What question would you ask?

[LovelyLadyLux]

Good question BillH - and, as Jojo said, if an exact 'date' was established it could really turn everything we now know and think we know upside down and sideways......Good one.

I'm quite curious to know if King T was his son too. Want to know lots of details about Tutankamun too. I'd want the 'real scoop' on him.

[BillH]

King T was certainly from that "era" his Gold throne proves that.

But to miss him out while the tombs were being cleared by the priests and to forget he was there at the time they were creating Rameses VI tomb ??

Odd that they make the excuse that Tut didnt contribute much to Karnak temple due to his short reighn, but then to have such treasures in his tomb, Treasures that were treasures in more ways than one. To realise that, you need to look beyond the "Bling" factor of the gold..

When you think about the Armarna period, this was a total shift in just about everything. Different building techniques, different standard measuements, different area of Egypt, different religion ( anyone hear of the Aten BEFORE Akhenaten ?) different dress sense, different art, so how does ones entirte culture change overnight and then back again 28 years later ??
Answer is.. It doesnt and it cant, those sort of shifts take decades, even with todays infuence from TV and Media...

[LovelyLadyLux]

You're totally correct BillH that changes do not happen overnight. A good something to ponder......and 'yes' all the gold surely did have lots of BLING factor!



Another question I'd love to ask all of the artisans of that time is "How did you do it? How did you turn out such wonderfully intricate pieces? What tools did you use? How long did you work on one piece? How many different artists worked on one piece? Where did you get your ideas from? What influenced the designs you used?"

Guess that is more than one question but I can't help but be fascinated.

[Horus]

Bill, an interesting point you make about the priests missing Tutankhamen’s tomb and why if he was such a minor king was there so much treasure buried with him, I think that I may have an explanation.

First of all when the priests moved the other pharaohs to the Deir El Bahari cache, it was in response to a particularly lawless time in Egypt with lots of robberies within the V.O.K.
They, the priests of Amun would have had a duty to preserve the pharaohs bodies as they would now be gods protecting Egypt and they were after all the servants of the gods.

So if we accept the current history as being correct, all of these priests were out of favour during his father (Akhenaton’s) reign and they had no reason whatsoever to be reminded of this event. After his death, the priest Ay restored the status quo by reinstating the old religion and priesthood. This was able to be done due to the influence he had over the young pharaoh Tutankhamen and his foresight in seeing that the new religion of monotheism was not popular amongst the priesthood and the masses and as a way to future power.

During the Amarna period there would have been lots of treasure manufactured for Akhenaton and his family that bore symbols of this new religion. I propose that after his death (Tutankhamen) it was preferable to get rid of all the reminders of this tumultuous time in one fell swoop by putting them all in his burial chamber, it is also possible that Tutankhamen still retained some belief in the Aten as the all encompassing god. So that may explain the large amount of treasure buried with a minor ruler and why most of it seems to have been made for someone else or re-modelled in some way.

After paying lip service to the transitional pharaoh for restoring the priesthood, even though they really knew it was at the behest of the high priest Ay, who had implemented the changes and not the king, they would still need to be seen as honouring the dead pharaoh. They would not want to be reminded of that particular era again as it would have been considered as a heresy against the gods that they worshipped. So when they were attempting to preserve the lineage of their kings they would not want to transfer treasures and a pharaoh that made references to the Armarna period, a case of “let sleeping dogs lie”. This type of thinking can be seen in other examples of glossing over unpopular events, as in the case of the missing names from the ‘Kings List’ at Abydos.

Of course it is equally possible that as the tomb is situated further out into the valley floor and other tombs were built close by with the debris from them covering the entrance area, that they just forgot it!

[JOJO]

Everything as been so chopped, changed and covered up throughout History that we seem to be left with just scraps and snippets of the Amarna period.
Every religious book and culture as taken an event or a little bit of the past and added it to their own. Many of us have questioned the stories in the old/new testament and how intertwined they are with Egyptian history and the most obvious one is the 'story' of Moses.
I have often wondered the connection with the Two Boy Kings.I am not suggesting that King Tut was Jesus but the story of 'Jesus' may well of been chopped and changed snippets carried down from the time of King Tut?

[BillH]

I always love to see that Mask, Thanks for the picture LLL
My parents had to pull me away from that when it came to London back in the early 70's. I was comlpetley transfixed by it.

I like the thories Horus offers because they are plausible.

But what about the treasures of the other Pharaohs, ? surely RAMESES II should have had the best of the lot, given his longevity and alleged achivements !
Armania was only around for some 28 Years, Rameses was more than 3 X that age when he died.

One thing that niggles me about Tut's dicovery is Howard Carter.
There were far better people than him out in Egypt for millenia, and none seemed to have had the same quest..
A failed spy that must have been privvy to some form of information from the Authorities that put him on the trail of TutAnkhAmun I always believed.
He was hardly a grafter, nor did he have the abilities and hunger like Belzoni, Champlain etc..
The truth about Egypt (and our whole life and history) will come from Armania, and not the Pyramids. Of that I am sure.

Armania gave us the Bible.. Not intentionally.

[LivinginLuxor]

I have to disagree - Carter was certainly a grafter - it took him 10 years or so to record and remove everything from the tomb, after virtually completely excavating much of the Valley. Most of the other excavators, with the possible exception of Petrie, were treasure hunters and general looters - including the sainted Budge!