Tutankhamun at Amarna
Childhood, kingship, family and followers
The Amarna Trust is pleased to present an Online Fundraiser and Study Day, marking the centennial of the discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun
Saturday 16 July 2022
Hosted by Professor Ian Shaw
In partnership with the Amarna Project
Sponsored by Ancient World Tours
Join us to hear about the life and times of Tutankhamun
Ticket sales will support research and conservation at Amarna, Tutankhamun’s childhood home
Programme
14:00–16:45 (UK time), Saturday 16 July
Online via Zoom
Tickets: 10GBP (free for members of the Trust’s Giving Circles)
To register and purchase tickets please click here
Further information: 2022amarnafundraiser@gmail.com
Recording: Please note that for those unable to attend on the day, the lectures of Prof. Gabolde, Dr Hill, Dr Duhig and Dr Garnett will be recorded and made available by video link for a limited time after the event. To access this recording, please consider registering for the event and sending us your email address to the contact email listed above. A link will be provided to you following July 16.
14:00–15:00
Dr Marsha Hill – Tutankhamun’s and Carter’s beginnings: Carter discoveries at the Amarna Great Aten Temple
Dr Corinne Duhig – What we know – and what we don’t know – about the Amarna royals
Prof. Gretchen Dabbs – Growing up in the shadow of Tutankhamun: The lives of non-elite children at ancient Amarna
Dr Anna Garnett – Tutankhamun and Amarna at the Petrie Museum
15:00–16:00
Prof. Marc Gabolde – Tutankhamun, the ghost king of Amarna
16:00–16:15: Break
16:15–16:45
Private Q&A session for members of the Amarna Trust’s Giving Circles
Tutankhamun, the ghost king of Amarna
‘Tutankhamun at Amarna’ reads like the lecture title of a lazy professor; someone reluctant to delve too deeply into the topic. At first glance, there appears to be only a few, mostly insignificant, monuments related to Tutankhamun at Amarna - with maybe five minutes needed to summarise them. In fact, quite a lot can be said about the apparent lack of evidence for the Pharaoh at this important site. And that is the real purpose of this lecture: to explore why Tutankhamun is indeed the ‘ghost king of Amarna’.
Tutankhamun’s and Carter’s beginnings: Carter discoveries at the Amarna Great Aten Temple
At seventeen, Howard Carter oversaw the excavation of the sanctuary of the Great Aten Temple as Lord Amherst’s proxy to Petrie. The resulting fragments, contextualized by the subsequent Egypt Exploration Society and Amarna Project work, help us to reimagine the statuary that stood in the Amarna family’s central temple.
What we know – and what we don’t know – about the Amarna royals
It has become received wisdom that we now know all we need to about the royal mummies, including those of the Amarna period: it is supposed that DNA studies and CAT scanning have shown who is who amongst the late 18th-dynasty royal family, and that we know all about the body of Tutankhamun, in life and in death. Science in archaeology is not, however, the magic bullet — it provides data, but that data can be misinterpreted or misrepresented. In this lecture, some of the received wisdom will be critically examined, to show what we can conclude and the great amount we cannot conclude.
Growing up in the shadow of Tutankhamun: The lives of non-elite children at ancient Amarna
Since the original autopsy of his body through to modern examinations, Tutankhamun’s physical health has been reported as exceedingly poor. He has been labelled as disabled, malarial, inbred, frail, in pain, with a cleft palate and spinal curvature — to name a few. Was his life that different from other children who lived at Amarna? This talk will explore the lives of non-elite children buried at Amarna through reporting on the skeletal analysis, focusing on health, nutrition, injuries, and workloads.
Tutankhamun and Amarna at the Petrie Museum
The Petrie Museum cares for around 7000 objects from Amarna, many of which were excavated by William Matthew Flinders Petrie and his Egyptian workforce from the Central City in 1891–1892. In this paper the background to this collection will be presented in the context of a major new collaboration with the Amarna Project, ‘Tutankhamun the Boy: Growing up in Ancient Egypt’, highlighting key objects in the collection which link Tutankhamun with Amarna.
