What Killed King Tut?

There are no records of how Tut died, but his preserved body has offered some possible clues. In 1968, experts took the first X-rays of Tut’s mummy and found a hole at the back of his skull. They concluded that Tut was killed by a blow to the head—perhaps by someone who wanted to take over the throne. 

In 2005, Zahi Hawass, an archaeologist who specializes in Egyptian antiquities, dug deeper into the mystery. He and his team took nearly 2,000 highly detailed scans of the mummy. The images clearly showed that the hole in Tut’s skull had been made after he died. But the scans also showed a new clue: Tut had badly broken his left leg just days before his death.

In search of more information, Hawass’s team later conducted tests on samples of Tut’s bones. The tests showed that the young king suffered from a bone disease and malaria—a potentially fatal illness spread by mosquitoes.

“He was not a healthy boy,” Hawass explains. 

Putting all this evidence together, Hawass formed a theory about how Tut died. He believes the king got an infection from his broken leg, and his many ailments left him too weak to fight it.

Had the riddle of Tut’s death finally been solved? Not exactly. A researcher named Christopher Naunton zeroed in on another unusual aspect of Tut’s remains: The heart and several ribs are missing. Naunton knew that pharaohs often rode in horse-drawn chariots. He thought there might be a connection.

Starting in 2012, he worked with car-crash investigators to try to determine a different cause of death. He thinks a chariot accident could have crushed the young pharaoh’s ribs and heart. 

Many experts, including Hawass, disagree with Naunton’s theory. But Hawass does believe that a chariot accident could have caused Tut’s broken leg.

In September, Hawass began using a new, more powerful imaging machine to further examine Tut’s remains. 

“If we find infection, it will confirm everything we think we know about his death,” Hawass says. 

And perhaps, at long last, it will put to rest the mystery of the boy king’s death.

1. How do the paragraphs in the section “Mummy Mystery” relate to each other?

2. What evidence led Zahi Hawass to believe that King Tut was not healthy?

3. Explain Christopher Naunton’s theory on King Tut’s death.