Quick questions on Tutankhamun and the restoration: HSC Ancient History

Tutankhamun came to the throne as a young child, about eight or nine years old, around 1336 BC (some chronologies place the accession c. 1332 BC and the death c. 1323 BC; the reign was roughly nine years either way). He was almost certainly a son of Akhenaten; the 2010 CT and DNA study identified his father as the man in tomb KV55 (widely read as Akhenaten) and his mother as an unnamed sister-wife, the "Younger Lady" mummy, rather than Nefertiti.

Early in the reign the regime broke publicly with Atenism. The king changed his name from Tutankhaten ("living image of the Aten") to Tutankhamun ("living image of Amun"), and the queen from Ankhesenpaaten to Ankhesenamun. Akhetaten (Amarna), Akhenaten's purpose-built capital, was abandoned as a royal residence, and the court returned to the traditional centres: Memphis, the administrative capital, and Thebes, the home of the Amun priesthood.

<!-- Diagram: Three source streams for Tutankhamun's reign - the Restoration Stela as official Egyptian propaganda, KV62 as archaeological evidence, and the Deeds of Suppiluliuma as a foreign record - each with what it is good for and its limit, feeding a reconstruction of the reign | reviewed 2026-07-01 --> <svg class="fig" viewBox="0 0 393 520" role="img" aria-labelledby="tuts-t tuts-d"> <title id="tuts-t">Three evidence streams for the reign of Tutankhamun</title> <desc id="tuts-d">Three source boxes across the top feed a lower box. First, the Restoration Stela, official Egyptian propaganda, good for the aims of the restoration but limited by exaggeration and later usurpation by Horemheb. Second, KV62, archaeological evidence, good for funerary practice, material culture and the king's health, but a burial snapshot silent on policy. Third, the Deeds of Suppiluliuma, a Hittite foreign record, good for the succession crisis and the outside view, but a partisan account with a disputed identification.