Tutankhamun :: The Story of Tut

The Discovery	The Curse of King Tut	Who was King Tut?	King Tut's Mummy	Death and Burial	Egyptian Religion	Educator's Guide

New Research and Findings of Tut's mummy reveal much about how the boy king lived and died.

After a brief nine-year reign, the boy king passed away unexpectedly before reaching his twentieth birthday. The cause of Tutankhamun's death remains uncertain. On November 11, 1925, Carter and his staff began the first examination of the mummy. A black resin covered the body inside and adhered the king's head to his gorgeous, gold funerary mask. Over a span of four days, the team delicately unraveled the bandages and recorded each of the artifacts hidden within the wrappings.

In October of 1926, Carter re-wrapped the body and laid it, in its tray of sand, returning it to its outermost coffin and its stone sarcophagus. A plate glass lid was placed on top to protect the coffin. The mummy was undisturbed in its original tomb for another 40 years, until 1968 when x-rays were performed.

The 1968 x-rays seemed to show damage to the base of the skull, perhaps due to a blow to the head, however, CT scans in 2005 have disproved that theory. Recent examinations also revealed a compound fracture of the left thigh. If Tutankhamun sustained such an injury, it is also possible that he could have died quickly of infection, but the soft tissue is too damaged to provide conclusive proof.

As evidenced in this photo, Tut's mummy is remarkably well preserved.

This 3 dimensional bust of Tutankhamun, based on the findings of the 2005 CT scan of Tutankhamun's mummy, demonstrate what the boy king may have actually looked like over 3,000 years ago.