SCI/TECH: King Tut 'died from broken leg': Not Murdered

King Tutankhamen was not murdered. This recent evidence comes from a team that subjected the 3,300 year old mummy of the king to a CAT Scan. However, there are signs that he may have been killed by the complications of a leg injury. The team leading the scan now suggest an infection may have caused the death.



King Tut has always held a certain fascination with me. I was fortunate to see his sarcophagus as a child in Egypt in the tomb itself as it was not on tour at the time. For those who have not been the Valley of the Kings is a must see in any trip to Egypt. Of course I am officially cursed and Carter who made the discovery died of pseudo mysterious circumstances. But I figure I am married so maybe the curse is played out

I have been told that the femur is not only a hard bone to break, because it is so big, but it can be hell during the healing process. I believe that femur fractures are much more common among the elderly than among the young. Broken bones can be life threatening because of a condition known as compartment syndrome and secondary infections. Also, one must consider the other injuries, especially, to internal organs, that might have occurred when the "boy king" fractured the bone.

[edit on 05/3/9 by GradyPhilpott]

Compartment syndrome is nasty. The treatment is a facheotomy where they take a scalpel and cut the muscle down to the bone to relieve the pressure on it. . Seen it done once or twice, and if I finish my time as a nurse not seing another I will die happy!

Edit: The femur is extreemly hard to break. As such there is usualy other trauma and its rare that its an isolated break. Also the blood loss that occurs from a femur fracture can be signifigant

[edit on 3/9/05 by FredT]

This is an interesting piece of news. Its always nice to learn more facts. Hopefully more will be coming.

Originally posted by infinite8
This is an interesting piece of news. Its always nice to learn more facts. Hopefully more will be coming.

The team said they will take a look at the internal structures to see if they can find anything, however, if the Egyptians embalmed them Im not sure if they can tell much of anything with them

I have broken both my left fibula and my left tibia, the former in 1967 and the latter in 1989. Neither one was much fun and I don't know what I would have done without pain medication when I broke the tibia. I was in Boot Camp when I broke the fibula and they simply wrapped it in an ace bandage and issued me a pair of crutches. I don't remember getting any pain medication, at all.

One thing is for sure. Breaking a bone at seventeen is a whole 'nother experience than it is at forty. The two months I spent in a long cast froze up my knee and having the orthopedic resident and the technician bend that leg so that they could apply the PTB was sheer hell.

The state of medical science today is such that we often have trouble relating to how much people had to suffer before the advent of anesthetics and antibiotics, among other things.

[edit on 05/3/9 by GradyPhilpott]

The Egyptians showed signs of advanced injury treatment including amputations. They must have had some natural herbal ways to fight infection or amputees would not have lived often. I find it hard to believe that he died from this, but as was mentioned before there could have been accompanying injuries such as head trauma or possibly a blood clot causing an anorism etc. Unfortunately the article did not list the reasons why they believed the leg break attributed to the death of the king other than the fact that it appeared to occur shortly before his death. That certainly does not seem to rule out murder to me.