At the beginning of this century, Japanese experts were going to examine the DNA of Tutankhamun's mummy to find out whether he was the son of Amenhotep III. Along with the mysterious death of this perhaps the most famous Egyptian pharaoh, historians did not know exactly who his father was. There were only guesses, versions and assumptions. A chance helped to answer the question about the origin of the famous king.
In one of the archaeological repositories of Central Egypt, where many architectural fragments of the temples of Aton from Akhetaton, the capital of the reformer Pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, are located, a limestone block with inscriptions was found at the end of last year.
According to the Supreme Council for Antiquities of the ARE, it depicts a young Tutankhamun sitting with his wife Ankhesenamun (Ankhesenpaaton - “She is alive for (god) Aten” - that was the name of Ankhesenamun in the first years of his reign). Judging by the surviving text, in which the early, sun-worshiping forms of the couple's names are used, here is presented "the king's son from his flesh, Tutankhaton" and his wife "the royal daughter from his flesh, Ankhesenpaaton."
The block belonged to the early constructions of Akhetaton, after the destruction of which, under Ramses II, it was used, together with tens of thousands of similar fragments of temple walls, to build the pylon of the temple of Thoth in Hermopolis. If the block was previously used in Akhetaton, it means that the only king who could be the father of both spouses is Akhenaten. “We know from other sources that Ankhesenamun was the daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti,” says Zaha Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council for Antiquities. "Now we can confidently say that Tutankhamun was also the son of Akhenaten and married his half-sister."
Akhenaten, who, according to some experts, suffered from Marfan's syndrome (a hereditary disease of the connective tissue with characteristic changes in the musculoskeletal system) and Frolikh's syndrome (a tendency to be overweight), tried to completely reform the religion of his compatriots. The desire to introduce monotheism in the country (the worship of Aton) allowed Sigmund Freud to call Akhenaten (or Amenhotep IV) the forerunner and even mentor of the prophet Moses. The reform of the Egyptian cult under Akhenaten provoked opposition from the priests.
In the 17th year of Akhenaten's reign, one of his sons, Smenkhkar, was appointed his co-ruler. Akhenaten was soon overthrown and, presumably, blinded. After a year of reign, Smenkhkare handed the crown over to his younger brother Tutankhaton, who changed his name to Tutankhamun, which indicates a return to the worship of the god Amun. Tutankhamun reigned for 10 years and died at a young age.
The question about the mother of Tutankhamun remains open. The most realistic contender is considered to be Queen Kiya - one of the younger spouses of Akhenaten, probably originally known as the Mitannian princess Taduheppa, who ended up in the Egyptian court as a result of a diplomatic marriage. Queen Kiya died, most likely during childbirth. The sarcophagus for the burial of Queen Kiya was found in 1907 in the Valley of the Kings. The monument with the face of Queen Kiya, kept in the Berlin Museum, bears a striking resemblance to the appearance of Tutankhamun.