Was the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun murdered?

The cause of death remains a tantalising mystery!

Greetings Gold and Silver Level Templar Knights. The series on Tutankhamun continues with the question that has vexed many for the last hundred years since his tomb was discovered in 1922 - was he murdered? And if he was - by whom? Well - let’s find out…

To begin, I’m not endorsing the King-Tut-was-murdered claim but investigating it and setting all the arguments in front of you. Just so we get that out of the way. I know that this idea of the boy-pharaoh being criminally slain raises tempers!

Now that we’ve got that out of the way – let’s find out who killed Tutankhamun.

There are two prime suspects:

Ay – the scheming vizier

Tutankhamun had two key advisers. Ay was his political chief, a kind of vizier. Hormheb was his military chief. Both are suspects in his possible murder.

Bob Brier, a senior research fellow at Long Island University, believes that Ay was the culprit. What would Ay’s motive for murder have been? The conjecture is that as Tutankhamun left his teen years, he was keen to exercise more control.

This would have involved pushing Ay aside. Well, the wily politician wasn’t going to take that lying down. So, he arranged for an assassin get close to the pharaoh – most likely in his sleep – and kill him.

Another theory is that Ay was dismayed at Tutankhamun dismantling the new religion established by his father, Akhenaten. Ay was a supporter of the new monotheistic religion. Therefore he killed the boy pharaoh to keep the faith.

Tutankhamun was childless and when he was killed and Ay seized the throne.

Ay had a weak claim to be pharaoh. So, he resolved to marry the widow of Tutankhamun – Ankhesenamum – to strengthen his position. This is a woman who had a complicated personal life. She was married at one point to her own father, the pharaoh Akhenaten. Then married to her half-brother, Tutankhamun. And finally got hitched – forcibly – to Ay.

Desperate not to marry Ay, she asked the neighbouring Hittite empire to send her a prince she could take for a husband. They obliged but he died mysteriously in transit. It’s easy to imagine that a miffed Ay resolved this situation with yet another murder.

Ay, by the way, was the father of Nefertiti – the charismatic queen of the pharaoh Akhenaten. This is a complicated family tree to put it mildly.

Hormheb – the ambitious army officer.

There are often differences in spelling for names from Ancient Egypt. This guy comes with many variations: Horemheb, Horemhab, Haremhab, etc. Anyway, he was a general and leading military figure under Tutankhamun. And his wife, Mutnedjmet, was possibly the daughter of Ay.

Hormheb should have become pharaoh after Tutankhamun as his designated heir. But instead, Ay took over. As a result, the ambitious army officer had to wait four years before becoming pharaoh. At which point he completely desecrated the tomb of Ay and ripped apart his mummy. While respecting the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Like Tutankhamun, Hormheb set about overturning the revolutionary religious reforms of Akhenaten – who had established a new state cult worshipping just one God, the Aten. The general was a traditionalist and he pulled Egypt back to the old religion and did his best to eradicate all traces of Ay and Akhenaten.

But he also chiselled away the name of Tutankhamun. Why? He was on the same page with regards to taking Egypt back to its old religion. And yet he eradicated the memory of his former boss.

Hormheb was arguably a very successful pharaoh who laid the ground for the spectacular reigns of Seti and Ramses II. Maybe he was just impatient to bring his talent to the throne and the boy pharaoh had to go.

How was Tutankhamun murdered?

There have been several X-rays of Tutankhamun’s remains and one in 1968 revealed a calcified blood clot at the base of the skull. This could have been caused by a blow from a blunt instrument resulting in death. However, the consensus view today is that it is not evidence of foul play.

Tutankhamun has several broken bones and there is a suggestion he may have been killed by a chariot hitting him at high speed. Quite how that could have happened is the subject of much speculation.

The pharaoh wasn’t quick on his feet given the disability that I detailed in another article. So was a chariot driven at him in the knowledge he wouldn’t be able to get out of the way in time?

TO BE CONTINUED