Four great Egyptian mummies and the interesting stories behind them

Tutankhamun

After the death of Akhenaten in 1336 BCE, his son Tutankhamun assumed the throne. Tutankhamun was just about 8 or 9 years old when his father died and he was given power as Pharoah. Regarded as the most famous Egyptian pharaoh, Tutankhamun, also known as Tut or Tutankhaten, ruled for about 10 years. His father, Akhenaten had then established a quasi-monotheistic religion in ancient Egypt, imposing one god on the Egyptians, and this hurt the people’s feelings. When Tut took the throne, he restored the traditional religious practices of Egypt to the joy of many and rebuilt temples and overturned certain decisions of his father. But Tut passed away too soon — in 1327 BCE when he was 18.

His mummy was discovered in 1922 almost three decades after his death by archaeologist Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon, who passed away some months after the discovery. In 2019, it was announced that the Grand Egyptian Museum will feature a complete collection of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Only 1,800 pieces of the collection had previously been on display, authorities said. “Tutankhamun will be displayed in a totally new way that will reveal the man behind the gold mask,” the museum’s director-general, Tarek Tawfik, said.