King Tutankhamun

96 years ago today, archaeologists opened the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun.  Here are ten books on him, the tomb, and ancient Egypt. 

The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt by Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton - A great reference book about the many royals that lived during the long period of time encompassed by ancient Egypt. Great for beginners; it's an aid for anyone wanting to know about more about those fabled times. The lists are comprehensive and fill out sketchy periods in Egypt's history.

The Complete Tutankhamun: The King, The Tomb, The Royal Treasure by Nicholas Reeves - The tomb of Tutankhamun, with its treasures, has exerted a hold over the popular imagination ever since its discovery in 1922. This book is a detailed and comprehensive account of this great archaeological discovery. The story of the boy-king, buried in splendour at the height of Egyptian civilization; the determined quest for his tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon; the unforeseen riches eventually revealed - these are important events in the history of archaeology. However, despite the publicity at the time of the discovery and since - made more intriguing by the linking of Carnarvon's early death with the legend of the pharoah's curse - it remains a story only partly told. Carter never produced a complete account of his excavations. The Tutankhamun exhibitions of the 1960's and 1970's generated a spate of books but none added significantly to what Carter had already published about the tomb. This book is a revealing account of the subject.

The Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamen by Howard Carter and A. C. Mace - November 4, 1922. For six seasons the legendary Valley of the Kings has yielded no secrets to Howard Carter and his archeological team: "We had almost made up our minds that we were beaten," he writes, "and were preparing to leave The Valley and try our luck elsewhere; and then -- hardly had we set hoe to ground in our last despairing effort than we made a discovery that far exceeded our wildest dreams."
Join Howard Carter in his fascinating odyssey toward the most dramatic archeological find of the century -- the tomb of Tutankhamen. Written by Carter in 1923, only a year after the discovery, this book captures the overwhelming exhilaration of the find, the painstaking, step-by-step process of excavation, and the wonder of opening a treasure-filled inner chamber whose regal inhabitant had been dead for 3,000 years.

King Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb by Zahi Hawass - The fabulous treasures of Tutankhamun have fascinated the public since their discovery by Howard Carter in 1922. Many books have been written about the boy king and his tomb, but this volume by world-renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass provides the reader with a unique perspective on this extraordinary archaeological find. Images by pioneering photographer Sandro Vannini offer distinctive views of almost 200 of the spectacular artifacts found at the burial site.
King Tutankhamun uses carefully selected objects to illustrate the entire ten years of painstaking excavation and documentation carried out by Carter and his team. Organized to follow the chambers of the tomb in the order in which they were excavated, it illuminates the site's most magnificent artifacts.
An experienced field archaeologist who has made many important discoveries himself, Dr. Hawass imbues the text with his own unique voice, imagining how exploration of the tomb must have felt for Carter and providing invaluable information about the objects. Sandro Vannini's photographs are extraordinary as well, allowing the objects to be seen in even more detail than is possible with the naked eye.

The Lost Tomb by Kent Weeks - Kent Weeks made international headlines when, seventy feet below the surface of Egypt's Valley of the Kings he found the largest and most complicated mausoleum yet discovered, the tomb of Ramesses II's sons. Now for the first time, Weeks shares up-to-the-minute details on the thrilling discoveryand contemplates what the tomb, called KV5, will reveal as the excavation moves forward. Built in the age of Exodus, the tomb could potentially transform ancient and biblical history. Its lower levels, possibly containing mummies of Ramesses II's sons, may shed new light on many of the mysteries of the Old Testament, including the story of Moses and the flight of the Israelites from Egypt.
Weeks draws on his own diaries, as well as those of his wife and his foreman, to describe the excitement and risks that surround such a significant find. From floodwaters that threatened the opened tomb and the precarious craw spaces deep within it, to thieving tourists and scorpions, this adventure is not for the weak of heart. Photographs and sketches illustrate the crew's progress and the objects and decorations found in the tomb's chambers and hallways The resulta true-life, impossibly thrilling Raiders of the Lost Arkwill entrance readers from beginning to end.

Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt by Chris Naunton - Egypt boasts some of the most spectacular ancient ruins in the world, scattered across the entire country. Over the past two centuries, archaeologists have unearthed the burials of some of Egypt's celebrated pharaohs, from the chambers deep within the famed pyramids at Giza to the tombs hidden away in the rocky hills of the Valley of the Kings. And yet, many of the most intriguing and notorious individuals remain unaccounted for. Where are Alexander the Great and Cleopatra, both said by the historians of the Greek and Roman empires to have been buried in Egypt? Chris Naunton describes the quest for these and other great 'missing' tombs and those that we know must exist, but have yet to be found and presents the key moments of discovery that have yielded astonishing finds and created the archetypal image of the archaeologist poised at the threshold of a tomb left untouched for millennia.

The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King Tut's Mummy by Jo Marchant - More than 3,000 years ago, King Tutankhamun's desiccated body was lovingly wrapped and sent into the future as an immortal god. After resting undisturbed for more than three millennia, King Tut's mummy was suddenly awakened in 1922. Archaeologist Howard Carter had discovered the boy-king's tomb, and the soon-to-be famous mummy's story--even more dramatic than King Tut's life--began.
The mummy's "afterlife" is a modern story, not an ancient one. Award-winning science writer Jo Marchant traces the mummy's story from its first brutal autopsy in 1925 to the most recent arguments over its DNA. From the glamorous treasure hunts of the 1920s to today's high-tech scans in volatile modern Egypt, Marchant introduces us to the brilliant and sometimes flawed people who have devoted their lives to revealing the mummy's secrets, unravels the truth behind the hyped-up TV documentaries, and explains what science can and can't tell us about King Tutankhamun.

Treasures of Tutankhamun and the Egyptian Museum of Cairo by Araldo De Luca and Alessia Amenta - Gorgeous oversized hardback showing off the treasures in the Cairo Museum. The book opens with a brief history of the museum and details of its layout, before sweeping through Ancient Egypt in a burst of dazzling colour. Amenta takes the reader from the very earliest era before the Pharaonic dynasties took shape, right through the reigns of the great rulers of Ancient Egypt to its demise under the influence of Roman and Greek invaders. Each era is outlined and its key features and rulers identified, before a selection of the most impressive, beautiful and important artefacts from the museum are offered for inspection. These include statues, sarcophagi, everyday items, funerary objects and a gorgeous array of finely crafted jewellery. As suggested by the title, the unrivalled treasure of Tutankhamun's tomb is particularly well represented, together with the rich material from other rulers of the 18th and the surrounding dynasties, including Amunhotep III, the heretic king Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. There are also a few pages about the mummies of some of the most eminent Pharaohs, which was intriguing but maybe not best viewed over breakfast... The photography is amazing and each and every artefact was fascinating to examine, sometimes with additional details picked out for closer attention - although the captions could have been longer and more informative, even if it was only for some of the most important items.

Tutankhamen: The Life and Death of a Boy-King by Christine El Mahdy - The spectacular excavations at Bawiti, Egypt, in the summer of 1999 captured headlines all across the United States and rekindled America's fascination with Ancient Egypt. In that spirit comes this timely volume on the young monarch whose mummified remains and fantastic treasure provided the other amazing find of the twentieth century . . .When his tomb was discovered in 1922, even the most experienced archaeologists joined the international community in marveling at the incredible wealth-and seemingly bizarre rituals-of Ancient Egypt. The king's golden coffin alone is today valued at more than $6 million.What kind of society could produce such spectacular treasures only to bury them forever? Lost in a frenzy of speculation-anthropological, scientific, and commercial-was Tuankhamen himself.3500 years ago, the mightiest empire on earth crowned a seven-year-old boy as its king, then worshiped him as a god.Nine years later, he was dead.Despite the young monarch's almost universal recognition in death, Egyptologists know very little about his life.Traditional histories, founded on incomplete investigation and academic dogma, shed almost no light on the details of a life as complicated and as fascinating as it was short.

Tutankhamun: The Untold Story by Thomas Hoving - Howard Carter, the never-say-die, field-trained archaeologist who discovered King Tut's tomb in 1922, is well known to have been an awkward, self-destructive loner. Was he also a liar, a thief, and a full-fledged madman? So contends the Metropolitan Museum's former chief, Thomas Hoving, who retells the story of the hard-won unearthing of the tomb and its treasures, stressing Carter's hopeless lack of diplomacy and using ""new evidence"" from the Met archives to make the following specific accusations: 1) Carter and his sponsor Lord Carnavon did not, as they claimed, examine only the outer antechamber on their first, unofficial exploration of the tomb, but rather all the chambers (hiding their entry hole with a basket lid); 2) Carter and Carnavon not only practiced ""art dealing of a rather cutthroat and questionable variety"" but also spirited numerous Tut items out of Egypt--some of them now in the Metropolitan--and Carter's biggest attempted theft was detected and then covered up, with help from the Met; 3) Carter's unbalanced, combative behavior in dealing with Egyptian/French authorities was largely responsible for the end of friendly conditions for archaeologists in Egypt.