King Tut’s Missing Father Is Still One Of Ancient Egypt’s Biggest Mysteries

Ancient Egypt, one of the world’s oldest civilizations, is full of mysteries. From eerie Egyptian curses that make even the biggest skeptics feel uneasy to a bust that may or may not depict the famous Queen Cleopatra VII, new finds constantly keep researchers guessing.

King Tutankhamun, colloquially known as King Tut, is one of Egypt’s most famous and extensively studied pharaohs due to his well-preserved tomb. However, his life and death are surrounded by a fair share of hearsay.

In the early 20th century, King Tut’s tomb sparked rumors of a potentially real and deadly curse, but one of the biggest mysteries stems from the identity of his missing pharoah father.

After years of research, scientists have discovered who King Tut’s father was, but many questions remain. Here’s what researchers know so far and what they’re still trying to find out.

Who Was King Tut’s Father?

Researchers finally found concrete evidence of his father’s identity

​​For years, the identity of King Tut’s father was one of Ancient Egypt’s biggest mysteries. Some believed he was the son of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh, Smenkhkare, while others thought he may have come from a different lineage altogether. In 2008, researchers finally uncovered a compelling piece of evidence.

Archaeologist Howard Carter opening the innermost shrine of King Tutankhamun’s tomb near Luxor, Egypt in 1925

The missing piece of a broken limestone block in el Ashmunein, a village located along the Nile River about 150 miles south of Cairo, helped researchers uncover the true identity of Tutankhamun’s father.

Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who discovered the piece, deciphered a crucial inscription from the block that ultimately connected King Tut to Smenkhkare’s brother, King Akhenaten, an 18th Dynasty pharaoh known for establishing Ancient Egypt’s first monotheistic cult.

This text suggests that King Tut and his wife, Ankhesenamun, were both children of Akhenaten and possible half-siblings. Researchers believed this theory, as historical records confirm that Ankhesenamun was the daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

Ankhesenamun and King Tutankhamun 

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The Discovery Of The KV55 Coffin

Several clues point to King Tutankhamun’s father as the tomb’s occupant

In 1907, years before King Tut’s tomb was found, archaeologist Edward Ayrton uncovered an uninscribed tomb in the Valley of the Kings, where many pharaoh mummies were hidden. This tomb, which Ayrton named KV55, still puzzles researchers due to its contents and the uncertainty surrounding who was laid to rest there.

The KV55 sarcophagus located in the Egyptian Museum of Cairo

As archaeologists entered the tomb, they discovered a coffin made for a royal woman. Researchers today believe the tomb was made initially for Akhenaten’s secondary wife, Kiya, based on canopic jars depicting her found inside.

A close-up view of an Egyptian alabaster canopic jar from KV55 depicting King Akhenaten’s secondary wife, Kiya.

However, the coffin in KV55 was subsequently altered to hold a male royal family member. Some think it could be King Tut’s missing father.

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Is King Tut’s Missing Father The Occupant Of KV55?

Researchers have searched for additional clues for decades

Initial examinations of the skeletal remains found in KV55 suggested that they belonged to a young male who died in his early 20s. However, this age range is too young to have been the remains of Akhenaten, who ruled for 17 years.

The next development occurred in the 1960s when a researcher named Ronald Harrison reported finding skeletal similarities between the KV55 remains and King Tutankhamun.

DNA Analysis of KV55

Then, upon a reexamination in 2010, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass estimated that the remains belonged to a male who died between 35 and 45 years old. Hawass and his team also conducted a DNA analysis that further solidified the familial ties between King Tut, King Akhenaten, and his father, King Amenhotep III.

Further DNA testing in 2015 examined ten royal mummies, including the mummy of Amenhotep III and the suspected remains of Akhenaten in the KV55 tomb. As expected, the results showed genetic similarities between King Tut and the KV55 mummy, confirming a familial relationship. However, while evidence suggests a father-son connection, the exact identity of the KV55 mummy is still debated.

Some researchers still believe the remains in KV55 could belong to Akhenaten’s brother, Smenkhkare, who ruled Egypt for only about three years. However, another theory implies that Smenkhkare wasn’t a separate person, but was actually Nefertiti taking on a male identity to rule in tandem with her husband, Akhenaten.

If this theory is true, the KV55 mummy may not be King Tut’s father but Nefertiti herself. This would also insinuate that Nefertiti was King Tut’s biological mother, making his wife, Ankhesenamun, his full sibling.

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With so many conflicting theories, researchers have yet to confirm the actual location of King Tut’s missing father, which remains one of the greatest mysteries of Ancient Egypt to this day.