Tutankhamun to the deified king, indicative of the universality of his cult. Tutankhamun was buried in a tomb that was unusually small considering his status. His death may have occurred unexpectedly, before the completion of a grander royal tomb, so that his mummy was buried in a tomb intended for someone else. This would preserve the observance of the customary 70 days between death and burial. In 1915, George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, the financial backer of the search for and the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, employed English archaeologist Howard Carter to explore it.
Tutankhamun the tomb images of Tutankhamun leading an army to war, depict truth, and that he died in battle in Syria. With the death of Tutankhamun and the two stillborn children buried with him, the Thutmoside family line came to an end. The Amarna letters indicate that Tutankhamun's wife, recently widowed, wrote to the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, asking if she could marry one of his sons. The letters do not say how Tutankhamun died. In the message, Ankhesenamun says that she was very afraid, but would not take one of her own people as husband. However, the son was killed