Experts have bizarre theory on why King Tutankhamun was mummified with an erect penis

While he lived and died a stonkingly long time ago, Tutankhamun is one of the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt who we know rather a lot about since his tomb was discovered 102 years ago.

We know the rough dates for when he was born and when he died at around the age of 18, so he didn't get to reign for a particularly long time.

When his tomb was discovered it was relatively un-plundered, and contained King Tut's mummified remains.

His golden funerary mask remains one of the most potent symbols of Ancient Egypt, but there's another feature of his funeral rituals which is less known among aficionados of that historical period.

According to Egyptologist Salima Ikram, a less often discussed fact about Tutankhamun's mummified remains is that he had a hard-on.

When he died they made sure to mummify him with an erection. (Getty Stock Photo)

She explained when his mummified body was examined it was discovered that 'his member was erect' among various other different things about his remains.

His body was covered in a 'black goo' which turned out to be bitumen, and some of the cuts made to his body during mummification weren't in the traditional place.

Speaking to National Geographic, Ikran said: "When I was looking at his mummification, it occurred to me that maybe he had been mummified so that he was showing himself as the reborn god Osiris, because the king during his lifetime is the god Horus.

"Upon his death, he morphs into the god Osiris, god of the dead, and Osiris is shown, because he is rebirth, resurrection, and fertility, with the erect member, and a dark colour because this blackness is—the same word for Egypt is 'kemet', means 'the black land', because of the black fertile soil that the Nile flood deposited.

"And so this was, in a way, showing himself as Osiris."

It's not just an erect penis, it's a culturally and religiously significant erect penis. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

As for what this has to do with King Tut being buried with an erect penis, Ikram explained that his father Akhenaten had 'changed the religion of Egypt'.

During daddy's reign the traditional Egyptian religion and its various gods were cast aside to focus on Aten, who had originally been an aspect of the Egyptian sun god Ra before Akhenaten decided he was actually better than all of the others.

The old Pharaoh had closed down temples and persecuted worshippers of other gods but when he died his successor Tutankhamun decided to switch things back to the way they were.

Restoring the gods to prominence would have been a big thing for the Ancient Egyptians, and Ikram said that Tut's todger standing to attention throughout the afterlife may have been related to this to pay homage to Osiris.

So now you know what sort of burial instructions to leave behind if you're ever an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh who restored the polytheistic pantheon of gods after your father tried to get everyone to like one specific god.

It's probably not a situation you'll need to worry about, but you never know.

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