A 3,300-year-old mystery
There are 85 known tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile opposite the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes and modern-day Luxor. Of these, 25 are the tombs of pharaohs from the New Kingdom period, dating from about 1500-1000 BC. Only one of them survived virtually intact into the modern era – that of the young pharaoh, Tutankhamun.
Its discovery by the British archaeologist, Howard Carter, in 1922,
sparked an explosion of interest in ancient Egypt that has continued
to the present day. The tomb's incredible riches, with more than 5,000
perfectly-preserved artefacts placed there to accompany the pharaoh on
his journey to the afterlife, ignited the imaginations of archaeologists
and the general public alike. Yet the opening of the tomb and the subsequent
display and study of its astonishing contents was to raise as many questions
as it answered about 'King Tut', who he was and how he died. In many
respects the life and death of the 'boy king' has remained a 3,300-year-old
mystery.
A mystery, that is, until the Egyptian government gave unprecedented permission to an international team to exhume Tutankhamun's mummy and subject it to CT scan analysis at the beginning of 2005. This allowed scholars to carry out the most ambitious forensic investigation ever undertaken on the pharaoh's remains. The aim was to reveal what happened in Tutankhamun's final hours and at last shed light on how he died.
Who was 'King Tut'?
Tutankhamun is believed to have been the 12th ruler of ancient Egypt’s 18th dynasty. His name, Tut-ankh-Amun means 'the living image of [the god] Amun'. He became pharaoh when he was about eight years old; and died, aged about 19, around 1323 BC. He succeeded the 'heretic' pharaoh, Akhenaten, who temporarily revolutionised ancient Egyptian religion by introducing a form of monotheism based around the sun god, Aten, and moving the centre of worship from ancient Thebes to a new court at Amarna.
Archaeologists are unsure about Tutankhamun's relationship to Akhenaten but he may have been his son or half brother. What is certain is that his reign would have been a turbulent time in ancient Egypt, with the shift back to the traditional religion and its centre at Thebes after Akhenaten's death. As a young pharaoh, Tutankhamun would have been vulnerable to all manner of plotting and intrigue. As a result, speculation about the nature of his rule and the manner of his death has always been rife.
X-ray analysis
This speculation was heightened in 1968, when a team from Liverpool University, led by Professor Ronald Harrison, X-rayed Tutankhamun's body in his tomb. These images revealed a possible blunt force injury to the back of his head and the presence of what looked like bone fragments inside the skull. Had Tutankhamun been murdered or were these the result of the ancient embalmers' efforts to remove the pharaoh's brain? The corpse was also found to be riddled with other fractures and damage. But again experts could not determine the cause. Had these occurred before or after his death; and did they point to an accident or deliberate assault?
A three-hour window
In the early evening of 5 January, 2005, a team of researchers headed by Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, had a unique opportunity to try to solve some of the mystery surrounding Tutankhamun once and for all. As the Valley of Kings closed for the day to its usual stream of tourists, a team of radiologists, pathologists and anatomists under the oversight of Dr Madiha Khattab, the dean of medicine at Cairo University, was allowed a brief, three-hour window in which to carry out a detailed CT scan on the pharaoh's corpse.
As part of the conditions attached to the investigation, the Egyptian government had insisted that the scan must take place onsite in the Valley of the Kings; that there must be only minimal interference with the mummy; and that the whole procedure had to be completed within three hours. Inside the CT scan trailer, parked up outside the tomb, months of delicate negotiations, tests and rehearsals were to be put to the test.
Despite the preparations, the team was to face a number of unexpected difficulties. First, the corpse turned out to be in much worse condition than expected: it had been badly mangled during Howard Carter's original excavation in 1922. Then Zahi Hawass's team had to spend a precious hour removing sand from inside the coffin because it was distorting the CT images. And finally, the team's computer crashed as a result of overheating.
Eventually, though – with a little assistance from an electric fan – some 1,700 CT images were taken of the mummy. Over the next few months, with the aid of international experts, these were enhanced and subjected to detailed analysis. Then, at the beginning of May 2005, Zahi Hawass was able to release the results of the investigation to an excited world.
The CT scan results
Condition of the mummy: The remains of the mummy were found to be in very poor condition, mainly as a result of damage done by Howard Carter's team in 1922. The body was cut into a number of pieces and some parts are now missing.
Age at death: Tutankhamun was about 19 when he died. This assessment is based on the state of the epiphyseal plates in the skull, which were not completely fused as they would be in an older man; the cranial sutures, all of which were still at least partly open; and the fact that the wisdom teeth had not fully erupted.
General health: Judging from his bones, the pharaoh was generally in good health with no sign of malnutrition or infectious disease.
Height and build: Extrapolating from the size of the tibia (lower leg), Tutankhamun was approximately 170 cm tall (5 and a half feet) and slightly built.
Facial appearance: Three separate reconstructions were made of Tutankhamun's head and facial appearance, based on the CT scans. All produced very similar results. The scans showed that he had a very elongated (dolichocephalic) skull, a small cleft palette and large front teeth (incisors) with a pronounced 'overbite' similar to that found in other members of the Tuthmosid line of kings.
Missing bones and body parts: The CT scans confirmed that large parts of the body of Tutankhamun are missing, including the sternum and many of the ribs. The investigating team was unsure whether this occurred when the body was embalmed or during Howard Carter's removal of artefacts from the body in 1922. The team believes that it may have found Tutankhamun's penis, however, which was pressent at Carter's exhumation but was reported missing during the 1968 investigation.
The Tutankhamun murder mystery resolved?
Zahi Hawass's team was adamant that the theory that Tutankhamun was violently murdered by a blow to the head could now finally be laid to rest. 'The entire team agrees that there is no evidence for murder present in the skull of Tutankhamun,' the team said in a press statement on 8 March 2005. 'There is no area on the back of the skull that indicates a partially-healed blow. There are two bone fragments loose in the skull. These cannot possibly have been from an injury from before death, as they would have become stuck in the embalming material. The scientific team has matched these pieces to the fractured cervical vertebra and foramen magnum, and believes these were broken either during the embalming process or by Carter’s team.'
The team was divided, however, over the significance of a fracture of
the left lower femur (thighbone) revealed by the CT scans: 'This fracture
appears different from the many breaks caused by Carter’s team:
it has ragged rather than sharp edges, and there are two layers of embalming
material present inside. Part of the team believes that the embalming
material indicates that this can only have occurred during life or during
the embalming process, and cannot have been caused by Carter’s
team.' Although the injury would not have been life-threatening in itself,
it could have become infected – leading to speculation that Tutankhamun's
early death may have been caused by a gangrene infection resulting from
a fall or other injury shortly before he died.
Other team members, on the other hand, were unconvinced by this theory. They felt that the fracture was most likely the result of damage done by Howard Carter during the removal of the body from its coffin, and that the embalming material was pushed into the fracture during this process. Just as soon as it seems that part of the mystery surrounding Tutankhamun has been resolved, a further mystery emerges to keep archaeologists arguing for years to come.
Find out more
CAT scan results press release
http://www.guardians.net/hawass/press_release_
tutankhamun_ct_scan_results.htm
A detailed report on the results of the CAT scan of Tutankhamun's mummy.
Tutankhamun: beneath the mask
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/
tutankhamun
The Science Museum's report on the 1968 X-rays of Tutankhamun's skull includes images of some of the X-rays.
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