What Tutankhamun's Tomb Actually Revealed
In 1922, Howard Carter found a tomb almost every other pharaoh's had been stripped of centuries before. What made it different wasn't the king — it was that nobody had gotten there first.
Tutankhamun ruled Egypt for roughly ten years, from around age nine, and died young enough that historians still debate the cause. Judged purely by his own reign, he was a minor king — most of the major decisions of his rule are attributed to the officials around him. He is, by a wide margin, the most famous pharaoh in the world today, and the reason has almost nothing to do with what he did while he was alive.
By 1922, when the British archaeologist Howard Carter located the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, nearly every other royal tomb in the valley had already been found — and nearly all of them had been robbed, most within decades of the burial itself, some in antiquity by the very officials responsible for guarding them. Tutankhamun's tomb had been broken into twice, shortly after burial, but resealed both times before anything major was taken, and then effectively buried under debris from later construction work nearby. It sat undisturbed for roughly 3,300 years.
What Carter found was not a king whose reign changed history. It was an intact, or nearly intact, snapshot of what a full royal burial actually contained — over 5,000 individual objects, including the solid gold death mask that has since become the single most recognisable image in Egyptology. Everything known about how a pharaoh of that era was buried, in undisturbed detail, comes disproportionately from one unremarkable king who happened to be forgotten quickly enough that nobody came back for his gold.
The curse the newspapers invented
Weeks after the burial chamber was opened, Carter's financial backer, Lord Carnarvon, died in Cairo. He had cut an infected mosquito bite while shaving, and the wound turned into blood poisoning; the recorded cause of death was pneumonia following a skin infection, nothing stranger than that. But Carnarvon had sold exclusive tomb coverage to The Times of London, which meant every other newspaper on earth had spent months locked out of the biggest archaeology story in a generation. The moment he died, those newspapers finally had a story they didn't need The Times' permission to run, and the 'curse of the pharaohs' took off from there — helped along by public figures like Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, who told reporters an ancient curse or vengeful spirit was a real possibility. Of the many people present when the tomb was opened, Carnarvon was the only one who died in the years that immediately followed; the legend survived by loosely counting anyone ever connected to the dig, however distantly, for decades afterward.
What his bones actually said
Almost 90 years later, in 2010, a genetic study led by Egyptologist Zahi Hawass examined Tutankhamun's mummy alongside ten generations of his royal relatives and published its findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It found DNA from Plasmodium falciparum — the parasite behind the deadliest strain of malaria — in his tissue, along with a club foot, a bone-death condition in his other foot, and a healing fracture in his thigh. More than 130 walking canes were buried with him, which fits a king who needed physical support rather than the battle-ready warrior later imagined. The same study found that his parents were siblings, which likely explains several of his health conditions, and separately settled an old debate: the unusually feminised way Tutankhamun and his father were sometimes carved and painted turned out to be an artistic convention of the period, not evidence of an actual physical condition.
Told as an illustrated story
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Tutankhamun's tomb really cursed?
No. The recorded cause of Lord Carnarvon's death was pneumonia following a skin infection from an infected mosquito bite. The 'curse of the pharaohs' took hold because Carnarvon had sold exclusive tomb coverage to one newspaper, and every other outlet seized on his death as the first story it could publish without waiting.
How did Tutankhamun actually die?
A 2010 genetic study found DNA from the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum in his remains, alongside a serious leg fracture and a bone-death condition in one foot. Researchers concluded that severe malaria combined with the fracture was the most likely cause of death, and the findings ruled out the murder theories that had circulated for decades.
Why is Tutankhamun so famous if he was a minor king?
Almost every other pharaoh's tomb in the Valley of the Kings was robbed within decades of burial, so nothing survived to be studied. Tutankhamun's tomb was resealed after two break-ins and then buried under construction debris, leaving it essentially intact for roughly 3,300 years — the fame comes from the discovery, not the reign.