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King Tut Killed by a Knee Infection?
adminsr writes to tell us the Discovery Channel is reporting that an Egyptian-led research team claims to have found compelling new evidence relating to the cause of death of King Tutankhamen From the article: "According to the Italian doctors, it was likely that King Tut suffered a violent blow, most likely by a sword. The blow would have lodged gold fragments from the decorations of the Pharaoh's armour or dress into the knee."
Never demonstrate how your subjects should bow down to you while holding a sword.
Does this mean that King Tut developed 'Gold Fever'?
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
King Tut's left index finger is pointing at his wound.
Uncensored Google results requested and delivered by email
This must have set the gold armour industry back centuries.
It must have been difficult to "Walk like an Egyptian" after that.
Right, I'll get my coat.
...that King Tut was killed by the "Knights That Say 'Ni'!"?
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
I find it very interesting that Italian doctors are speculating King Tut had a knee injury. Maybe he had a few outstanding debts from gambling on some camel races?
What's interesting about this is that in king Tut's days wounds like that generally were lethal. How privileged we are living in this modern age (and having access to anti-biotics)!
Error: password can't contain reverse spelling of ancient Chinese emperor
death due to pimp accessories is pretty bad ass.
the blow would have lodged gold fragments from the decorations of the Pharaoh's armour or dress into the knee."
And the writing was litterally on the wall.
Kids dont do bling.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Can't we get a better source for these things than the discovery channel? I rarely watch TV and yet I have STILL seen three documentaries explaining how King Tut died, all in different ways. Died from an infection due to gold dust? I guess it is possible, but it seems fairly far fetched to me. Is there a reason that they didn't publish their findings in a regular journal like Nature or Science or whatever journal Egyptologists use? The whole thing seems rather like fools gold to me.
Qxe4
Wouldn't he have been 17 or 18?
Radio on your iPod
First scientists announce they think the Ice Man, Oetzi was infertile. How could they know that? And now they are saying King Tut was killed by a knee infection. Had they not lived two thousand years apart on different continents. They could have hypothesized that King Tut kneed Oetzi in the nuts so hard it sterilized him. Oetzi in an attempt to fend off the blow was holding either an arrowhead or flint knife at just the wrong angle so that it cut King Tut's knee and cut off his testicles at the same time. But solving historical mysteries aren't that easy.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Must've sustained the injury during his move from Arizona to Babylonia
Silver is. Gold is largely inert; this is the reason it's used for
teeth, electrical contacts, etc. Of course it's possible the body
could still simply recognize it as being foreign and try to fight
it but it'd just make a lot of puss I think. Undoubtedly something
else could've entered at the same time.
Were that I say, pancakes?
Who said anything about unusual? For that matter, who said anything about an arrowhead? Tutankhamen was believed to have died from a blow to the head which led to partial paralysis, hence the walking sticks, but now we found scraps of gold in the knee which look like decorations from armor, suggesting he healed over a wound from presumably a sword which gave way to infection which killed him.
How that got modded informative is beyond me.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
I can't help but feel disappointed that for every new discovery surrounding Tut, his accomplishments and wealth were insignificant compared to the majority of Egyptian rulers. We'll barely know a fraction of what we could if their tombs were similarly intact.
Just think of all the history that is gone forever - the Alexandrian library containing most of the world's knowledge up to that point, the slaughter of the Druids, who thanks to not having a system of writing took their people's knowledge rites and history with them to the grave, the Indus civilization which 5,300 years ago developed cities that were more sophisticated than many that Pakistan's and India's people currently live in, where the hell the Basque people came from and why their culture is so distinct from the rest of Europe, the origins of the Sphynx, and heck a lot more. All gone forever.
Don't Hate, Gestate
Armor that covered the knee? This was 1500 BC not AD.
Actually, it was 1322. By the New Kingdom, Egypt had complex armor making capabilities. They were in fact distributing chariot armies all over the Senet area on a standardized-width rut road system, something typically attributed to Rome. Egypt had some fairly complex metallurgy practices, and even had rudimentary pit steel-making capabilities, though there were no surface iron deposits nearby for them to really use in the way that the Assyrians did.
The reason you don't see armor on depictions of Egyptian warfare isn't a technological one in the sense that they didn't know how to make armor, but rather that the climate generally didn't allow for it - Egypt is fucking hot, and people would cook. Tutankhamen and other pharoahs wore armor as a ceremonial and last ditch protective thing (fat lot of good it did him,) and could get away with it because they were being moved in covered, shaded transportation vessels. Even then, several pharoahs are never depicted wearing armor - Seti I and Setnahke being good examples, shown wearing only normal clothes and the lapis crown.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
The Nat'l Geographic story on the CT scans debunks the head injury. IIRC, the Nat'l Geo TV special described the knee injury as bad enough that it ripped a knee cap off. There was some question about whether the knee injury was caused near time of death or was a result of Carter's butchery at time of discovery. Carter's team did a lot of damage to Tut, but the Nat'l Geo team found the presence of structures that demonstrated that the knee was trying to heal. From the size of the structures, which have a known rate of change, the team estimated that he died 3 days after the blow.
FreeSpeech.org
Probably not, you might be thinking of cis-platin, the anti-cancer drug, which contains platinum (of all things) but it bears as much resemblence to platinum as aspirin does to charcoal.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
"...but the Nat'l Geo team found the presence of structures that demonstrated that the knee was trying to heal."
Perhaps the mummy was regenerating ?!!???!!!
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! Run !! Must get away!
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
There's many things we don't know, starting with the origin of hommo sapiens. I personally consider historical non-determinism to make the subject much more interesting.
The Raven
Getting an infection in a joint like the knee is a Bad Thing, even in today's antibiotic infested world. The nasty little bacteria that were hanging around on the sword suddenly got stuck in a rich, tasty nutrient soup (blood and bone) and started to multiply like gangbusters. Unless the Egyptians knew to open the wound up and clean it out thorougly, the topical "antiseptics" that they had would be of little use. Just like putting an antibiotic cream on a deep wound.
If Mr. Tut had wandered into a modern ER after some serious sword play he would have had the wound irrigated thoroughly, perhaps in the operating room where it could be opened up and inspected. He then would have been given IV antibiotics. And a large bill.
So it's not too surprising that a little bit of honey or whatever didn't work out too well for him.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Well, perhaps he was just too rich to eat mouldy bread. Perhaps a peasent stone-mason would have survived the same wound.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Armor doesn't have to be iron or steel. Leather, or just padded material have also been used. Wood has also been used in armor, as well as a number of other natural materials.
People didn't wait for the late middle ages (which is where you would have found the classical plated steel armor one usually associates with the term) to seek protection from physical harm.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Your memory does serve you wrong. They had pit steel at the time. The bulk of armor in the day was bronze, due largely to availability. And no, it was lack of iron, not lack of iron technology. Doesn't matter if you know how to work it if you don't have much to speak of.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
"King Tut's left index finger is pointing at his wound."
Is that sort of like "Throckmorton's Sign"?
Freedom: "I won't!"
Yes, Tut was a minor figure in Egyptian history, despite his modern fame.
...etc.).
...
...)
This fame is due largely to the discovery of his tomb in the early 20th century by Howard Carter. What was unique is that it was about the only tomb of a pharoah to be found intact, i.e. unplundered.
Tut's era was the New Kingdom last 4 centuries of the second millenium BC), one of three "peaks" in Egypt's ancient history. This same era saw more famous kings such as Ahmose (uniter of Egypt, expelling the foreign Hyksos), Hatshepsut (the female pharoah, who sent ships in the Red Sea and beyond, recording the discoveries on her temple), Thutmosis (the ancient Napoleon, who conquered as far as Mesopotamia, hunting elephants on the Euphrates), Amenhotep (great builder and diplomat), Akhnaten (the Heretic monotheist pharoah), Thutmosis IV (dream stele by the sphinx), Ramses II (2nd longest reign in Egyptian history), Merenptah (his son), and Seti.
This was the golden age of Egypt, more than a millenium after the pyramids were build. Egypt expanded as never before.
This was followed by an age of decline when the priests took over, and could not keep the invaders out (Libyans, Nubians,
During this age, the priests plundered the tombs of previous pharoahs, "confiscating" the tomb wealth to use for current pharoahs and priests. Most of the mummies of royals from the New Kingdom were re-wrapped, and moved to central "caches". Those caches were discovered in the Kings Valley (KV) near Luxor, and the pharoahs identified, unwrapped, and moved to museums. All the treasures in the tombs was long gone (circa 1000 BC).
This is why a relatively insignificant pharoah like Tut shot to fame. It seems that the priests lost track of where his tomb was, but some robbers have managed to cause minor damage to the external chamber in antiquity. Then Howard Carter came along and discovered the real treasure, and the rest is history.
One could imagine how the likes of Ramses or Amenhotep were buried
Read more here:
- New Kingdom on wikipedia
(Oh, yes, I am Egyptian, that is why
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