Tutankhamun: What Did He Look Like? Face & History Revealed | Royalty Now

What did King Tut really look like? This is the question that has fascinated archaeologists since his tomb's discovery in 1922. Today, we'll explore what we know about Tutankhamun's time as Pharaoh, his tomb and riches, and of course his maladies and what he looked like.

Timestamps:
0:00 Tutankhamun's Life & History
4:50 Discovery of his Tomb
8:50 How did King Tut die?
12:22 What did he look like?
13:50 Re-creations Revealed

King Tut only reigned for 9 or 10 years, beginning at the age of 8 or 9. He likely relied heavily on his advisors. He married his half sister, and we know their entire family suffered from pretty severe inbreeding.

Tut was found to have suffered from Malaria - in fact, more than one strain of Malaria. Before a cure was found in the 1900s, Malaria could be very fatal. He would have been really uncomfortable in his final days.

But Tut’s actual killer was more innocuous - his body shows evidence of a sudden leg fracture, possibly from a fall. The broken bone in his left foot had festered, and alongside the malaria, proved fatal to the 19-year old. This then contradicts the story that he was helpless and crippled - he must have at least been active enough in his final days to have gotten injured.

But then, in reliefs, Tut is sometimes shown sitting instead of standing for certain activities like Hunting. So it’s just hard to tell the severity of his conditions.

Unfortunately, there is a lot we may never truly know about Tut - his mummy was simply too damaged and his time in history too shrouded in mystery.

So, what do we know about how he would have looked in real life?

We know that he stood about 5’6”, and was fairly skinny. Professor Hutan Ashrafian says that he would have had an overbite with buckteeth, and been relatively frail. We know that at the time of burial, he had a shaved head.

Most scholars agree that the images of King Tut made by his own people, during his own lifetime, are what we should be looking towards for accuracy. Zahi Hawass thinks Tut’s burial mask is probably the best representation of him. It’s been noted that reconstructing directly from a mummy just isn’t reasonable or accurate, since mummy tissue shrinks by around 50%.

Professor Salima Ikram told LiveScience: "I think that he looked as he was represented, except that he had more of an overbite,"

We don’t have a ton of images of King Tut, just because of how short his reign was, but they all look remarkably consistent. I’m going to use his famous burial mask as well as the effigy of him found in the tomb as reference. This small effigy was made to represent him as a child, and it shows him emerging from a lotus flower, symbolizing regeneration.

We don’t know the exact skin tone or eye color of Tutankhamun. It’s been noted from his genome and skeleton that he can be considered North African. Now of course in the modern day, North Africans represent a huge range of skin tones and hair textures. I’ve tried to stick closely to what the sculpture represents, a tan reddish tone. Just know this is only one possibility.

Articles referenced:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/185393
https://www.livescience.com/what-did-king-tutankhamun-look-like
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/14/why-king-tut-is-still-fascinating

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