51–60 of 68 posts
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> Tutankhamun is an interesting figure largely due to his father, Akhenaten No. he is famous because his tomb was found intact by Howard carter.
"Famous" and "interesting" are two different things.
The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper iron was more valuable than gold. (the Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut)
To make copper from ore you take the ore, which is conveniently typically a very distinctive bright blue/green rock, and you put it in the middle of a hot campfire. The carbon monoxide in the fire reduces the ore and then melting the copper separates it from its impurities. This is similar to the way you'd get tin or lead or several other metals. Then, to make bronze you combine specific weights of raw copper and tin…
Which is the origin of his name. We write "Tutankhamun", but his name is literally "Tut-Ankh-Amun" - the Ankh of Amun, or the life of Amun (the God he restored).
"Tutankhamun means "Living Image of Amun"."[1]
First, the dyration of dynasty was one and a half times longer than our time back to Jesus. That is a long time! Maybe the Catholic Church starts to approach with some factors staying constant during 2000 years and others changing.
Second there were major tech upgrades at times icluding the adoption of the wheel, the horse and iron weapons. Enemy armies discovered these first, beat up Egyptians, who then eventually learned these new techs.
The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper iron was more valuable than gold. (the Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut)
> Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut I think several sources are saying that Hittites had some iron artifacts already around 1800 BC and had iron works in 1380 BC? I don't recall that scene from the book, but anyway, Waltari wrote it during WW II using just library sources in He…
I get laughed at when I'm asked "how do you know so much about [place]?" and the answer is "The Internet" :)
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Small point, consistent use of BCE/CE is preferable mixed usage or use of BC/AD. Thou shouldst not cross the streams... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era
BCE/CE is preferable to BC/AD in all cases.
How did the ancient Egyptians know it came from the sky?
They probably see it. Let's make up a story without any proof that it's real:
In some place in the countryside, they see a light moving in the sky and a not very far explosion. (The ones that see a nearby explosion are dead.) Imagine something like the meteorite at Russia a few years ago. (From the videos it looks like a nice show if it doesn't land on your head.)
The local governor/priest/whatever heard about it and send a crew to the site, let's say 5-10 persons. They found some molten glass and a strange metal stone, that is like bronze but has a weird color.
They share the story for generations, if you are lucky someone they wrote an inform for the pharaoh. Everyone think they are nuts, but a they have this weird stone.
Wait a few centuries, and repeat this a few times, and now you have a collection of weird stones and/or the weapons/tools made with them, and they share a similar story. So the story is not long so weird.
Anyway, the knife made with the stone is better than the usual knives, and it has a nice story, so someone send it to the pharaoh.
How did the ancient Egyptians know it came from the sky?
IANAA. They probably see it. Let's make up a story without any proof that it's real: In some place in the countryside, they see a light moving in the sky and a not very far explosion. (The ones that see a nearby explosion are dead.) Imagine something like the meteorite at Russia a few years ago. (From the videos it looks like a nice show if it doesn't land on your head.) The local governor/priest/whatever heard about…
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>I read about how it being more valuable allowed these ancient civilizations who had access to it, to have some more monetary value to their coins and also showed their political influence (Ex: a picture of their leader ) Probably 1 of 3 reasons Gold was valuable at all to the ancients: 1. Gold is the most malleable of all the metals, making it easy to coin in extreme detail. 2. Antimicrobial properties (probably kno…
Gold was also the heaviest known element until the middle of the 19th century, which means that all impurities swim at the top and so it is easy to purify simply by melting it. Plus you can assay it by a touchstone. So there are a lot properties that make Gold the best metal for coins.
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"Famous" and "interesting" are two different things.
In domino's defense, being the son of Akenaten isn't necessarily all that interesting in itself. Akenaten is the interesting one; Tutankhamun is just a short-lived pharaoh who returned to normalcy. He's like the Gerald Ford of pharoahs.
Do you think he was he was too young( too developmentally challenged?) to be making such momentous decisions. I've heard that it was mostly his mentors and generals ( HOremHeb ?) making those decisions.