Discovery of His Tomb: His tomb was discovered by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings. His tomb had no been raided and was left mostly in tact.

Young Pharaoh: Tutankhamun ascended to the throne at the age of nine and ruled until his death at 19. He had many advisors who would rule ‘behind’ him.

àTutankhamun also completely changed what his father did, before him. His father (who we will learn about in the coming weeks) forced Egypt into a completely different religion and moved the capital city. King Tut is very famous for reversing a lot of what his father did, and ‘restoring’ the kingdom back to tradition.

Archaeological Significance: The discovery of his tomb set new standards for archaeology and shaped our understanding of Egyptian history. A tomb can tell so much about a person!

Global Impact: "Tutmania" spread across the world, making him a household name.

à People became obsessed with Ancient Egyptian culture, specifically King Tut, after the discovery of his tomb.

Among all of the pharaohs who ruled over ancient Egypt in its 3000-year history, none were more powerful and success as Ramses II. He reigned for an unparalleled 66 years. Ramses' time on the throne would see the unparalleled flourishing of Egyptian culture and transformed the land into a formidable empire through remarkable military campaigns against the Hittites, Libyans, and Nubians.

Furthermore, Ramses II's flurry of building programs were prolific, as he commissioned grand temples, statues, and even founded an entire new city: Per-Ramesses.

But his incredible length of rule would eventually lead to generations of bitter struggle between his descendants.

In the midst of many peoples, all unknown,

Unnumbered as the sand,

Here I stand,

All Alone;

There is no-one at my side;

My warriors and chariots afeared [frightened],

Have deserted me…

… two thousand and five hundred pairs of horses were around,

And I flew into the middle of their ring,

By my horse-hoods they were dashed

His Reign: His reign was full of prosperity and extravagance, as King Ramses 2 was one of the first kings to declare peace in a war. This allowed him to build many temples and buildings and bring Ancient Egypt into a golden age.

The Battle of Kadesh: Egyptians claimed victory at this battle against the Hittites, and King Ramses 2 peace treaty occurred here. Egypt has written in history about the bravery and strength in this battle.

As an architect, Imhotep's skills are legendary. The Step Pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was the first pyramid built, as well as the first structure of any kind of cut stone. Finished in only 20 years, it stands almost 200 feet tall. Built of 6 huge steps, they are a giant staircase for the King to climb after his death on the way to the sun god, Ra.

Imhotep was the first to use columns to support a building, and Manetho credits him as being the pioneer of stone dressing a building. He authored an encyclopedic text used by Egyptian architects for thousands of years after his death. As a physician, he was unique in his time. Imhotep’s writings are the first to reject magic for dealing with illness, based on the premise that illness was caused by the environment, rather than the gods.

Queen Hatshepsut faced significant challenged at the start of her reign. She was a female pharaoh in a society where pharaohs were almost always male. Her reign was constantly under threat from usurpers and nobles who thought she was not the rightful pharaoh. When the pharaoh, Thutmose 2, died, the next in line to the throne of Egypt was his and Hatshepsut's toddler son, Thutmose 3. As he was too young to become pharaoh, Hatshepsut took on the role of regent... Hatshepsut did not relinquish her position as pharaoh when her son came of age, but she hold on to the position until her death... statues and imagery of Hatshepsut at her temple depict her in the traditional clothing of a male pharaoh, including the false beard and with a masculine body shape.

Religion: Akhenaten is most known for changing the Egyptian religion from polytheistic to monotheistic, worshipping the sun god, Aten. His son later spent his entire reign attempting to reverse all that Akhenaten did.

Gender: Most of Akhenaten's statues presented him as having a more feminine look- there is theories that his body had been deformed due to his lineage.

Politics: Cleopatra was very involved in Roman politics and used it as a catalyst to boosting Egyptian warfare and government. She was the last pharaoh in her line.

Hatshepsut's reign lasted 20 years - far longer than any previous female ruler of Egypt. One of her main achievements was sending a trading voyage to a foreign land called Punt, which resulted in Egyptian ships bringing back an impressive array of exotic, valuable goods. We know Hatshepsut considered this to be a significant event of her reign, as she publicised inscriptions containing an account of the voyage, as well as images of the ships and goods, on the walls of her temple at Deir el-Bahri. Hatshepsut is not particularly known as a warrior pharaoh, though some successful military campaigns did occur during her reign. She constructed hundreds of statues, monuments and buildings, including:

• The two tallest obelisks in the world at the time

• The huge mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri

The dramatic reign of Cleopatra VII closed one of the most brilliant periods in ancient Egyptian history. For almost three centuries her ancestors ruled Egypt and extended Egyptian throughout the Aegean and western Asia and deep into Africa and Arabia... we know nothing about Cleopatra's childhood and teenage years. She suddenly emerges on the historical scene in 50 BCE as a clear-headed, resourceful, and, above all, ambitious young queen fully able to match wits with her rivals and engage the interest of Romans such as Julius Caesar.

Before her reign: Hapshepsut was Queen Regent whilst her son, Thutmose 3, was too young to rule. When he came of age she did not give the throne to him.

During her reign: Hapshepsut was very famous for restoring the architecture and artistry in her era.

After her reign: Hapshepsut was erased from history- or at least, her descendants tried to erase her by vandalising her statues/temples and engraving her name off plaques.

Having first secured her position in Alexandria, she travelled south to gain the support of her Egyptian subjects, participating in temple rites and speaking to them directly in their own language. For she was the first Ptolemaic ruler to learn Egyptian in addition to Greek and seven other languages – little wonder later Egyptian historians remembered her as the “virtuous scholar”.

…the evidence reveals that, despite being misrepresented for over 2,000 years, the real Cleopatra was a consummate politician, gifted scholar and inspirational leader – a true role model for our own times in which powerful women still generate hostility and are still far too rare.

Reference: Fletcher, J. (2020, Winter 7). Cleopatra: what is the real legacy of the last pharaoh? HistoryExtra. https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-egypt/cleopatra-legacy-last-pharaoh-ptolemaic-dynasty/

Documented monetary reform supports the ancient tradition that Cleopatra VII wrote treatises on coinage and on weights and measures. She strengthened her nation’s economy by making explicit the fiduciary nature of the bronze coinage in circulation, the value of which was determined by Cleopatra and not based on weight. The result of this reform approximated the value of her bronze coinage to the Roman denarius, the contemporary currency of choice throughout the Western world.

The queen played an active role in the administration of her realm, confirmed by a papyrus written in Greek. That document, like a present-day inter-office memo, was written to Cleopatra VII by a high-ranking Alexandrian court official. It contains an annotation in Greek, “Make it happen!,” that is attributed to Cleopatra herself. While not exactly an autograph, the subscription is a rare example of a note handwritten by an ancient monarch.

Cleopatra VII had grown antagonistic with Rome, and literary testimony shows she was subject to scorn, ridicule and hate after her suicide. Her fate was just the opposite in Egypt, where her pharaonic subjects strove to preserve her memory. Her faithful administrator, Archibios, offered the Romans 2,000 talents to save her statues from destruction. And in 373 CE, centuries after her death, the Egyptian priest, Petesenufe, overlaid a statue of Cleopatra with gold. Cleopatra VII was an educated, disciplined monarch whose beneficial reign was long-remembered and cherished by her subjects.

Reference:  Bianchi, B. (2019). Cleopatra the Great: Last Power of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Www.Arce.Org. https://www.arce.org/resource/cleopatra-great-last-power-ptolemaic-dynasty

Rebel, tyrant, and prophet of arguably the world’s earliest monotheistic religion, Akhenaten has been called history’s first individual. His impact upon ancient Egyptian customs and beliefs stretching back for centuries was so alarming that, in the generations following his death in 1336 BC, he was branded a heretic. Official king lists omitted his name.

For my money, this makes him the most fascinating and controversial figure in Egyptian history. And that’s before you consider his marriage to Nefertiti, known as the Mona Lisa of antiquity thanks to her austerely beautiful painted limestone bust discovered in a sculptor’s workshop at Amarna and now in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, or the likelihood that he fathered Tutankhamun, the most famous pharaoh of them all. If I were in charge of the British Museum, I would commission an exhibition about Akhenaten in a trice.

Akhenaten was not supposed to become pharaoh. The son of Amenhotep III, who dominated the first half of the 14th century BC, ruling over a court of unprecedented luxury and magnificence that placed great emphasis on solar theology, Prince Amenhotep, as he was then called, was younger brother to the crown Prince Thutmose. Following Thutmose’s unexpected death, though, he became the heir apparent – and when his father died in 1353 BC, he took the throne as Amenhotep IV.

Nefertiti was an ancient Egyptian queen and the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt during the 18th dynasty in the 14th century BCE.

Her name means "the beautiful one has come," which is often cited as a testament to her legendary beauty. 

She is widely regarded as one of the most powerful and influential queens in Egyptian history, and her reign marked a significant period of cultural and religious change in ancient Egypt.

Little is known about her early life, as she first appears in historical records when she married Akhenaten, who was then known as Amenhotep IV.

The couple ruled together from around 1353 BCE to 1336 BCE, and during their reign, they implemented a radical new religious and artistic style that emphasized the worship of the sun disk, Aten, as the supreme deity.

who is a Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester. Author of Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, Chronicles of the Queens of Egypt, Tutankhamen’s Curse, and others.

By the end of Akhenaton’s fifth regnal year, the Aton had become Egypt’s dominant national god. The old state temples were closed and the court transferred to a purpose-built capital city, Akhetaton. Here Nefertiti continued to play an important religious role, worshipping alongside her husband and serving as the female element in the divine triad formed by the god Aton, the king Akhenaton, and his queen...

Some historians, having considered her reliefs and statuary, believe that Nefertiti may have acted as queen regnant—her husband’s coruler rather than his consort. However, the evidence is by no means conclusive, and there is no written evidence to confirm her political status.

Soon after Akhenaton’s 12th regnal year, one of the princesses died, three disappeared (and are also presumed to have died), and Nefertiti vanished. The simplest inference is that Nefertiti also died, but there is no record of her death and no evidence that she was ever buried in the Amarna royal tomb.

Tutankhamun (sometimes called “King Tut”) was an ancient Egyptian king. He ruled from 1333 BCE until his death in 1323 BCE. His tomb is more significant than his short reign. The discovery of Tutankhamun’s largely intact tomb in 1922 is considered one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in the modern era.

Tutankhamun unexpectedly died in his 19th year. In 2010 scientists found traces of malaria parasites in his mummified remains and posited that malaria in combination with degenerative bone disease may have been the cause of death. Whatever the case, he died without designating an heir and was succeeded by Ay. He was buried in a small tomb hastily converted for his use in the Valley of the Kings (his intended sepulcher was probably taken over by Ay). Like other rulers associated with the Amarna period—Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, and Ay—he was to suffer the posthumous fate of having his name stricken from later king lists and his monuments usurped, primarily by his former general, Horemheb, who subsequently became king. Although Tutankhamun’s tomb shows evidence of having been entered and briefly plundered, the location of his burial was clearly forgotten by the time of the 20th dynasty (c. 1190–c. 1077 bce), when craftsmen assigned to work on the nearby tomb of Ramses VI built temporary stone shelters directly over its entrance. The tomb was preserved until a systematic search of the Valley of the Kings by the English archaeologist Howard Carter revealed its location in 1922.

Because of his tomb’s small size, historians suggest King Tut’s death must have been unexpected and his burial rushed by Ay, who succeeded him as pharaoh. The tomb’s antechambers were packed to the ceiling with more than 5,000 artifacts, including furniture, chariots, clothes, weapons and 130 of the lame king’s walking sticks.

The entrance corridor was apparently looted soon after the burial, but the inner rooms remained sealed. The pharaohs who followed King Tut chose to ignore his reign, as despite his work restoring Amun, Tutankhamun was tainted by the connection to his father’s religious upheavals. Within a few generations, the tomb’s entrance had been clogged with stone debris, built over by workmen’s huts and forgotten.