More on King Tut

The March/April 2010 issue of Archaeology magazine contains a timely article on Tutankhamen called Warrior Tut, by W. Raymond Johnson, director of the Epigraphic Survey, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. In light of the recently released DNA and CAT-scan details, some of the biographical details of the boy king need to be revised, according to the article. First is the label "boy king" since Tutankhamen may have been 20-years-old when he died. Second, re-use of bricks from Atenamen's temples to the solar god Aten suggest Tutankhamen reversed his father's unpopular religious policies. Earlier, it had been assumed the reversion to the earlier gods had begun after Tutankhamen. That it was King Tut who used the bricks is shown by his name on sandstone blocks. Johnson says King Tut may have led military operations against the neighboring Syrians and Nubians. Depictions, in Tut's mortuary temple, of his victories include grisly details. Johnson suggests King Tut may have died as the result of a battle wound.