The Mystery of King Tutankhamun's Death

For almost one hundred years the mystery of King Tutankhamun's death has been a who-done-it in the classic sense, with a number of suspects and various motives, an uncertainty about the manner of death and whether it was really murder. Although he died about 1325 BC the questions arising from the circumstances surrounding his death were entombed with his mummy and its vast treasure until Howard Carter unearthed them in 1922.

Tutankhamun gained the throne, when he was nine years old, upon the mysterious death of the preceding pharaoh, called Akhenatun the Heretic. This heretical king had turned the religious structure of the Egyptian society upside down during his reign and set the stage for the possible assassination of Tutankhamun.

Suspects

The first of the four most likely suspects in the possible murder of the boy-king was a foreigner named Tutu (or Dudu), a member of the court of Amenhotep III, and he continued as an official with the next king Akhenatun.

At this time someone was intercepting messages requesting help from the army and as a result there were a number of disastrous defeats. Suspicion fell upon the foreign Tutu and Akhenatun swore to investigate and find the traitor. Before anything could be done the king died under questionable circumstances.

The new pharaoh, Tutankhamun, was young and inexperienced when he inherited this unsavory character who was rumored to encourage strife amongst the members of the court. Some believe that he had a hand in the possible murder of the new king as well as the preceding one. Whether for his own benefit or at the command of another party remains to be seen.

At the tender age of nine, Tutankhamun was unprepared to rule a kingdom but he had two experienced and ambitious men to make decisions in his name. Aye was a high priest with some royal blood that ruled as Vizier and as a regent of sorts. Horemhab was the general in command of the army of Egypt and had a taste for power although without the royal bloodlines that would make him fit to be king.

These two, the priest and the general, are the people, whether individually or in concert, that had the strongest motives for eliminating the young pharaoh. For the entire ten years Tutankhamun occupied the throne of Egypt, Horemhab and the older Aye ruled in his name and became accustomed to having the reins of power in their hands. By the time Tutankhamun had reached his late teens it is likely they saw the possibility of their power diminishing.

Only one other person was in a position elevated enough to assassinate the young pharaoh and that would be his own wife, Queen Ankhsenamun. Events after the kings death show that she was the least likely to have done the deed. When she found herself alone on the throne she sent a message to the king of Hatti (modern day Turkey), an enemy of Egypt, asking for one of his sons as a husband for herself. She wrote to the Hittite king," Never shall I choose a servant of mine and make him my husband. I am afraid." Was this servant she referred to the priest Aye?

The Hittite king, Suppiluliumas, was suspicious at first but eventually sent his son Zannanza to wed the Egyptian queen and gain for them an entire kingdom without conflict. The young prince never made it to his wedding, he was assassinated on the way and queen Ankhsenamun was forced to marry her servant the high priest Aye. She had good reason to be afraid for she disappeared soon after, from all sight and record.

After Tutankhamun

Aye was pharaoh only four short years before he was supplanted by the general Horemhab who then became the new king. Once Horemhab was on the throne he proceeded to eliminate any record of Aye and Tutankhamun, replacing their names with his own on stelae, relief carvings, statues and even claiming credit for buildings and temples built by the other pharaohs. In an apparent attempt to divert suspicion from himself he did mention the boy-king on the pedestal of one statue. It stated, "Egyptian brothers, do not ever forget what foreigners did to our Pharaoh Tutankhamun." He, at least, was sure the young king had been murdered.

Modern Investigations

But was the short lived pharaoh really murdered? In 1968 x-rays taken of the mummy showed that he had suffered a blow to the back of the head. Healing around the injury indicated that he had lived for at least two months after being struck. A trauma specialist from Long Island University studied the x-rays and concluded the sub-dural hematoma was caused by a non-accidental blow from behind.

The American Egyptologist Bob Brier agrees and claims that only a personal attendant or cup bearer would have opportunity to approach such a royal personage in that way.

Mohamed Saheh the Director General of the Egyptian Museum on the other hand suggest the death was the result of lung disease or a brain tumor. Egyptian forensic specialists (un-named) claim the injury to the skull was caused during embalming and that the boy-king died from poison.

Current Technology

In 2005 Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, conducted a CT scan on the mummy of Tutankhamun. The detailed findings enumerated the pharaohs characteristics at the time of death. He was a slender youth, 5 feet 11 inches tall and had the large front teeth and overbite of his Thutmos ancestors. His skull was dolichocephalic (long-headed), had a slightly cleft palate and he had scoliosis (curved spine). All symptoms of a person with Klippel-Feil syndrome.

They also found an unhealed break in the left thigh bone and based on this Dr. Hawass concludes that Tutankhamun fell from a moving chariot and died just days later from a bad infection caused by the leg injury. It must be mentioned that part of the team doing the scan claim the break was caused by Howard Carters crew when they dismembered the body.

Inconclusive

Whether the young pharaoh "accidentally" fell from a chariot while hunting and died within days or was struck from behind and lingered for months, the jury is still out on the mystery of King Tutankhamun's death.