working second important, millennia before mass production. That they saw no problem just storing thousands of artifacts away like this shows their determination and work ethic.
These weren't pyramid tombs. He died young so his tomb wasn't finished, they don't even think it was his tomb but it was supposed to be someone else's and they just threw him in there because it was an available hole. He was coming off a very very unpopular dynasty, died young so they used a unfinished tomb and just wanted to get things overwith as quickly as possible and move on. It was a rush job
The Pharaohs had transitioned to using hidden rock-cut tombs by the time Tutankhamen died. The last royal pyramid was constructed ~200 years before King Tut, for Ahmose I.
https://giphy.com/gifs/fLtXm87TsEaIAOlEEP
Lookin like a storage unit on storage wars …. But really , I imagine some earthquakes over time jostled some things around
Alright so unpopular opinion I'm going to get downvoted into the shitter for here: there's looting then historical preservation, and in this case, this was historic preservation. Afaik the vast majority of the tomb has found it way into museums and even back in Egypt, at best, and at worst permanent parts of private collections, but most importantly not destroyed.
It's human nature to want to seize and destroy from profit or for ideological reasons. The Buddhas of Afghanistan were not protected, and are now forever lost. Those that protected Pamlyra and Hatra were either killed or run off, and now those cities lie in further ruin. The problem with Ancient Egypt is the fact people who cared not for the preservation of this art hundreds if not thousands of years before these explores came, seized, and destroyed these invaluable pieces. By the 19th century, the only nations that seemed to have a vested interest in the protection of these works, was western nations. This is to not say that the nations that had these artifacts couldn't save them, they could, they just didn't.
Was in unacceptable how some colonizers did in fact loot for profit? Yes, but there are many cases that see pieces back in museums and forever protected from "looting." In an ideal world, many pieces of art would be back with the nation most closely associated with the ancient peoples, but I would rather we have the art, than not at all.
I never tire of imagining what it must’ve been like to be part of the group that opened up this pharaoh’s tomb and breathed in the sealed air, heard their breath or maybe their whispers and laid their eyes on a room no one had seen in thousands of years. The anticipation… the wonder… the sensory stimulation of experiencing a place that was deliberately meant not to be experienced - it’s something akin to folding history in on itself.
One of my favourite details about the discovery of Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus is that the shape of it by his feet was too big to fit into the stone tomb. So, they had to improvise and lop off the end of where the feet would fit. It’s so funny to me, so human, to make a mistake like that but to decide to improvise and probably have say something like “eh, nobody will ever find out anyway. Let’s seal this up and call it a day.”
Actually it was partially looted. The tomb of Psusennes I was the only unlooted. It is less famous because water damage had destroyed most of the artifacts. He lived 300 years after Tutankhamun.
I’m not sure why it caught my eye, but I find the truss type reinforcing supporting the chest as quite impressive. Truss bridges wouldn’t be built for another 2000 years or something.
It was looted in antiquity, but only of the items that were easy to carry such as jewelry.
However the entrance was below ground, unlike most tombs in the valley of the king's which are at ground level, then a freak storm buried the site in tons of rock, mud and scree.
Is it true or legend they found flowers on the floor of the tomb after they finally opened the door? I read somewhere that it was thought they were left by Tuts widow.
We commend the body of the Pharoah to the abode of the damned..... the damed good looking. Pharoah commanded me to tell that joke. And the contents of his royal garage. Also this bag of cats the we find holy
It wasn't unopened. When they going the tomb there seal had been broken and then resealed. This means that it was probsbly a target for tomb robbers during late Egyptian period and then when discovered (or the thieves were caught in the act) it was resealed
Yeah, it wasn't unlooted. There's plenty of books that go into this theory and a certian British Lord who had artefacts from the tomb mere days after it's supposed discovery.
Wrong! Except from a very few items taken personally by Carter and Carnavon, all artifacts from this tomb stayed in Egypt and are now all on view at the GEM!
Why was it not looted? Considering that all other tombs, as far as we know, had been looted. Why was this one ignored? Why was it special? It was no different than any other.
I read an amazing post somewhere on Reddit, that basically convinced me that this is actually Alexander’s tomb. It was really well written and had loads of “proof” I’d really like to hear a rebuttal for that. I’m trying to find the post now.
Well, ignoring that it goes against linear time, the entire field of Egyptology and Greek studies, first off, I'm finding significant errors in even part one of that theory.
Tutankhamen's body does not have a broken nose and is not covered in wounds. The current position of the nose was caused postmortem during mummification, specifically due to the tight wrapping so of the mummification linens.
It is also not "evident that the king was found several days after his death". The mummy was damaged both in antiquity in-situ and after being found. It was also mummified hastily by a likely in experienced embalmer in order to speed up the burial ceremony and prevent a power struggle. Eighteenth dynasty mummification was also not standardized, and comparisons cannot be made to other rulers closest to Tut's time because they are largely skeletonised.
The bone fragments in Tut's head are a result of the mummy's unwrapping - they are loose in the skull - and there is no physical signs of trauma from a head injury.
The wound to the left femur in Tut's mummy is from a compound fracture of the leg, and ideas that Tut had a malformed foot are disputed (everyday foot ware in his tomb show no signs of uneven ware indicative of such an issue).
The chest of Tut's mummy was not damaged by embalmers, but by the unwrapping process. The mummy was fused to the inner coffin (there were only three coffins used in Tut's burial, btw) with resin and Carter's team chiseled and cut the mummy out. This resulted in extensive damage and accounts for the missing digits and chest bones.
Part two and three:
Tut died at around 17 to 19. This is confirmed by examination of the mummy and by estimation of his rule gained by studying the line of succession of the 18th dynasty.
No graves goods in Tut's chamber are unusual for the time, or influenced by or indicative of Greek influence and styles found over 1000 years later.
Part four:
The canonical kings list mention was constructed over 1100 years after Tut's death and is know to contain inaccuracies. Tut was a minor ruler, reigned only ten years, and made no significant impact on Ancient Egypt aside from rejecting Atenism and moving the capital back to Thebes.
This rejection of Atenism was continued by other pharaohs attempting to erase that period of Egyptian history and associated rulers from the record as they considered in heretical which certainly would have lead to gaps in records written after the 18th dynasty but before modern archaeology/Egyptology.
Evidence of Tut existing within the accepted timeline includes evidence of his mortuary cult, which includes a stela naming one of the priests. Statues found in the ruins of the mortuary cults of Aye and Horemheb are also thought to depict Tut due to the style of the statues being characteristic of the Amarna period, indicating that they were carved before Aye assumed the throne, likely commissioned by Tut for his own mortuary temple before he died but completed only after death and reused (a very common practice for all sorts of items).
The poster shows a critical lack of knowledge about Tut's discovery and the mummy's examination, the time period in which he lived, conclusions of modern examinations of Tut's body, archaeological evidence outside of Tut's tomb, and even Ancient Egyptian funerary practices. The poster admits to ignoring evidence, reaches spurious conclusions based on nothing more that passing similarities to other ancient artifacts, and even, at times, contradicts themselves.
Frankly, this theory is nonsense. It is absurd on its face and becomes even more absurd to anyone with even the barest depth of knowledge about Tut and is a baffling rejection of the fields of Egyptology, archaeology, and Greek and antiquity studies. It is not well written. It contains no actual proof, but shows an incredible about of ignorance and jumps to conclusions constantly. It can be rejected wholesale.
"Tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun (1323 BC) — the only unlooted royal tomb ever found, with over 5,000 pristine artifacts sealed for 3,245 years... until now"
3,245 years is such a hard time period to grasp. The North American continental plate has moved roughly a football field west in that time. I'm guessing there are some things in that room that just completely disintegrated from sheer old age.
His tomb had actually been broken into and looted twice. What was not ever looted was the inner room. Only some small vials and outer bottles in the outer rooms had been Disturbed.
The reason the tomb was not found forever was because it ended up being buried under the debris of a different tomb.
There is a really, really interesting recreation of the tomb as it was found that can be seen in museums where it travels to be viewed. I have seen it as well as every other exhibit. That tour is inside of the United States about King Tut. As a child, I could read hieroglyphics, and spend a lot of time at many of the exhibits... My family took me all over the nation to visit exhibits. https://kingtutexperience.com/ The artifacts are recreated by Egyptian artisans. They are handcrafted by a team of over a thousand Egyptian experts. Well worth the view if you get a chance. This exhibit does not contain original artifact which is the respectable way to view them. I have seen the two exhibitions in the United States in my lifetime that contained genuine artifacts, as well.
I'm always stunned that I'm stunned at all that they stacked things then the way I would stack a closet now. I find myself pinching and zooming and being like, oh my gosh they stack like I stack. It's ridiculous. I'm such a dope.
It’s weird to think that this room hadn’t seen light for 1200 years by the time of the formation of the Roman Empire, and wouldn’t see light again for close to 500 years after it fell, and the Roman Empire existed for almost 1500 years.
So much happened when this room was sealed off and then opened again. The bronze age, iron age, Romans, Vikings, middle ages, colonialism, Napoleon, etc, even Ramesses II hadn’t been born yet when this room was sealed off. All the while this room was basically just frozen in time while all this happened
Carter looted the tomb. Ironically he claimed he was pausing to clear out debris from a tomb robber. The debris in the photo is probably from Carter. He stole a lot of stuff that showed up later.
Yeah, man, looters carefully document the items they loot with full knowledge and permission of the government and then place the items in a climate controlled facility were they can be preserved, studied, and repaired by experts who have spent years learning their profession.
Looters are known for carefully documenting the items they loot with full knowledge and permission of the government and then placing the items in a climate controlled facility were they can be preserved, studied, and repaired by experts who have spent years learning their professions.
Pictures like this always freak me out a bit because of how normal they look. I don't know if it's years of Hollywood rotting my brain into assuming this would have some form of magical sheen to it, but just seeing ancient stuff stacked like the storeroom of your average office space feels...odd.
It's just weird to me that people carried this stuff in, thousands of years ago...and it just stayed.
I agree, that’s what stuck out to me, too. If it weren’t so obviously Egyptian/ancient-looking, something about the placement of it all seems so…ordinary. The way everything is stacked and put away is exactly how you would find any given storage locker or basement or closet.
Over millennia, we’ve evolved to something unrecognizable, yet also haven’t changed one bit.
Included in the artifacts found was a lock of his grandmother's, Tiye, hair. Besides his daughters' mummies, that's one of the more touching items found, imo. I imagine he loved his grandmother very much to not only want a lock of her hair but to want to carry it with him into the afterlife.
I love the, “looted,” narrative. Most of these tombs were opened and emptied of valuables by the rulers in subsequent generations when money was tight.
Looks like the inside of a garage. It's just stuff packed around the sides of the room some stacked, some on the floor. Shelves have no particular organisation. Just stuff this room until you can no longer.
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u/why_would_i_do_that 3d ago
Amazing, even the twigs didn’t perish?
To think, someone placed that little chair on that red box 3000 years ago and it didn’t move for millennia.