Literally at the dawn of the 20th century, many archaeologists believed that there was nothing else to do in the Valley of the Kings and it was almost impossible to find something worthwhile there. But G. Carter did not agree with this, who continued his excavations and was interrupted only for the period of the First World War. And so his perseverance and efforts were rewarded. On November 4, 1922, when a few meters below the entrance to the tomb of Ramses VI, steps were found going down, and then he found a sealed door.
This is how the great tomb of the mysterious Tutankhamun was discovered, around which an aura of mystery and enigma was formed.
Pharaoh's curse
The list of mysterious mysteries should begin with a series of strange deaths of the expedition members. By 1935, there were 20 “victims” of the ancient curse of the pharaoh, and the media covered this fact as a sensation. A huge number of theories were put forward, but none of them stood up to serious criticism.
Until now, disputes periodically arise about whether the deaths were associated with the curse of the pharaoh or a banal coincidence.
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Pharaoh's death
Another subject of endless controversy was the fact of what the Pharaoh died from. The team of forensic specialists, led by Dr. Egyptologist K. Naunt, adheres to the following version:
Tutankhamun died from being run over by a chariot and in favor of this theory they point to broken and missing ribs, traces of damage to the legs and skull.
Other researchers believe that Tutankhamun was either poisoned or killed by a blow to the head. In doing so, they rely on x-rays from the 1960s.
Personally, Carter believed that the pharaoh was corny poisoned. There is also a theory that the pharaoh died from obesity or from malaria (a trace of a medicine for malaria was found in the tomb of the pharaoh).
Stains of unknown origin
The researchers who took part in the first opening of the tomb noticed the fact that there are incomprehensible spots on the walls, which even partially or completely cover the faces of the depicted gods.
So, for example, the face of the goddess Hathor is covered. And until now, scientists have not been able to understand where the spots came from. There was a hypothesis that these are traces of the vital activity of microorganisms, but the analysis did not give any results. Samples are clean. Scientists made an interesting conclusion, according to which the burial of the pharaoh was carried out in a hurry.
This is indicated by the fact that the decoration of the tomb for the pharaoh is very modest, and some text on the walls is worn out and a new one is applied in its place. There is a bold theory that this tomb was generally not built for Pharaoh Tutankhamun, but was built for one of the nobles of that time.
Tutankhamun is a pharaoh whom they wanted to forget
If now you ask ordinary people to name the Egyptian pharaoh, then many will remember Tutankhamun. But his contemporaries did not try very hard to preserve the memory of the young pharaoh.
The time of his reign was very short: it began at 10 years old and ended at 19 years old. And during this time, the pharaoh banally did not manage to accomplish anything grandiose (except for a couple of religious reforms) and in fact two other people were at the helm of power:
Dignitary Aye, who, most likely, was involved in such an early death of the pharaoh and the commander Horemheb.
Moreover, as soon as Tutankhamun was mummified, they immediately tried to forget about him (they cut off his face from the statues and removed any mention of the pharaoh from the texts).
And the entrance to his tomb was filled up in such a way that it took several months to dig it out.
But despite all these mysteries and contradictions for archeology, the discovery of the tomb was one of the greatest events of the entire 20th century.