Tutankhamen - Cause of death discovered, page 1

This article from the Daily Mail precedes the announcement tomorrow of recent discoveries concerning Tutankhamun. The cause of his death is now believed to be a broken leg made worse from malaria.

An injury to his head seems to have been made during the mummification process meaning that he was not murdered as had long been thought.

There is also some information in respect of his closest relatives:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Scientists have finally discovered how King Tutankhamun died, nearly a century after the boy-pharaoh's tomb was unearthed in Egypt.
A DNA study revealed today the 19-year-old died from complications from a broken leg that was exacerbated by malaria.
It also found the famous king suffered from a cleft palate and club foot and was a 'frail king who needed canes to walk.'

Tut, who became pharaoh at the age of 10 in 1333 B.C, ruled for just nine years until his death. He was the last of the royal line from the eighteenth dynasty of the New Kingdom, one of the most powerful royal houses of ancient Egypt.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is based on two years of DNA testing and CT scans of 16 mummies, including Tutankhamun's.

It has managed to identify a number of mummies from King Tut's family tree. These include 'KV35EL' - or Tiye, mother of the pharaoh Akhenaten and grandmother of Tutankhamun, and the KV55 mummy, which is probably Akhenaten, father of Tutankhamun.

A mummy previously known as KV35YL is likely to be Tutankhamun's mother, although her identity is still shrouded in mystery.

Archaeologist Dr Zahi Hawass, who headed the team, will speak about the latest findings at the Cairo Museum tomorrow morning, which is home of the pharaoh's fabulous treasure.

King Tut has fascinated the world ever since his ancient tomb was unearthed by British archaeologist Dr Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings in 1922.
Stunning funerary treasure was found in his tomb, including an 24.2lb solid gold death mask encrusted with lapis lazuli and semi-precious stones.
The cause of his death has long been disputed among historians. Some believed he died when a leg injury turned gangrenous, while others speculated he was murdered.
Theories that he was assassinated stemmed from the fact that he was the last ruler of his dynasty, and had a hole in the back of his head.
However, in 2005 Dr Hawass announced his team had found no evidence for a blow to the back of the head, and the hole was from the mummification process.

I have reproduced most of the Daily Mail article here for ease of reading.

The following pictures came from other sources:








[edit on 16-2-2010 by berenike]

reply to post by berenike

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Y'know this is very weird because I'm sure I saw a documentary on TV quite some time back about this very subject.

Can't remember what it was called but it was one of those where they do little reconstruction scenes (probably channel 4 or 5).

Woody

reply to post by woodwytch

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I think I know the programme you mean.

They mentioned the walking sticks and suggested that he could have been lame.

I think it was that programme where one of his loincloths had been measured and recreated and a model made to fit it to.

It turned out, going by this garment, that Tutankhamun was 'pear-shaped'. Very interesting in view of the way Akhenaten had himself portrayed and all the speculation on whether or not he really did have those large hips.

reply to post by berenike

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Phew, I'm glad you think you saw the program too ... I thought I was having one of the timeslips that some other threads are talking about for a moment.

It does sound like the same program. Maybe they have found more confirmation to the story now.

Woody

reply to post by berenike

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On the basis of other, less complete DNA evidence, Tutankhamun himself was the father of two children, both stillborn girls, whose remains were found in his tomb.

Brother-sister marriages were common in the 18th dynasty of Egypt (circa 1550 to 1295BC) but scans and genetic fingerprinting show that he suffered from several disorders as a result of his family history. These included a painful, degenerative bone condition known as Koehler’s disease and a club foot which meant that the pharaoh was “a young but frail king who needed canes to walk”, the authors of the study say.

link

The Egyptian royalty swam in the shallow end of the gene pool like many aristocratic dynasties ever since. His father had breasts...moobs is the current term

reply to post by DrumsRfun

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One of the reasons I was so keen to do this was because I love the art of this period in Egyptian history. I could hardly wait to post pictures.

I love the chair - if I ever get a tattoo on my back, that's the picture I'll have.

Here is a history of Akhenaten (Tutankhamen's father) and his family, although some of this information may not tally with the new findings:

www.egyptologyonline.com...


This site includes Akhenaten's beautiful hymn to the Aten (Sun Disc):

www.interfaith.org...

These are the first two verses:

Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of heaven,
Thou living Aton, the beginning of life!
When thou art risen on the eastern horizon,
Thou hast filled every land with thy beauty.
Thou art gracious, great, glistening, and high over every land;
Thy rays encompass the lands to the limit of all that thou hast made:
As thou art Re, thou reachest to the end of them;
(Thou) subduest them (for) thy beloved son.
Though thou art far away, thy rays are on earth;
Though thou art in their faces, no one knows thy going.

When thou settest in the western horizon,
The land is in darkness, in the manner of death.
They sleep in a room, with heads wrapped up,
Nor sees one eye the other.
All their goods which are under their heads might be stolen,
(But) they would not perceive (it).
Every lion is come forth from his den;
All creeping things, they sting.
Darkness is a shroud, and the earth is in stillness,
For he who made them rests in his horizon.

[edit on 16-2-2010 by berenike]

Amun, whose worship was re-instated upon the death of Akhenaten:

Barque of Amun:

Here is a brief description of Amun:

www.touregypt.net...

Amun
Other Names: Ammon, Amen, Kematef

Patron of: the wind, the sun, in later periods he was the supreme deity.

Appearance: A man with a punt beard and feathered crown, sometimes wearing the sun disk. He is also shown as a ram or ram-headed man.

Description: A primordial Egyptian creation god, a member of the Ogdoad, and the consort of Amaunet. He was also the consort once of Mut, their child is the moon-god Khonsu.

Worship: Cult centers at Karnak and Deir-el-Bahari (near Luxor), after he was combined with Ra he became the primary deity of the state religion. He was also worshipped by the Greeks as a variant of Zeus.

Variants:

Amun-Ra
Composite deity with Ra (starting around the XI Dynasty), king of all the gods, worshipped primarily at Thebes.

Ammon
The Greek version, worshipped as a variant of Zeus.

This page will give you an index of all the Egyptian gods with descriptions similar to the one I quoted above for Amun:

www.touregypt.net...



[edit on 16-2-2010 by berenike]

A beautiful statue of Anubis guarded the doorway to Tutankhamun's tomb.

This article gives some background information for Anubis:

bleedingeyeballs.com...



Picture from another source:



I have a small reproduction of this statue on my desk and a larger version on my dining table - it's a very striking image.


[edit on 16-2-2010 by berenike]

Here is a history of Tutankhumun himself, including the findings of the 2005 research, which doesn't mention malaria. At that point it doesn't seem quite so certain that Akhnaten was his father:

www.crystalinks.com...

Tutankhamun, named Tutankhaten early in his life, was the 12th Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1334-1323 BC and lived ca. 1341 BC - 1323 BC, during the period known as the New Kingdom.

His original name, Tutankhaten, meant "Living Image of Aten", while Tutankhamun meant "Living Image of Amun". He is possibly also the Nibhurrereya of the Amarna letters.

In historical terms, Tutankhamun is of only moderate significance, primarily as a figure managing the beginning of the transition from the heretical Atenism of his predecessor Akhenaten back to the familiar Egyptian religion.

As Tutankhamun began his reign at age 9, a considerable responsibility for his reign must also be assigned to his vizier and eventual successor, Ay. Nonetheless, Tutankhamun is in modern times the most famous of the Pharaohs, and the only one to have a nickname in popular culture ("King Tut").

The 1922 discovery by Howard Carter of his (nearly) intact tomb received worldwide press coverage and sparked a renewed public interest in Ancient Egypt, of which Tutankhamun remains the popular face.

The above is only a small part of a very long and interesting article.

Bust of Tutankhamun as a child:


[edit on 16-2-2010 by berenike]

Here is a history of Tutankamun's queen, Ankhesenamun (sorry, my spelling of her name has been all over the place this evening):

euler.slu.edu...

Ankhesenamen was born Ankhesenpaaten. She was the third daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. She appears on the monuments in Amarna roughly after year 5 or 6 of the reign of Akhenaten. She is depicted in several of the tombs in Amarna and appears in other inscriptions and sculptures. Later married King Tutankhamen.

Ankhesenamen as Queen.

Tutankhamen came to the throne at a very young age. He must have been 7 or 8 years old. It is not known how old Ankhesenpaaten was when she became Queen of Egypt. It is usually thought that she must have been several years older than her husband.
After approximately 3 years on the throne the royal couple changed their names from Tutankhaten and Ankhesenpaaten to Tutankhamen and Ankhesenamen. The name change seems to have been accompanied by a move to the north. Akhetaten was abandoned and the royal couple moved back to their palaces in Thebes and Memphis.

The Royal Couple:





The sad little remains of the babies they lost:


[edit on 16-2-2010 by berenike]

Here is a link to a BBC article which includes a short video of Tutankhamun's leg bone being drilled into in order to collect DNA:

news.bbc.co.uk...

[edit on 16-2-2010 by berenike]

reply to post by Kurokage

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Has he been able to give you any insight into how he died, if Akhenaten was really his father, who his mother was?

If he can do that, send him over here to confirm or refute the latest findings



[edit on 18-2-2010 by berenike]

reply to post by berenike

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If he can do that, send him over here to confirm or refute the latest findings

I second that. A&LC is like the Battlestar Galactica of ATS...a rag-tag bunch of evidence and fact addicts...and we need a theme tune..

reply to post by Kandinsky

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Well, after giving it a great deal of thought, I have the following suggestions for a theme tune:

Relics, Don't Do It

Tomb-orrow

Since I'm here I'll take the opportunity to post some more beautiful pictures of items found in Tutankhamun's tomb:







[edit on 18-2-2010 by berenike]

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