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[Still Waters]

TUTANKHAMUN'S mysterious death as a teenager may finally have been explained. And the condition that cut short his life may also have triggered the earliest monotheistic religion, suggests a new review of his family history.

Since his lavishly furnished, nearly intact tomb was discovered in 1922, the cause of Tutankhamun's death has been at the centre of intense debate. There have been theories of murder, leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria, sickle-cell anaemia, a snake bite - even the suggestion that the young king died after a fall from his chariot.

But all of these theories have missed one vital point, says Hutan Ashrafian, a surgeon with an interest in medical history at Imperial College London. Tutankhamun died young with a feminised physique, and so did his immediate predecessors.

http://www.newscient...monotheism.html

[Simbi Laveau]

Akhenaten was the first pharoah depicted with his children and wife,just playing .
There are wall carvings of him with his family,in happy social situations.
Even after he declared that only the one sun god exsisted,he acted completely normally,in every other way,for years.
Dunno. It's an interesting theory ,but not plausible ,in my opinion .
????

His religious views caused him to be despised actually .After his death,all records of who he was,were wiped out,and he was removed from his original tomb ,and put in an anonymous tomb .
Who he was ,was discovered via DNA testing I believe .

[the L]

Sorry.

Edited by the L, 07 September 2012 - 01:32 PM.

[Simbi Laveau]

the L, on 07 September 2012 - 01:31 PM, said:

Sorry.

My point was,that I didn't think his religious fervor was somehow genetic,which was allegedly inherited by tut,which supposidly killed them all .
He acted as a normal father ans husband,and not a religious fanatic.
Sadly,his rebelling against normal religious beliefs,caused him to be hated ,posthumously .
The only reason we know he is tuts father,is DNA testing .His body was not buried as a pharoah .
All of this has just come to light in the last five years .
My life long interest in Egyptology ,finds me quite excited about all of it .
I'm sorry if I wax poetic in regard to it.
Don't even get me started on Ramses II and the Ptolemys

[kmt_sesh]

Dr. Ashrafian's research is a little outdated by this point. While it's true some of the men in the later line of Tuthmosides died fairly young, not all did. Amunhotep III, grandfather of Tutankhamun, reigned for almost forty years, so he was clearly an old man. His son Akhenaten is believed to have died at around thirty-five years of age, which was a typical lifespan in the Late Bronze Age. As far as that goes, some had very brief lives. One thing that throws off Ashrafian's equation is Prince Tuthmose, oldest son of Amunhotep III and crown prince. Akhenaten (Amunhotep IV) became king only because big brother Tuthmose died very young, perhaps about eleven years of age. And several of Tutankhamun's half-sisters, daughters of Akhenaten, died even younger than he did.

Judging the physicality of royals by their statues and depictions is not a reliable approach. Egyptian statues and wall reliefs do not represent portraiture, as we would understand the term. Years ago the decidedly odd appearance of Amarna Period statues and reliefs (e.g., Ashrafian's "feminised physique") led some researchers to speculate that Akhenaten and kin suffered from Marfan's syndrome or a similar disorder. This is not borne out in the examination of royal mummies from this period, however. Most Egyptologists have argued that the appearance of such artwork is a religious convention, not a reflection of physical appearance.

Extensive pathological and genetic testing of sixteen mummies dating to before, during, and immediately after the Amarna Period has provided many answers to old questions (and created some new questions, not surprisingly). This included the mummy of Amunhotep III; that of his principal queen, Tiye; the putative mummy of Smenkhkare, and Tutankhamun himself. The testing occurred between 2007 and 2009. Excepting for a slight possibility in the poorly preserved mummies of Tut's two miscarried daughters, no evidence for Marfan's or similar disorders is present in any of these mummies. I needn't dwell on the genetic and pathological findings for most of these mummies, but the findings for Tut are relevant to this discussion.

CT scans of Tut's body in 2005 revealed the severe fracture to his left-distal femur. The new CT scans and examinations of the boy-king's body in 2007 confirmed the severity of this wound. It would've consisted of a compound fracture, to the extent that not only the femur but the knee joint was damaged; the young king's knee cap had been physically knocked loose. This is where the "chariot accident" comes from. It's often repeated in media stories, and to be fair it originates from Egyptologists and probably mostly from Zahi Hawass. To be honest no one can know how Tut broke his leg. It's consistent with a violent fall from a speeding chariot, but it's also consistent with an axe wound or similar battle instrument. There is reliable evidence to suggest Tutankhamun led his army into battle at least once in his life. So no one can really say how Tut sustained his wound, but it was violent. And fatal. This is almost certainly how the boy-king died.

As adept as ancient Egyptian physicians were at mending broken bones, the severity of Tut's compound fracture would've been a death sentence in the Late Bronze Age. The CT scans clearly show signs of inflammation consistent with infection. The wound most likely led quickly to sepsis from which Tut would've died in about a week's time.

As it turns out, even if the fractured leg didn't happen, poor Tut was pretty much screwed, anyway. The studies of Tut's genetic material revealed the DNA for cerebral malaria, the deadliest form of the disease. And if that weren't enough, the young king was also suffering from osteonecrosis in his left foot. Infection from that could've been fatal, as well. In fact, had Tut indeed toppled out of a chariot, it might have been because his ailing left foot could not bear his weight and made him unstable in the chariot's carriage—he struck some bump in the landscape and toppled out, fracturing his leg.

Sorry to drone on so long. I'm just always in the mood to discuss this sort of thing. And the precise time period of Dynasty 18 in which Tut lived is endlessly interesting to discuss. Suffice it to say, the reason for the death of Tutankhamun is fairly obvious, but a "feminised physique" for him or other kings of his line is not.

[Simbi Laveau]

I was waiting for you to post kmt

Edited by Simbi Laveau, 09 September 2012 - 09:07 AM.

[kmt_sesh]

Simbi Laveau, on 09 September 2012 - 09:06 AM, said:

I was waiting for you to post kmt

Was there any reason to doubt?

[questionmark]

kmt_sesh, on 09 September 2012 - 05:14 PM, said:

Was there any reason to doubt?

well, you made yourself pretty thin lately...

[kmt_sesh]

questionmark, on 09 September 2012 - 05:26 PM, said:

well, you made yourself pretty thin lately...

Hey, I've been quite active in several other discussions lately. As usual, I again need to try to distance myself from the latest Atlantis nonsense and concentrate on other threads, but I can't seem to help myself.

[Opinionist]

How about the "curse" of tut's tomb?

[kmt_sesh]

Opinionist, on 12 September 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

How about the "curse" of tut's tomb?

There is none. The "curse" is something that originated in popular literature around the same time that Tut's tomb was discovered. That oft-repeated Hollywood phrase "Death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the King" is not even ancient Egyptian but was invented by a Gothic novelist during the years that Tut's tomb was being cleared by Howard Carter.

This isn't to say tomb curses did not exist. Some are known, although they were more common in the Old Kingdom (Tut lived a thousand years after that). But none is recorded in any inscription in Tut's tomb.

[Ankhe]

The other point that this theory was based on was that King Tut supposedly had moobs? -----> http://www.heraldsun...a-1226474098400

Which there is no evidence of....

[Tutankhaten-pasheri]

Certainly no curse associated with his tomb, though perhaps there was a curse, a curse on his entire family. Horses came late to Egypt, there seems to be no god of horses, perhaps an error...

[Magiclass]

Nothing would surprises me about the Pharoah Castes of Egypt, They were all inbred to the point of genetic anomaly, so nothing would surprise me!

[Tutankhaten-pasheri]

I had thought that he was kicked in the chest by a horse, tragic as this seems to have been his mother's cause of death. However, an article in the latest edition of the magazine Ancient Egypt, by Peter Sheldrick M.D. claims that he was killed by a hippopotamus. Without copying the article, tsk tsk, It does seem very convincing and better than any falling from chariot or getting kicked by a horse theory.