The famous “Boy King” lies deep in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings. In 1922, Howard Carter brushed away the sand and peered through a tiny hole into Tutankhamun’s tomb—and what he saw made the world gasp. Piles of golden shrines. Thrones. Jewelry. Even toys. A treasure hoard for a teenager who died thousands of years ago.
Tutankhamun’s tomb lies in the Valley of the Kings, just outside Luxor, on the west bank of the Nile River
Howard Carter first uncovered the sealed doorway to Tutankhamun’s tomb (KV62) on 4 November 1922 in the morning
Here’s the weird part: the tomb is tiny. Too small for a pharaoh. Some say Tutankhamun was buried in a tomb meant for someone else, shoved in with his riches after an early, unexpected death.
Pharaohs usually spent decades building their tombs in the Valley of the Kings
But Tutankhamun didn’t have decades. He barely had time to rule
When Howard Carter first opened this chest in 1923, he described it as “the most perfect piece of Egyptian craftsmanship ever seen.”
Step inside and you’ll see something eerie: 12 painted baboons marching across the wall. They’re not cute—they’re guardians of the night, each one marking an hour of darkness, guiding Tutankhamun through the underworld. Imagine standing there in the flicker of torchlight, those baboon eyes glowing back at you.
When Carter opened the tomb, strange deaths followed—which led to the legend that the tomb is cursed
Gilded wooden shrines of Tutankhamun
Isis, Nephthys, Selket, and Neith, the four goddesses who protected Tutankhamun in life and death
Carter wrote that he held up a candle, poked it through the hole, and slowly saw the gold and strange figures shining back at him
Alabaster ritual boats to help Tutankhamun’s spirit travel safely through the underworld, across the cosmic waters, and into eternity
Alabaster canopic chest
One of the treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb is his canopic chest, crafted to guard the pharaoh’s embalmed organs. In Egyptian belief, the organs were vital for rebirth in the afterlife. The carved figures act as eternal guardians, facing each other in a protective circle, while inscriptions from the Book of the Dead call on the Sons of Horus and goddesses like Isis and Nephthys to defend the boy king forever.
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