Amenhotep and King Tut

Thutmose I and Hatshepsut were powerful rulers. But we remember two other pharaohs of Egypt for different reasons. The pharaoh Amenhotep tried to change the way that the Egyptians worshipped their gods.

AMENHOTEP: MANY GODS OR ONE GOD?

Amenhotep’s father was pharaoh, so when he died Amenhotep inherited his throne. He became pharaoh around 1350 BC/BCE. He was the fourth pharaoh named Amenhotep, so he was known as Amenhotep IV.

At first, Amenhotep acted like any other pharaoh. He made laws. He sent the army out to stop rebellions. He married a princess from Nubia and had a daughter. He worshipped all of Egypt’s many gods. As a matter of fact, he was named after one of Egypt’s most important gods—Amun, a god of the sun who was sometimes called “The King of the Gods.” Amenhotep sacrificed to Amun, gave money to his priests, and held big celebrations to honor this powerful god.

But then something happened to Amenhotep. He decided that Amun didn’t exist. As a matter of fact, he decided that none of Egypt’s gods were real.

The Egyptian people were horrified. After all, they worshipped dozens of gods. They were polytheists. Polytheism means “the worship of many gods.” The Egyptians thought that the gods controlled every part of life. The gods made the Nile flood; they made rain fall; they made women have babies; they provided food; they decided whether you would live or die. How could this pharaoh suddenly stop worshipping the gods?

Amenhotep didn’t pay any attention to what his people thought. His mind was made up. Instead of many gods, he believed, there was only one god. He called this god Aten. The old gods of Egypt had looked like human beings, but Aten didn’t look like a man. He had to be drawn by a symbol.

Amenhotep did his best to drive all worship of the old gods—polytheism—out of Egypt.

Amenhotep was the first Egyptian monotheist. Monotheism means “worship of only one god.” He spent much of his reign worshipping Aten. He built a whole new city with a huge, new temple in it for Aten. He wrote poetry to his god. One of his poems says:

Earth brightens when you dawn in lightland, When you shine as Aten of daytime … The entire land sets out to work, All beasts browse on their herbs; Trees, herbs are sprouting, Birds fly from their nests … Ships fare north, fare south as well, Roads lie open when you rise; The fish in the river dart before you, Your rays are in the midst of the sea.

As long as Amenhotep lived, he kept the Egyptians from worshipping all their gods. But as soon as Amenhotep died, the Egyptians rebelled! They closed the temple to Aten. They reopened all their other temples. They went back to worshipping all the old gods of Egypt. And they erased Amenhotep’s name from all the monuments he had built. They took him out of all their records. They moved out of his new city and let it crumble away into ruins. They were so angry at Amenhotep for trying to make them worship just one god that they tried to forget he had ever been pharaoh. Monotheism in Egypt had failed. Polytheism—the worship of many gods—had won, after all.

THE BOY BURIED WITH TREASURE: KING TUT

Tut became king of Egypt when he was only seven. He grew up in the house of Amenhotep, the pharaoh who changed his name to Akhenaten. There, Tut was originally named Tutankhaten, a name honoring the god Aten. But when he became king, Tut changed his name to Tutankhamen, a name honoring Amun, the old “King of the Gods”! King Tut helped to wipe out the worship of Aten. He encouraged the people to start worshipping the old gods again.

But King Tut did not have much time to rule. He died when he was eighteen.

Tut wasn’t buried in a pyramid. You see, robbers knew that the pyramids of Egypt were full of treasure. They broke into the pyramids and robbed them of all their gold and jewels. Sometimes they even dumped the mummies of pharaohs out onto the floor and stole the golden coffins. So the Egyptians began to hide their tombs in the hills and mountains. They carved caves into the cliffs, put their pharaohs and treasures inside, and then blocked up the doors with stone to hide them. Their favorite place to bury pharaohs was a long, rocky valley catacombed with caves and passageways. This valley, now called the Valley of the Kings, has sixty tombs in it. And the tombs are well hidden. Robbers never found King Tut’s tomb. As a matter of fact, no one knew it was there for thousands and thousands of years.

Over three thousand years later, a man named Howard Carter was working in the Valley of the Kings. He had spent years looking for the tombs of the pharaohs. He found Hatshepsut’s tomb. He was convinced that another royal grave was hidden in the Valley of the Kings. But he was simply unable to find it.

One day, Howard Carter was moving a stack of stones when he found something unexpected—a step! He ran for help. His men, digging all through the day, uncovered more steps, leading down to a door in the stone. On the door, Carter found a name in hieroglyphs: TUTANKHAMEN.

Carefully, Carter cut a hole in the door. He held up a light to the door. At first, all he could see was darkness. He moved his light from side to side. Suddenly, a beautiful golden gleam sprang out from the blackness. The room was full of gold.

Carter’s friends were pressing in behind him. “What do you see?” one of them asked. “Can you see anything?”

“Yes!” Howard Carter said. “Wonderful things!”

The workmen slowly pried the door open. In front of them was a room filled with treasures.

Howard Carter and his friends kept on exploring. They found a whole series of rooms, linked together by hallways. Each room held more treasures. Finally, they came to the last locked door. Carter opened it carefully. Inside, he found the body of the young king, Tutankhamen himself.

At first, all Carter saw was a huge golden box. Then he realized that the box opened at the top. Inside this golden box, he found a heavy stone chest. Inside the stone chest, he found a golden statue of the king, lying on its back.

As soon as he touched the statue, he knew that it was actually a wooden coffin, carved to look like the king and then coated with gold. He pried the coffin open, expecting to see Tut’s body. Instead, he found another wooden coffin, covered with gold. And when he opened this coffin, he found yet another coffin—this one solid gold, through and through.

Carefully, he opened this final coffin. There was Tutankhamen’s mummified body, wrapped in linen and soaked with spices. It was so well preserved that Howard Carter could even see the dead king’s face.

Soon, people began to say that there was a curse on Tut’s tomb. The man who helped Howard Carter open Tut’s tomb, Lord Carnarvon, died only seven weeks after the burial chamber was first opened. Was this a result of the inscription found on the statue of Anubis, the god of death, inside Tut’s treasure? The inscription reads, “It is I who hinder the sand from choking the secret chamber. I am for the protection of the deceased.” Five months after Lord Carnarvon’s death, his younger brother also died unexpectedly. And that’s not all—Howard Carter’s pet canary was swallowed by a cobra on the very day that the tomb was first opened! A cobra was also carved on Tut’s mask—so that it would spit fire at all enemies of the king.

There were 26 people present when the tomb was opened. Within ten years, six had died. But the others lived into old age. So you decide: was there a curse in Tut’s tomb?

Note to Parent: Thutmose I was pharaoh of the 18th dynasty and ruled 1524–1518 BC/BCE. Hatshepsut was also a pharaoh of the 18th dynasty and ruled 1498–1483 BC/BCE. There are several pharaohs named Amenhotep; this is Amenhotep IV (1350–1334 BC/BCE), who married Nefertiti and changed his name to Akhenaten. Tutankhamen was born around 1343 BC/BCE and died around 1325, when he was probably 18. Carter found his tomb in AD/CE 1922.