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( ) ( ) Volume 14 issue 2 December 2013 NETFISHING A NCIENT EGYPT explores the WORLD WIDE WEB ...
THE DEATH OF TUTANKHAMUN A recent TV documentary presents a new theory about the death of Tutankhamun, so this issue of NETFISHING postpones its review of Pre-dynastic Egypt in order to assess the different explanations for the boy king’s untimely demise.
Despite the vast number of items found in the tomb of Tutankhamun we still, regrettably, know very little about the life of this young man and even less about the cause of his death. Refer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun http://news.discovery.com/history/ancient-egypt/king-tut-death-by-chariot-not-so-fast-131112.htm
The Murder Theory When Dr. Bob Brier published his book The Murder of Tutankhamun in 1998 it caught the public’s imagination. His argument was based on the supposed damage seen at the back of the king’s skull as revealed by X-rays taken in 1963. This led to the theory that Tutankhamun had suffered a severe blow to the back of the head, resulting in his death, which opened the way for the royal courtier Ay to assume the throne. In fairness, Bob Brier had never assumed the pieces of broken bone within the skull were anything other than post-mortem, as he stated in his lecture, given in Manchester on 7th December 2004, but once the idea of a murder had been suggested it gained a momentum all of its own; the idea of a ‘who done it?’ murder added yet more to the story of ‘the boy king’ and the ‘curse of the pharaohs’ in popular culture and books. A full CT (Computer Tomography) scan was conducted on the body in January 2005 and this enabled experts to view the body of the king in detail for the first time. The study confirmed that the death of Tutankhamun had nothing whatsoever to do with a blow to the back of the head. Indeed, this study has shown that there is no damage to the back of the head and that the perceived ‘injuries’ were actually the result of ‘shadows’ caused by the incorrectly misaligned X-ray equipment used in the 1960’s. Refer: http://www.unmuseum.org/tutmurder.htm http://www.kingtutone.com/tutankhamun/murder/
A Chariot Accident? The 2005 CT scans showed that the body of Tutankhamun had suffered massive trauma and was severely damaged. In particular a fracture just below the left knee appears to have been infected, giving support to the established theory that Tutankhamun had been involved in ‘a chariot accident’, but had survived the initial accident, before finally succumbing to the later infection of the wound which resulted in blood poisoning, septicaemia, and his eventual death. This idea fitted in well with what was know of the damage to the body from the earliest medical examination, conducted by Dr. Douglas Derry in the 1920’s, which showed that the sternum had been damaged, and recorded that three of the king’s ribs had been broken “but that they had started to knit together again”, indicating that Tutankhamun was slowly recovering from his injuries and hadn’t died straight away as result of ‘the accident’. Unfortunately, at some stage (most probably during a period of lax security during WWII) this vital evidence was lost when the body was interfered with and the rib cage was cut away and discarded by robbers searching the body for additional amulets. Now the ribcage is largely missing and only the stubs of the ribs cut through by robbers remain. Refer: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/kingtutdeath.htm
A Chariot Impact? The recent Channel 4 Documentary Secret History: Tutankhamun – The Mystery of the Burnt Mummy, (presented by Dr. Chris Naunton and shown on 10/11/13), looked afresh at the damage to Tutankhamun’s body and concluded that as most of the major damage was down the left hand side of the body, this could be the result of a kneeling figure being hit by a chariot wheel. The investigation makes much of the fact that the heart is now missing from the body (but when this was removed is difficult to determine) and so believes that death was instantaneous due to the rupturing of the heart – most probably as a result of a chariot wheel impact, occurring during battle. Whilst the programme makes some valid contributions regarding the carbonisation of the body and the hurried burial practices, the theory does not explain how the king came to be on the ground in the midst of battle or could have survived being thrown out of his war chariot without head injuries in the first place. The reasoning that the wheel impact caused heart rupture is difficult to ascertain as the organ itself is now missing from the body – removed during embalming or by Howard Carter (both unlikely), or by robbers in the 1940’s? Such an ‘instantaneous death’ conclusion would seem to be in conflict with the other medical evidence (given above). Refer: http://www.livescience.com/40925-king-tuts-death-spontaneous-combustion.html
A Hippopotamus Attack? In AE issue 72 (June/July 2012) Dr. W. Benson Harer, Jr. made a well-argued case for Tutankhamun being killed in a hippopotamus attack. This remains a distinct possibility, especially if the massive trauma to the chest area occurred pre-embalmment. Regrettably so much of the abdomen area is now missing that our ‘evidence’ has largely gone, and so this theory, tantalisingly, remains open for discussion. Refer: http://www.history.com/news/did-a-hippo-kill-king-tut
Victor Blunden Back to Ancient Egypt Magazine - Volume 14 Issue 3 contents
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