Pharaoh Tutankhamun is undoubtedly the most famous of all ancient Egyptian pharaohs. He is one of the very few Egyptian pharaohs that most ordinary people are able to name. Most people have never heard of Hatshepsut and even fewer have heard of her nephew and successor Thutmose III, but everyone has heard of Tutankhamun. He even has a Batman villain named after him!
Things were not always the way they are today, though; up until the discovery of his tomb in 1922, Tutankhamun was utterly obscure. If you asked someone on the street in 1921 who Tutankhamun was, no one would have been able to tell you. Even if you asked an Egyptologist about him, many of them probably would not have known who he was. Ironically, it is precisely because of his former obscurity that Tutankhamun is so famous today.
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