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Discovering Tut :
The Saga Continues…
By A. R.
Williams

Discovery Of Tut’s
TombThe discovery of tut’s tomb by Howard
Carter in 1922 is considered the most
important archaeological find of the
century. After years of painstaking work in
the Valley of the Kings, Carter's
patron, lord Carnarvon, had warned him
that that would be the last season of work
because nothing significant had been
found. On November 22 of that year,
Carter's persistence finally paid off.
Tutankhamun became a household name,
and his magnificent treasures became the
measuring stick for all future
archaeological discoveries. The mysteries
surrounding his life and death are
gradually being solved. And his story
continues to unfold as new theories are
proposed in an attempt to explain what
really happened to the boy behind the
Valley of Kings
(above)
Howard Carter
(left)

• Reign : Given his age, the king probably had
very powerful advisers, presumably including
GeneralHoremheb and the Vizier
Ay.Horemheb records that the king
appointed him "lord of the land" as
hereditary prince to maintain law. He
also noted his ability to calm the young king
when his temper flared.
• Domestic policy:In his third regnal year,
Tutankhamun reversed several changes made
during his father's reign. He ended the
worship of the god Aten and restored the
god Amun to supremacy. The ban on the
cult of Amun was lifted and traditional
privileges were restored to its priesthood. The
capital was moved back to Thebes and the
city of Akhetaten abandoned.
• This is when he changed his name to
Tutankhamun, "Living image of Amun",
reinforcing the restoration of Amun.

• As part of his restoration, the king initiated
building projects, in particular at Thebes and
Karnak where he dedicated a temple to Amun.
• Many monuments were erected, and an
inscription on his tomb door declares the king
had "spent his life in fashioning the images of the
gods". The traditional festivals were now
celebrated again, including those related to
the Apis Bull Horemakhet, and Opet .His
restoration stela says:
“The temples of the gods and goddesses ... were
in ruins. Their shrines were deserted and
overgrown. Their sanctuaries were as non-
existent and their
courts were used as roads ... the gods turned
their backs upon this land
... If anyone made a prayer to a god for advice
he would never respond.”

Burial treasures of Tut
• The treasures of Tutankhamun have been
marveled at since their discovery by Howard
Carter on November 4, 1922. It was the first, and
to this day the only, royal tomb in the history of
Egyptology to be found practically untouched,
even though in ancient times it had been the
object of no less than two attempts at
robbery. The emptying of Tutankhamun's tomb
lasted several years and made possible the
recovery of about 3500 articles, confirming the
tomb as the most exceptional archeological
discovery ever made in Egypt.
• Tutankhamun’s second innermost coffin, also
referred to as the intermediate coffin is made of
gilded, laminated wood with inlays of
polychrome glass pastes.
• Tutankhamun's third coffin is made of solid,
hammered gold and weighs about 450 pounds.
The royal mummy of Tutankhamun was found
inside this coffin

• Tutankhamun's famous gold funerary mask rested directly
on the pharaoh's mummy inside the third coffin. The
pharaoh wears the classic names headdress striped with
transversal bands of glass paste imitating lapis lazuli and is
adorned with a wide collar composed of streaks of
semiprecious stones and colored glasses. The eyes are
made of quartz and obsidian. As on the coffins, the
lapis-lazuli outline of the eyes reproduces the distinctive
kohl eye make-up originally applied to protect against the
sun's glare but increasingly employed for its beautifying
effect.
• The foremost and furthermost gilded wood statuettes
portray Tutankhamun hunting hippopotamus with a
harpoon from a boat made of papyrus.
• One of the two calcite lamps found in Tutankhamun's
burial chamber. The cup takes the form of an open lotus
flower and is flanked on both sides by rich, openwork
decoration in which the god Heh is depicted kneeling on
a number of papyrus plants with his arms raised.
• Three models of luxury ships (left) were found in
Tutankhamun's tomb. The baldachins at the bow and
stern are decorated with symbols of the sphinx and the
bull. Thirty-two model boats were placed in the tomb for
Tutankhamun's use in the afterworld

• A cobra killed Howard Carter's pet canary after the
discovery of King Tut's tomb.
• Lord Carnarvon, the person who funded the dig of King
Tut’s Tomb, died shortly after the discovery, due to a
mosquito bite which turned into an infection. At that exact
moment the lights in Cairo mysteriously went out.
• Lord Carnarvon's dog howled and dropped dead at two in
the morning when Carnarvon died.
• What is interesting is that Howard Carter lived a decade
after this major discovery.

• In 1923, another man involved in the opening of the tomb,
George Jay Gould, died as a result of a fever followed by
Carnarvon's half-brother Aubrey Herbert in 1923; Egyptologist
H.E. Evelyn-White; radiologist Sir Archibad Douglas-Reid;
Howard Carter's assistant Richard Bethel; his father Lord
Westbury; Egyptologist A.C. Mace; Egyptologist James Breasted
in 1935; and finally Howard Carter in March of 1939.
• Although some believe that the deaths may just be coincidental,
many believe that the deaths were a result of the mummy's curse.
• It is believed several of the deaths could be linked to a released
mold that had been trapped in the tomb and released.
• New findings are showing that bacteria on the wall of the
tomb might have been the cause of the curse. The bacteria
would release spores into the air allowing it to be breathed.
This in turn caused people who came into contact with
these spores to become ill.

Zahi Hawass’ words
Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities
To me the story of Tutankhamun is like a play
whose ending is still being written. The first act
of the drama begins in about 1390 B.C., several
decades before Tutankhamun's birth, when the
great pharaoh Amenhotep III assumes the
throne of Egypt. Controlling an empire
stretching 1,200 miles from the Euphrates in the
north to the Fourth Cataract of the Nile in the
south, this king of the 18th dynasty is rich
beyond imagining. Along with his powerful
queen Tiye, Amenhotep III rules for 37 years,
worshipping the gods of his ancestors, above all
Amun, while his people prosper and vast
wealth flows into the royal coffers from Egypt's
foreign holdings.

• Here he lives with his great wife, the beautiful Nefertiti, and together they serve as
the high priests of the Aten, assisted in their duties by their six cherished daughters. All
power and wealth is stripped from the Amun priesthood, and the Aten reigns
supreme. The art of this period is also infused with a revolutionary new naturalism; the
pharaoh has himself depicted not with an idealized face and youthful, muscular body as
were pharaohs before him, but as strangely effeminate, with a potbelly and a thick-
lipped, elongated face. The end of Akhenaten's reign is cloaked in confusion—a scene
acted out behind closed curtains. One or possibly two kings rule for short periods of
time, either alongside Akhenaten, after his death, or both.
• If Act I is about tradition and stability, Act II is revolt. When Amenhotep III
dies, he is succeeded by his second son, Amenhotep IV—a bizarre visionary who turns
away from Amun and the other gods of the state pantheon and worships instead a
single deity known as the Aten, the disk of the sun. In the fifth year of his reign, he
changes his name to Akhenaten—"he who is beneficial to the Aten." He elevates
himself to the status of a living god and abandons the traditional religious capital at
Thebes, building a great ceremonial city 180 miles to the north, at a place now called
Amarna.
• Like many other Egyptologists, I believe the first of these "kings" is actually
Nefertiti. The second is a mysterious figure called Smenkhkare, about whom we know
almost nothing. What we know for sure is that when the curtain opens on Act III, the
throne is occupied by a young boy: the nine-year-old Tutankhaten ("the living image of
the Aten"). Within the first two years of his tenure on the throne, he and his wife,
Ankhesenpaaten (a daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti), abandon Amarna and return
to Thebes, reopening the temples and restoring their wealth and glory. They change
their names to Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun, proclaiming their rejection of
Akhenaten's heresy and their renewed dedication to the cult of Amun.

• Then the curtain falls. Ten years after ascending the throne, Tutankhamun is
dead, leaving no heirs to succeed him. He is hastily buried in a small tomb,
designed originally for a private person rather than a king. In a backlash against
Akhenaten's heresy, his successors manage to delete from history nearly all
traces of the Amarna kings, including Tutankhamun.
• More than 5,000 artifacts were found inside the tomb. But the archaeological
record has so far failed to illuminate the young king's most intimate family
relationships. Who were his mother and father? What became of his widow,
Ankhesenamun? Are the two mummified fetuses found in his tomb King
Tutankhamun's own prematurely born children, or tokens of purity to
accompany him into the afterlife?
• With this discovery, we now know that it is unlikely that either of Akhenaten's
known wives, Nefertiti and a second wife named Kiya, was Tutankhamun's
mother, since there is no evidence from the historical record that either was
his full sister. We know the names of five daughters of Amenhotep III and
Tiye, but we will probably never know which of Akhenaten's sisters bore him a
child. But to me, knowing her name is less important than the relationship with
her brother. Incest was not uncommon among ancient Egyptian royalty.

The role of Science & Technology
in the discovery of Tut
• Egypt’s famed King Tutankhamun suffered from a cleft palate and club foot, likely
forcing him to walk with a cane, and died from complications from a broken leg
exacerbated by malaria, according to the most extensive study ever of his mummy.
• The findings were from two years of DNA testing and CT scans on 16 mummies,
including those of Tutankhamun and his family, the team that carried out the study
said in an article to be published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical
Association.
• It also established the clearest yet family tree for Tut. The study said his father was
most likely Akhenaten, the pharaoh who tried to revolutionize ancient Egyptian
religion to worship one god — while his mother was a still unidentified sister of
Akhenaten.
• Tut, who became pharaoh at the age of 10 in 1333 B.C., ruled for just nine years at a
pivotal time in Egypt’s history. While a comparatively minor king, the 1922 discovery
of his tomb filled with stunning artifacts, including the famed golden funeral mask,
made him known the world over.
• Speculation had long swirled over why the boy king died at such a young age. A hole
in his skull long fueled speculation he was murdered, until an X-ray scan in 2005 ruled
that out, finding that the hole was likely from the mummification process. The scan
also uncovered the broken leg.

Discovering tut the saga continues..

Early life of A.R.Williams
• A R Williams lives in Virginia.
• A.R. Williams developed a love for reading at a very
young age and in the fourth grade, when an assignment
to write their own works of fiction was given(A R
Williams wrote a book called journey to planet X), it
occurred to him that he too could have the ability to
craft tales for others to enjoy. The heroes of his story
were him and his four friends of his neighborhood.
• Although A.R. did not pursue this desire right away, he
continued to have a voracious appetite for reading from
the amazing comics of Spider-Man, The X-Men, and Elf
Quest, to the fantasy stories of Weiss and Hickman in
the "Dragonlance Chronicles", and the science fiction
adventures of Miles and Aral Vorkosigan in Lois
McMaster Bujold's stories about Barrayar.

• During a membership in a book club, A.R.
discovered that there were books dedicated
to teaching amateur writers more about the
craft of writing. He snatched up a twin-
pack written by Phyllis A. Whitney.
• To improve his skills, A.R. Williams joined
the Science Fiction and Fantasy Online
Writing Workshop when it was still hosted
by Del Rey. The critiques he received and
gave helped to further hone his developing
talent. At this time A.R. was writing more,
but not submitting his work to the markets.
With the advancement of the internet and
the ability to find new markets from sites
such as Ralan's and Duotrope's Digest,
A.R. entered the field in a serious attempt

Road to success
A R Williams had also started a blog called Expand Your Reach
when he attended college in which he wrote about the various
aspects of writing craft.
A R Williams is one of the many self published authors. He has
been self publishing through e books which were relatively new
at his time.
A R Williams believed that Self-publishing is freedom and that
he had the ability of his work to succeed or fail based on what
he brings to the table

George R.R. Martin
• A R Williams was influenced by authors such as “George R.R. Martin
- Few writers revolutionize what a genre can be. Some manage to
push the envelope just a nudge. Tolkien with Lord of the Rings, R.E.
Howard with Sword & Sorcery, now Martin with "A Song of Ice and
Fire". Fantasy will never be the same again. The brilliance of "A
Song of Ice and Fire" is it allows each character, even many of the
villains, to have heroic characteristics. There are layers of good and
bad. And real consequences for what the characters choose to do.”
“Lois McMaster Bujold - I love the relationship she built between
Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith. I love her ability to get into
a characters head, reveal their emotion, their thoughts, the beating
essence of their heart and their dreams and to lay it out for the
reader to enjoy.”
“Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman - I pretty much became a fan of
fantasy fiction because of them. Their world-building and the
adventures their characters went on were the most astounding
things for me. They made fantasy my favorite genre. I think their
ability to craft world is part of the reason I love world-building so
much.” ( In A R Williams' own words)

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