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Many archaeologists,
scientists, Egyptian experts and Egyptologists have come up and debated
on the mysterious king Tut's death with their own hypotheses with
historical and archaeological evidences. They are still questioning
each other how he died. Was it a natural death or was he murdered?
Some
people say that the king may have died from a blow to the back of
his head
Who
killed the King? Was it Aye, the Tut's vizier and uncle who ascended
to the throne after his death and married his wife? There is insufficient
evidence that he is guilty. He was the high priest and was, moreover,
the one who wrote Tutankhamen's negative confession.
Or was it Horenhab, the army officer who cooperated with Aye and became
king after Aye? Horenhab usurped some of Tut's treasure and affixed
his name to it.
Or was it either the king's own personal attendant or his cup-bearer
who were the only people allowed to approach the back of the pharaoh
and allowed to enter his bedroom without arousing suspicion as a part
of their job while others could not easily approach the king's back?
28 years ago, an X-ray of Tut's mummy was taken by the anatomy annalist
and a trauma specialist and they revealed that the king may have died
from a blow to the back of his head while he was in his sleep. They
said "The blow was to a protected area at the back of the head
which you don't injure in an accident, someone had to sneak up from
behind,"
X-rays also showed a thickening of a bone in the cranium which could
occur only after a build-up of blood. This would indicate that the
king might have been left bleeding for a long time before he actually
died.
Other scientists suggest that the king was most probably hit on the
back of his head-while asleep and that he lingered, maybe for as long
as two months, before he died. On the other hand, there are also some
people who suggested that this could not be the case because Tutankhamen
had no enemies; on the contrary, he was loved by the priests and the
population because he re-established the state religion of Amen-Re
after the religious revolution under Akhenaton, and re-opened all
temples. Moreover Aye and Horenhab would have had no reason to kill
Tutankhamen because he was youth and did not hold authority.
Egyptologists and Travel Lovers' Committee (ATLC), an Egyptian non-profit
organization carried out further research on the possible causes of
his death. They revealed two pieces of literary evidence suggesting
that Aye and Horenhab were innocent of Tutankhamen's document indicated
that Aye was innocent of his murder. Also, on the pedestal of one
of Horenhab's statues is a text in which he left a message to all
Egyptians, indicating that he was not the man who committed the crime.
He declared in writing that he was loyal to his king and carried out
all his orders faithfully. He also warned any Egyptian who may read
the text, told them never to trust them: "Egyptian brothers,
don't ever forget what foreigners did to our King Tutankhamen",
Horenhab wrote.
Some
people say that the boy king may have died of a lung disease or even
a brain tumor
This
would explain the lump found on the back of his head
Some
people say he was poisoned and it is now suggested that the blow to
the back of the head might have happened after his death, during mummification
"His
body might have been dropped on the floor and his head hit the flagstones;
there is no trace of bleeding around the blow," say experts.
Some
people suspect the personal attendant, Tutu (or Dudu)
Tutu
(or Dudu), an official in the court of Amenhotep III, later that of
his son Akhenaten, and, later still, Tutankhamen. He was not an Egyptian
and a person of a somewhat un-savory character who caused friction
in the royal household. One of the leaders of a vassal state in Tunib
in Palestine reputedly used this man to divert the messages of the
Egyptian contingents in the area, which caused problems.
Tutu who was responsible for the deaths of Akhenaton and Tutankhamen
"because in the tomb of the latter, an object like a trotter
was found on which graffiti invokes, 'go to the real killer and beat
him and awake him from his death to confess and admit his crime so
that the one who is now accused can be declared innocent." Since
trotters were not, ritual objects in Ancient Egypt it is suggested
that it belonged to outsiders. "Therefore, as Tutu was a foreigner,
the priests used the trotter to indicate the nationality of the murderer."
Mohamed El-Saghir, head of Upper Egyptian Antiquities, added to the
mystery.
And
others suspect his wife, Ankhespaton
She
was the one who dispatched a message to the Syrian monarch asking
him to send one of his sons to marry her following the death of her
husband because she was without a son to take care of her. How did
she know that his husband, Tut was going to die? She was involved
in the scheme of the murder?
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