4th November: King Tut Day: Discovery of King Tut's tomb

King Tut Day Marks the discovery of King Tutankhamun's Tomb in 1922. 10 things you may not know about the boy king:

1. He wasn't known as Tutankhamun before he became king. As a young child, he was known as Tutankhaten. "Living Image of Aten". Tutankhamun means "Living Image of Amun".
2. He changed his name because he rejected his father's religion. His father, Akhenaten, worshipped the god Aten, and banned worship of the god Amun. King Tut lifted the ban, restored the priesthood and moved the capital of Egypt back to Thebes from Akhetaten.
3. Some serious inbreeding went on in his family. He was the result of an incestuous relationship between Akhenaten and one of his sisters, rather than being the son of one of Akhenaten's queens. Then when it was time for Tut himself to marry, his bride was his half sister.
4. The ancient Egyptians didn't know about the dangers of inbreeding, but King Tut paid the price. He was found to suffer from a number of congenital defects including a cleft palate, a club foot and buck teeth. It's also thought he had a mild case of scoliosis, or curvature of the spine. Despite probably being slightly disabled, artwork and other artefacts found in his tomb suggest King Tut was an avid hunter, charioteer and a skilled archer.
5. Tutankhamun was slight of build, and was roughly 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) tall.
6. He and his wife had two children - but they were both stillborn. Two foetuses were buried in King Tut's tomb with him, and DNA testing confirmed at least one of them was his child - and probably both of them, although testing is not yet complete. Scientists think the excessive inbreeding meant that it would have been impossible for the royal couple to produce a child which would survive.
7. Although very young, Tutankhamun seems to have been a skilled diplomat. His father had neglected diplomatic relations, but Tut worked at restoring them, with some success, as evidenced by gifts from other countries found in his tomb. It didn't always work - there are records of battles with Nubians and Asiatics during his reign.
8. The curse of the Pharoah doesn't exist. A recent statistical study found there was no evidence that people who entered the tomb died any younger than those who did not. The idea of a curse was probably down to the newspapers of the time who published stories about a curse to sell more copies!
9. He died aged just 19, but nobody really knows what caused his death. Theories put forward include assassination by a blow to the back of the head (although more recent studies have cast doubt on this); an infection resulting from a broken leg which was caused by an epileptic fit; a chariot accident; or a Hippopotamus bite (not as crazy as it sounds - hippopotamus would have been an animal hunted by the young king).
10. Some Egyptian kings were worshipped as gods after their deaths. Tutankhamun was one of these. Archaeologists have found evidence of a cult which believed that Tutankhamun could forgive their sins and heal them. People as far away as Nubia built temples to him.