what really killed Tutankhamun?

Question

so many suggestions has been made some by accident some by poisoning

Answer 1

there are several guesses , assanation, tooth disease, a fall, and he had a lot of bruises, a infected broken leg.and possibly poisoning. so its up to you. what do you think?

Answer 2

What killed Tutankhamun ?
this is still until now an Ancient Mystery ma friend
Egypt plans to run tests on the mummy of Tutankhamun to find out what killed the king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago and died while only a teenager

Answer 3

The two above posters are correct. Tutankhamun died from an infection due to a leg injury. The murder theory is outdated, and came from the 'wound' in the back of his head. However, that was postmortem (after death), whereas the leg break was antemortem (before death), and usually when infection set in, the person died, as the Egyptians had nothing to fight infections. This is why Tutankhamun's tomb was so hastily put together and oddly positioned, as in fact it was intended for a noble rather than the pharaoh.

Answer 4

One can only theorize. The most likely theory is appendicitis although others interpret his symptoms as poisoning of some type.

Lead poisoning has been suggested due to the high level of lead in the mummified corpse, but since the interior of the sarcophagus was lead-lined, it is possible that the lead was absorbed during the many centuries his body lay undiscovered.

Since mummification required the removal of internal organs and the brain, it is impossible to discover whether he suffered any kind of trauma, perhaps from a fall or other accident, or a natural occurrence such as an aneurysm.

Answer 5

I know it's sad - not only that I watched the discovery channel but I actually really got engrossed by it! But I watch them dig Titankhamun up and examine his body to see how he died.

There were 3 initial senerios as to how he died:

1. Assassination.
2. A battle wound.
3. Just a plain accident.

And it turned out to be an accident. The hot shot liked to show off on his chariot and it went over a rock and it flipped over. His knee shattered and he died a few days later from a combo of blood loss and blood poisoning (because it got infected). He had fever and the whole shabang - slow and painful.

They had reason to believe the other senerious at points because of what the bones suggested but they slowly ruled them out:-

I.e - they thought assination because he had a hole in the back of his head, which later turned out to be where the imbalmers had removed his brain. They then thought battle because his neck was broken, but that turned out to be post-mortem so grave robbers must have damaged him.

Hope that helps! Christ I'm rambling!

But if you want all the fine details I'd recommend the discovery website and www.wikipedia.org for historical details!

Answer 6

Tutankhamun was killed by a fractured leg whch turned gangrenous. It is thought he fell when out riding, or from some kind of height.

Answer 7

My wife and I visited the King Tut exhibit in Chicago and found out that the most recent findings on the death of King Tut (Tutankhamun) seem to conclusively indicate that he died of natural causes, rather than being murdered. Specifically, the latest report is that he died of gangrene caused by a broken leg.






http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/kingtutdeath.htm



g-day!

Answer 8

With inter-breeding in the Egyptian royal families - ie brother marrying sister etc - deformities and a weakened resistance to survive diseases and infections could have contributed to his death from wounds.

I remember years ago the story on Discovery that Tutankhaman's grand vizier, Ay, had him murdered to that he could proclaim himself Pharoah after he forced Tutankhaman's wife and sister to marry him to reinforce his legitimacy.

But as other's have pointed out that the murder theory has been supplanted by other ideas of how he died.

But also as Tutankhaman was the son of Akenaton - the heretic Pharaoh that tried to instil the one god above traditional egyptian gods and move the capital - i wouldnt be surprised that many of Egypt's elites had it in for Tutankhamon as well and tried to get rid of the dynasty.

Answer 9

Gangrene

Answer 10

he was an inbred, and he suffered from temple lobe epilepsy, which caused a knee fracture from a fit, and it became infected.