King Tutankhamun's Life and Death

by Ji Eun You

Have you ever wondered why King Tut died in such a young age? Scientists wanted to figure out the mystery, so in 1958 they used a tool to figure it out. It also is a mystery how he dies and it took them many tests to figure out exactly what killed him... In 1958, scientists were trying to find out how King Tutankhamun died. They used an X-ray so they could find out the mystery. The X-ray showed that King Tut suffered from blunt force trauma, so the scientists predicted that King Tutankhamun died of an accident in hunting or he was murdered by having a blow on his head. It was hard to diagnose what caused him to die and what had happened when he was alive because Dr.Carter cut the mummy into pieces. When Dr.Carter found King tuts tomb in 1922, the mummy was covered in so much resin that it was stuck to the sarcophagus. Dr.Carter tried taking the mummy out of the tomb but it didnt work. So Dr.Carter destroyed parts of the mummy. Now, during that time, people predicted that King Tut died in an accident or he was murdered. The scientists wanted to find out more after the X-ray in 1968, so they used the CAT-scan in 2005. The CAT-scan is a more modern version of an x-ray and it is 3-Dimensional. During the CAT-scan, the sand reflected the pictures which made the pictures unclear. So, they hurriedly moved King Tutankhamun and CAT-scanned him again, this time without the sand. When it was almost finished, the computer was too overheated because the air conditioner was broken. There was a limited time to bring him back to the tomb. The time was running, so they could only depend on a $10 fan. After they successfully CAT-scanned him, they looked at the pictures. The first weird thing was that there wasnt a heart. Usually when the pharaohs were mummified, they saved the heart but it wasnt done that way. So the scientist predicted that it was done by a rush. The next thing they saw was a perfect coin sized hole in the back of his head. The scientists concluded that he wasnt murdered because not any tool could be that round neither that strong. Then the scientists saw that the knee was shattered. It was starting to heal so the scientists knew that it happened when he was alive. The scientists found lots more evidence with the CAT-scan than with the X-ray. Some people said that King Tutankhamen had children. So Dr. Hawass asked

the scientists to do a DNA test. Like there were problems for X-ray and the CATscan, there were problems for the DNA test. It was hard to get a good sample of the DNA because of the resin. The resin was poured on the entire body so it was hard. Finally in 2010 the test results came out. They found out that the two mummified babies in King Tuts tomb was King Tutankhamens babies. They were both female babies. The older one died after it was born and the other, before it was born. The other thing they found out was that one of the babies had a long finger. It was from Marfan syndrome. This happened because of inbreeding. The families inbred because they wanted to keep the royal blood in the family. So King Tut married with his sister. Also they found more information about King Tut. They found out that King Tut walked with a cane because he had to suffer a sore feet for his entire life. The CAT-scan gave many information but the DNA test could give more information about his earlier life. Now you know a bit about how King Tutankhamen died. You still dont really know about his life. Its the scientist's job to figure that out but in the future it might be yours!