Tutankhamun wasn't murdered?

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

The results of a CT scan done on King Tutankhamun's mummy indicate the boy king was not murdered, but may have suffered a badly broken leg shortly before his death at age 19 - a wound that could have become infected, Egypt's top archaeologist said today.

"Although the break itself would not have been life-threatening, infection might have set in," the statement says. "However, this part of the team believes it also possible, although less likely, that this fracture was caused by the embalmers."

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/news/story/0,12976,1432965,00.html

 

[Brian G Turner]

Isn't poisoning the old favourite?

 

[Tsujigiri]

I believe a small hole was found in the back of his skull, which could have indicated a violent demise, but has also been attributed to an early attempt at trepanning to relieve a brain tumour.
I don't think that to date any of the various theories has been proven and the various arguments have likewise not gained significant support to become accepted as the prevalent theory.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Certainly there's difficulty bringing up physical evidence - but is there any evidence of any pharaoh having been murdered??

Circumstances of the time put Tutankhamon's life at considerable risk - the boy-king of a despised heretic. Not the best place to live for longevity.

 

[Tsujigiri]

I think there are theories with supporting evidence, but to the best of knowledge each theory has a similar amount of evidence, hence the general lack of a definitive argument.

 

[Blue Mythril]

I believe a small hole was found in the back of his skull, which could have indicated a violent demise, but has also been attributed to an early attempt at trepanning to relieve a brain tumour.
I don't think that to date any of the various theories has been proven and the various arguments have likewise not gained significant support to become accepted as the prevalent theory.

Theories may not have been proven right, but many have been proven wrong.
A recent analalysis, that involved sending x-rays and models off to three different labs in three different countries (America, Egypt and Germany I think... Not too sure about Germany) for a full analysis, including reconstruction. It was really interesting, as two of the teams weren't told who's skull they were working on, but all three came up with reconstructions that were so similar it was uncanny (or simply proved how accurate the techniques are these days), the only difference was that the Egyptian one looked a little more like a modern Egyptian. The other interesting thing was that in the analysis, none of them found any evidence of the hole (in that it was not mentioned). They found evidence of other markings that appeared to have occurred years before death, but that was about it.

One thing I don't get then, is where the hole originally came from? A glitch in earlier x-ray technology? Or are our modern methods not as methodical?

 

[Enadil Moonweaver]

On the science channel they had a show which states from the evidence that Tut died from a blow to the back of the head. They even pointed out two suspects, his Advisor and his war cheif.

 

[aarti]

The King Tut exhibit is in Chicago currently, and when I went to see it, it also seemed to imply that he had a broken leg at the time of his death. They mentioned the hole in the head in a way that led me to believe that the hole had either healed before Tut died, or had been made after he died. The exhibit didn't point to any one cause of death as being most feasible, but it did mention the risk of infection.

 

[carrie221]

I had heard about the broken leg before in one of my undergrad classes but I had been taught that there was no hole in back of his skull... the cause of death that we were told that probably happened was posien...