Tutankhamun's mummy
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| Location | KV62, Valley of the Kings |
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| Date discovered | October 28, 1925 |
| Excavated by | Howard Carter |
On October 28, 1925, English Egyptologist Howard Carter and his team removed the lid on the third and last sarcophagus of the burial chamber in tomb KV62, revealing the mummy of Tutankhamun. His burial chamber was found in the Valley of the Kings in the Theban Necropolis in 1922, but was not opened until a year later. It would be another two years before the mummy and its famous death mask were discovered inside the tomb.
Tutankhamun was the 11th pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, making his mummy over 3,300 years old. The discovery of the tomb as a whole was one of the most significant and famous archeological discoveries in modern times. There has been great speculation about the alleged Curse of the Pharaohs and also the actual cause of death of King Tutankhamun since very little information about the young king is known.
Tutankhamun was the 11th pharaoh during the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom; however, the exact dates of his reign are not clear. An educated estimate is that he ruled over Ancient Egypt from about 1355-1346 BCE. After an initial examination of the 3,300-year-old mummy, it was estimated that Tutankhamun was a teenager of approximately 17–19 years of age when he died. Since it was believed that Tutankhamun became king as child no more than ten years old, many refer to him as the "Boy-King" or "Child-King." A majority of his reign was devoted to restoring Egyptian culture, including religious and political policies; his predecessor Akhenaten (recently proven to be his father) had altered many Egyptian cultural aspects during his reign, and one of Tutankhamun's many restoration policies included changing the political capital from Akhenaten's Amarna back to Thebes. Following the discovery of Tutankhamun's mummy, much debate has arisen as to his exact cause of death. This has led to numerous medical studies and procedures performed on his remains, right up to the 2010s. As medical technology has advanced throughout the years, new techniques have been utilized on the mummy to discover the true age, genealogy, and cause of death of the young pharaoh, speculated by some to be from a battle wound or a chariot accident, so that some of the mysteries surrounding the "Boy-King" might finally be put to rest. Tutankhamen was believably poisoned but he was possibly in a chariot accident or suffered a blow to the head.
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