Tutankhamun (1336 - 1327 BC)

Tutankhamun, the 11th king of the 18th Dynasty, was made world-famous by the discovery of his tomb, by the British archaeologist Howard Carter, in 1922. The tomb contained 5,000 spectacular works of art. Lord Carnavon, who funded the expedition, died six weeks after entering the tomb of Tutankhamun, fuelling speculation that the pharaohs and their gods had laid a curse upon those who dared to disturb their resting place.

The discovery of Tutankhamun`s mummy revealed that he was only a teenager when he died and was likely to have inherited the throne at the age of nine. He is thought to have been the son of Akhenaten, commonly known as the heretic king. Akhenaten replaced the traditional cult of `Amun` with his solar deity `Aten`, thus asserting his authority as Pharaoh.

According to the most important document of Tutankhamun`s reign, the Restoration Stele, his father`s supposed reforms left the country in a bad state. Consequently the traditional gods, seeing their temples in ruins and their cults abolished, had abandoned Egypt to chaos.

When Tutankhamun came to the throne, his administration restored the old religion and moved the capital from Akhetaten back to its traditional home at Memphis. He changed his name from Tutankhaten - `living image of Aten [the sun god]` - to Tutankhamun, in honour of Amun. His Queen Ankhesenpaaten, the third daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, also changed the name on her throne to read Ankhesenamun.

Although the reign of Tutankhamun is often thought to have little historical importance, his monuments tell a different story. He began repairing the damage inflicted upon the temples of Amun during Akhenaten`s iconoclastic reign. He constructed his tomb near that of Amenophis III, and one colossal statue still survives of the mortuary temple he began to build at Medinet Habu. He also continued construction at the temple of Karnak and finished the second of a pair of granite lions at Soleb, both of which can now be found in the British Museum.

Uncertainty still surrounds his death, with many claiming that he was assassinated. One theory suggests that examination of his mummy revealed a wound near his left ear, which would have caused a cerebral haemorrhage. He had no heirs to continue his lineage, although it is possible that the two stillborn foetuses found buried with him in his tomb were his unfortunate children, buried with their father to accompany him into the beyond.