TUTANKHAMEN’S AGE.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 April 1923, Page 4

TUTANKHAMEN’S AGE.

PERHAPS LESS THAN EIGHTEEN. An extremely interesting point is (says "The Times V’ correspondent at Luxor) being raised by the further examination of the various articles found in the- tomb of Tutankhamen. Experts on the staff are more and more inclined to believe that King Tutankhamen at the time of his death cannot have been more than eighteen years old. Pei haps he was It's.-. There is no evidence of any of the properties of an elderly or full-grown man. You have already heard of the glove which has been found. It is apparently a child’s glove. In addition, as the garments have been examined, though reconstruction lias been mo->t difficult, there are some which also can only have boon those of a child. It is con-

jee! ill-ally assumed that the.-e were perhaps King Tutankhamen’s own childish things, which for some reason, probably merely sentimental, have been preserved and buried with linn. I his, however, is only an hypothesis.

further, however, there are other

garments, decayed and very fragmentary, hut certain parts of which are plainly identifiable—ill particular, collars or neckbands, and a sort of tippet. A; tirst it was supposed that these were feminine' garments, perhaps those of Tutankhamen'-. Queen. Hut i) so, w here are the King's ? The mailer oi Urn ages of the Pharaohs has been much discussed, J and it is iml easy to ad,lust oui modern j ideas io ancient conditions. It is 1 reasonably established tlml King i AiueiioidiK Ii I married and earn;' t

the iliruim at ihc age ol lourtcon. Amciiophis IN , better known as the, heretic King Akhnaten, seems to have been married and to have succeeded a tear younger—namely, at the age of thirteen. In the first three years lie reigned under the regency of his mother liutii lie was sixteen, which appear.', to have been the normal date when the Egyptians of those days came of ago. Me reigned, as far as we know, seventeen years, and died at the age ol thirty, the father of seven daughters. One oi' these daughters—namely, the third ill seniority—became Tutankhamen's wife, li is fairly certain (hat she was horn in the eighth yeai of her father's seventeen years’ reign, and married two years after his dealh .. thtit is to say, when she was twelve vears old. This was in no way unusual, f (l r one of her sisters marred at the same age, and one several years vuimg-T. perhaps when only live. In i he ease of these exl ronn-Iy early liiai ris' . it was, of Course, purely a mailer de eunveiisiuce, gem-rally to enable the husband to ar;|iiire the rights and standing of his connexion with I he bride’s family. A mini might nmrrv a prim-ess one year old. thereby an, Miring lloyal rank and a title to M- threiie which, in due coilise. the v.: ■ would grew up lo • hare. The reverse rase w«- tliet of Horemhe!'. the sUi-eess-.it* of T.ttankftltl*‘H, wlio. in oi'ler to establish Ids rigid In the throne which he had ir-rirpod, married a prim i s el ex: n -iie’y iiilvati' ed age tor 11,• - • days - n -a;dy I furly. Thai Tul-inkhamenK wife teas litlle a ore than a child, aaeordiug to our i '"as, is fairly certain. Tutankhamen biiu-elf, unfortunately, is only a shadowy figure, one of three kings whose united reigns barely covered eight \:e s. lb- may have reigned two, or at niosi four, years. Mis identilieai inn with u eertain noble called Tutu i; i ■.ihiili i 1 • rest oi i lie name may !oi o be- n added on Ids accession to the i l!" oi" is purely eonieeiural. As iilr-';: d", -aid, sixteen was the normal

have been entirely in rg-cordaucc with precedent if Tutankhamen had succeeded to the throne at sixteen, and passed his brief reign of two or three years with a child-wife about the same

All this is speculation only, hut it gains inherent probability from the tact that it is primarily suggested, not bv curious deductions from historical facts, hut from the actual character of the articles discovered in the tomb. Members of the expert staff, as already stated, are inclined to believe it.