TUTANKHAMEN'S AGE.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17740, 17 April 1923, Page 12

TUTANKHAMEN'S AGE.

PERHAPS LESS THAN EIGHTEEN An extremely interesting point is (says "Tlio Times's" correspondent at Luxor) being raised by the further examination of the various articles found in the tomb of Tatanlchamen. 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. Perhap3 he was less. 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' has been most difficult, there are some which also can only have been those of a child. It is conjectural';}- assumed that these were perhaps King Tutankhamen's own childish things, which for some reason, probably merely sentimental, have been preserved and buried with him. This, however, is only an hypothesis. Farther, however, there are other garments, decayed and very fragmentary, but certain parts of which are plainly identifiable —in particular, collars or neckbands, and a sort of tippet. At first it was supposed that these •were feminine irancents, perhaps those of Tutankhamen's Queen. But if so, where are the King's? The matter of the ages of the Pharaohs has been much discussed,

and it ia not easy to adjust our modern ideas to ancient conditions. It is reasonably established that King Amenophis 111. married and came to the throne at the age of fourteen. Amenophis iV., better known as the heretic King Akhnaton, seems to have been married and to have succeeded a year younger—namely, at the age of thirteen. In the first three years he reigned under the regency of his mother until he was sixteen, which appears to have been the normal date when the Egyptians of those days camo of age. He reigned, as far as we know, seventeen years, and died at the age of thirty, the father of seven daughters. One of these daughters—namely, the third in seniority-'—became Tutankhamen's wife. It is fairly certain that she was bom in the eighth year of her father's seventeen years' reign, and married two years after his death — that is to say, when she was twelve years old. This was in no way unusual, for one of her sisters married at the same age, and one several years younger, perhaps when only five. In the case of these extremely early marriages, it was, of course, purely a matter de convenance, generally to enable the husband to acquire the rights and standing of his connexion with the bride's family. A man might marry a princess one year old,' thereby acquiring Royal rank and a title tq

the throne which, in due course, the wife would grow up to share.' Tim reverse case was that of Horemheb, the successor of Tutankhamen, who, in order to establish' his right to the throne which he had usurped, married a princess o£ extremely advanced age for those days—nearly thirty. That Tutankhamen's wife was little more than a child, according to ; our ideas, is fairly certain. • Tutankhamen mmself, unfortunately, is only a shadowy figure, one of three kings whose united reigns barely covered eight years. He ,may have reigned two, •or at most four, years. His identification with a certain noble called Tutu (to which the S rest of the name may have been added on his accession to the throne) is purely conjectural. As already said, sixteen was the normal time of coming of age, and it would nave been entirely in accordance with precedent if Tutankhamen had succeeded to the throne at sixteen, and passed his brief reign t>f two or three years with a child-wife about the samo age. All this is speculation only, but it gains inherent probability from the fact that it is primarily suggested, not by curious deductions from historical facts, but from the actual character of the articles discovered in the tomb. Members of the expert staff, as already stated, are inclined, to believe it.