March 1, 2019 ▸ History, People

Episode 371: King Tut: Curses and Conspiracies

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we travel all the way back to Pyramid Times and explore the life, love, death, tomb, mummification, and conspiracy theory surrounding the one and only King Tut. He was born son of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who was a bit of a rogue leader. King Tut’s dad shut down the churches, moved the capitol, and stripped power from everyone who held any other than himself. He died (maybe?) when Tutankhamun was only 9 years old, so King Tut became a boy king.

It was said that his power was controlled by the Vizier of Egypt and the head of the military until he was old enough to do so by himself. While in power, the young pharaoh restored Egypt to how it was before his father went all nutso everywhere, and he even negotiated peace with some of the neighboring nations. However, his life was not an easy one. He had several severe deformities from royal inbreeding, the vertebrae in his neck were fused solid, and he had a cleft foot and was ill with malaria several times.

This all caught up with him (or maybe an assassin?), and he died at the ripe age of 19. Traditional history says they had to rush to get him mummified and collect his treasure within the 70 day god window, and this is why he was placed in a small, cramped tomb. Eventually, 3000 years later in 1915, George Herbert paid for Howard Carter to find this missing tomb from a most unremarkable pharaoh. After six years of failure, Carter succeeded and found the most intact tomb in all of archaeological history. Or did he?

Why do some think this tomb was a fake that Carter put together? Why do others think it was the tomb or someone else entirely? Was it maybe a storehouse of items that tomb raiders piled there in Pyramid days? How did the tomb go unnoticed for all these centuries? Who would gain from faking the tomb? Was there really a curse around the tomb, and what do the statistics of dead Egyptologists prove out? Listen, laugh, learn.

Video that shows the hoarder status of his tomb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULofBtBAJn4