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 willed the throne to Paramessu, who founded the Ramesside family line of pharaohs. Tutankhamun was nine years old when he became Pharaoh, and he reigned for about ten years. Historically, Tutankhamun is significant because his reign was near the apogee of Egypt as a world power and because he rejected the radical religious innovations introduced by his predecessor and father, Akhenaten. Secondly, his tomb in the Valley of the Kings was discovered by Carter almost completely intact—the most complete ancient Egyptian royal tomb found. As Tutankhamun began his reign so young, his vizier and eventual successor, Ay, was probably making