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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.
King Tut's left index finger is pointing at his wound.
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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
The whole thing seems rather like fools gold to me.
Yeah, kind of like a pyramid scheme.
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?
No no, the gold dust didn't cause the infection. Gold is a noble metal, and is non-toxic. It's just that we found little gold bits embedded in his knee that look like pieces of armor, and that means he got stabbed or slashed, and back in those days, that pretty much always meant infection anyway. With that context, what is known about how he died makes much more sense, and so now a knee infection - the gold is just evidence of the wound - is the most likely cause of death.
Is there a reason that they didn't publish their findings in a regular journal like Nature or Science or whatever journal Egyptologists use?
Er, they did. Slashdot just doesn't cover those. Thing is, we *do* cover physics journals, and the method they used to detect the gold in the first place is of interest to physicists. This also got into medical journals and traveller's journals (national geographic being the only traveller's journal most people recognize.)
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
"...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?
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!!!
"King Tut's left index finger is pointing at his wound."
Is that sort of like "Throckmorton's Sign"?
Freedom: "I won't!"