Tutankhamun was the ruler of the New Empire of the 18th Dynasty. He lived in the years 1342-1323 BC. Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep, while his mother remains unknown. The place on the throne he took at the age of 9 and ruled the country to death. At, the age of 19, the monarch dies but under what circumstances? Murder, accident or serious illness the death of Tutankhamun is still a mystery to all. There are several versions of his unexplained death.
According to the official version, Tutankhamun died at the age of eighteen. Of course, death at this age cannot be called a normal phenomenon, and therefore among historians and archaeologists, the version about his violent death is popular. Moreover, a group of Egyptologists discovered new circumstantial evidence that indicates that Tutankhamun died not as a result of a conspiracy, but from a disease. Studies have shown the injuries of Pharaoh's feet. There was a version that Tutankhamun could die from an infection that wounded him; probably he died of gangrene following the trauma of the femur. Signs of leg fracture were found during the last detailed studies of the mummy of the pharaoh. According to Ashraf Selim, a radiologist at the Qasr Elayni Hospital at Cairo University, the fracture of the thigh bone of Tutankhamun was probably open, which led to gangrene. Ashraf Selim is a member of the group of scientists who conducted computer tomography of the mummy of the pharaoh in 2004 and 2005. During the study, Selim and his colleagues did not find convincing evidence that Tutankhamun died of trauma to the skull (Marchant, 2011). This popular hypothesis was first put forward by none other than the discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun Howard Carter. The first study of the mummy of Tutankhamun in the cavity of his skull revealed fragments of bones, which led to this assumption.
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There are also adherents of hypotheses about a severe, possibly hereditary disease that brought Pharaoh to the grave. In 2002, the British professor Robin Richards, with the help of new technologies, reconstructed the appearance of the pharaoh. After studying the obtained three-dimensional portrait, as well as the data of the X-ray study of 1968, another British scientist, Richard Boyer, came to the conclusion that Tutankhamun suffered from the congenital syndrome. This disease not only damaged the regal posture of Tutankhamun but also greatly hampered the walking and movement of the head (Boyer et al., 2003).
However, later new studies were carried out, the results of which were published in February 2010. According to these studies, Tutankhamen died, most likely, from a severe form of malaria. To this conclusion, scientists came after malaria cells were found in the body of the pharaoh during DNA analysis (Hawass, 2010). This version became even more convincing after medicinal drugs for the treatment of malaria were discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun. The well-known archaeologist Zakhi Hawass, under whose guidance and with the use of the latest technologies, conducted research, officially reported the results of the study of the mummy of Tutankhamun.
I believe that Tutankhamun died of malaria for the following reasons. Due to high-quality professional equipment, the research group made hundreds of three-dimensional images of the mummy of the pharaoh in various sections. The image data dispelled a number of versions regarding the death of a young pharaoh. No traces of craniocerebral trauma were found, which excludes one of the versions about the murder of the pharaoh. Certain doubts caused an opening in the skull of Tutankhamun. However, such a hole, most likely, was the result of the actions of priests-parasites who were working on the mummification of the pharaoh. In addition, the images obtained during the study gave all grounds for refuting the previously drawn on the basis of X-ray mummy findings of the rare and severe degree of scoliosis observed in the pharaoh. It was also noted that the skull of Tutankhamun has an unusual elongated shape and this once again confirms his related relationship with Akhenaten, and also completely contradicts the assumptions about the susceptibility of the latter to the painful Marfan syndrome.
References
Boyer, R. S., Rodin, E. A., Grey, T. C., & Connolly, R. C. (2003). The skull and cervical spine radiographs of Tutankhamen: a critical appraisal. American Journal of Neuroradiology , 24 (6), 1142-1147.
Hawass, Z. (2010). Tut's Family Secrets: DNA evidence sheds new light on the boy king's life and death: Photographs by Kenneth Garrett: National Geographic , 218 (3), 34.
Marchant, J. (2011). New twist in the tale of Tutankhamun's club foot: New Scientist , 212 (2833), 10.
