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King Tut

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Upon the departure of Akhenaten, the coregent Semenkhare was left in power, but in less than a year he died or was killed,(1) and was succeeded by the now famous Tutankhamun.(2) Because of the very close similarity of their skulls and their identical blood types,(3) Tutankhamun and Semenkhare are considered to have been brothers.(4)

The mummies of Amenhotep III, Tiye, Tutankhamun and Semenkhare(5) have all been identified with a great deal of certainty. Scientists are currently trying to extract DNA from small samples taken from these and other 18th Dynasty mummies.(6) If this effort is successful it could provide a non-controversial solution to the particular mystery of Tutankhamun's parentage.

With Akhenaten in exile, the line of David (Thutmose III) became divided. One Pharaoh lived on in the Sinai. The other "Branch" (Isaiah 4:2, 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5) now "sitting on the throne of his father [Amenhotep III or Akhenaten]," was the young Tutankhamun. After his coronation, or perhaps as part of the coronation itself, Tutankhamun's name was changed. His birth name had been Tut-ankh-aten. The change in his name was likely part of a compromise with the priests of Amun. Because Tutankhamun was only a child of seven to ten years old at his ascension, it could hardly have been a deliberate decision on his own part in contrast to the name change of his father (from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten). Under the supervision of the elderly prime minister, Aye (second son of Yuya and identified with Ephraim, the second and more favored son of the Biblical Joseph), Tutankhamun continued to rule Egypt from the city of Akhetaten until the third or fourth year of his reign (when he was persuaded to change the royal residence as well from the city of Akhetaten to Memphis).

In his tomb it is written that "he spent his life in making images of the gods."(7) Two of his traditional

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