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Ancient Autopsy Season 01 Episode 04
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00:00I've spent my career investigating the mysteries of the past,
00:03but now I'm travelling thousands of years back in time
00:06to investigate how some of the greatest figures
00:08of the ancient world met their end.
00:12From Tutankhamun to Alexander the Great,
00:14Genghis Khan to Cleopatra,
00:16I'll be searching for clues in the archaeology,
00:19in artefacts and in ancient texts.
00:23This is the first time we see a story of his death
00:26where he is castrated.
00:28Helping me to unpick fact from fiction
00:31is world-leading forensic pathologist, Dr. Richard Shepard.
00:35Using a cutting-edge digital autopsy table,
00:38he will shed light on the impact of disease, injury
00:42and possible foul play on our famous figures.
00:45It causes shock, the blood pressure falls, the heart rate goes up.
00:49This was not the clean death that is so often described in the history books.
00:55I'll be meeting experts at my investigation hub
00:59and getting truly hands-on out in the field.
01:02That's great.
01:03Look at that.
01:04He's 13's a pirate.
01:07I'll unearth the latest revelations about these titans of antiquity.
01:11This is a perfect surface to smear some poison.
01:14Leading me closer to revealing just how they died.
01:19Tutankhamun is one of the most recognisable figures of ancient Egypt.
01:34He was one of the last of the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom,
01:39some of the most powerful and celebrated pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
01:43And he was also Egypt's youngest king.
01:45He was nine years old when he came to the throne in 1333 BCE.
01:55Tutankhamun was the likely son of a pharaoh called Akhenaten,
01:58and he acceded to the throne following the death of his father.
02:02He was in all likelihood unprepared to rule,
02:05and much of the day-to-day ruling was properly done
02:08by a body of viziers and governors and advisers.
02:13But after 10 years, his rule came to an abrupt end.
02:17The young pharaoh was just 19 years old when he died suddenly,
02:22without leaving an heir to his kingdom.
02:25As his reign was so short, he was forgotten about
02:30until Howard Carter and his team discovered his glorious tomb
02:35in the Valley of the Kings in 1922.
02:44Carter's discovery included the mummified remains of the pharaoh himself,
02:49propelling Tutankhamun into the public imagination.
02:52The glorious array of treasures buried with the young king
02:57sparked global tut mania.
03:02In death, Tutankhamun became one of the most famed of Egypt's rulers.
03:07But thousands of years later,
03:09we are yet to unravel one of the ancient world's biggest mysteries.
03:16The question remains, why did he die at such a young age?
03:20Today, the mummified remains of Tutankhamun
03:25still lie inside his tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
03:29These hold tantalising clues
03:32that something was amiss in the death of the young pharaoh,
03:35leading some to suggest that he may have been brutally murdered.
03:39Tutankhamun was not buried with as much time or as much care
03:51as might be expected of your regular pharaoh.
03:54A lot of evidence seems to suggest that Tutankhamun's death was sudden,
03:58or at the very least unexpected,
04:00and that the embalmers and the tombmakers weren't quite ready for it.
04:07In the 1920s,
04:08Howard Carter's team carried out the first rather crude autopsy on the mummy,
04:13stunning the world with the revelation that the pharaoh died in his teens.
04:17But without more advanced techniques,
04:20it explained little about what could have killed him.
04:24At the time, there was no real evidence towards any cause of death.
04:28It wasn't until a CT scan of the body in the 1960s,
04:32when loose fragments of bone were found in the back of the skull,
04:36that ideas around murder began to circulate.
04:39To examine these injuries in detail,
04:43we're turning to medical expert Dr. Richard Shepherd.
04:49He's a world-leading forensic pathologist
04:52who has carried out over 23,000 post-mortems.
04:57Using a digital anatomy table,
04:59he can dissect virtual human bodies,
05:01peeling back layers of tissue, muscle and bone
05:05to examine how someone has died.
05:07Applying this to what we know of Tutankhamun's death
05:13can bring us closer to the possible cause.
05:16In 1968 and 1978,
05:20two groups x-rayed King Tut's mummy
05:23and they found two free-floating fragments of bone within the skull.
05:30Combined with Tut's young aide at death,
05:33these bone fragments added fuel to the theories
05:36that he had been murdered by a blow to the back of the head.
05:43Blunt force trauma is a very common finding
05:45in accident and emergency departments and in forensic pathology.
05:49And the amount of damage that is caused to the head and the brain
05:54depends on the amount of force that's been used.
05:57The greater the force, the greater the damage to the skull,
06:03the brain and the chance of death.
06:06In Tut's case, the injury to his head was believed to be to the back,
06:11this occipital bone at the back of a head.
06:14Beneath that is the cerebellum and the occipital poles of the brain,
06:18which controls sight and hearing and all of those important features.
06:23And so a blow here, if it had been delivered,
06:26could well have caused his death.
06:29But who might have wanted to kill the young pharaoh and why?
06:33Could archaeological evidence reveal the answer?
06:39Dr. Elizabeth Froude has invited me to view original records
06:45from the tomb's discovery in 1922.
06:46Hello.
06:47Hi, Susie. Welcome to the Archive of the Griffith Institute.
06:51Well, it's a real pleasure to be here.
06:54Howard Carter is sitting directly above us,
06:56somewhat looming over us, I think.
06:59And he, of course, is the lead excavator of the tomb of Tutankhamen.
07:03Directly in front of us is his journal, written by him,
07:07talking about the detailed process of the discovery of the tomb.
07:12And he is the lead excavator of the tomb of Tutankhamen.
07:15It's a detailed process of the discovery and the excavation.
07:20And then we have some photographs of Tutankhamen himself.
07:24Very beautiful, staged photograph showing the inner coffin.
07:31So the journal, let me have a little look.
07:34It's amazing.
07:35So with the light of the electric torch as well as an additional candle,
07:38we looked in.
07:40As soon as our eyes became accustomed in the glimmer of light,
07:44the interior of the chamber gradually leaving before me
07:47with its strange and wonderful medley of extraordinary and beautiful objects.
07:54It says, when Carnarvon said to me, can you see anything?
07:57I replied to him, yes.
08:00It is wonderful.
08:02Yeah.
08:03Carter and his team documented their discovery in great detail,
08:13recording over 5,000 objects that had been buried with Tutankhamen.
08:18Can these accounts shed any light on the theory of murder?
08:22Is there a sense that maybe the burial was somewhat rushed?
08:28Yes, when you see the images and the plans,
08:32it gives the impression in some spaces of being quite artfully laid out,
08:37but in some places quite jumbled.
08:39There are certainly objects that have been repurposed.
08:41So objects that belonged to one member of the family and then get changed
08:47and his name is put on the object instead.
08:51Some scholars think that the tomb itself, its size,
08:56means that it was never intended for a royal burial in the first place.
09:00But from that time period, there is no parallel for another tomb like this.
09:05So maybe this does have everything that's proper place.
09:08Given that he's young and this is unexpected,
09:13is there evidence that suggests foul play?
09:19I don't think we can find that in the tomb materials.
09:24That said, this is a tumultuous period of history
09:28and there were certainly powerful individuals in the court
09:33who may have been jostling for position,
09:37may have seen an opportunity.
09:39You have his probable father, Akhenaten,
09:43who had changed Egyptian religion.
09:45To many people, that was probably a deeply, deeply problematic.
09:54Famously, Egyptian religion was composed of a vast suite of gods.
09:58To Tutankhamun's father, Akhenaten promoted a new monotheistic religion
10:04based all around worship of the Sun Disc.
10:07Other gods were removed from the official canon.
10:10Egyptians of the time and immediately following
10:13seem not to have followed his reforms.
10:15And this period and many of the figures associated with it
10:18were stricken from the official record.
10:20And so even if Tutankhamun was more popular than his father,
10:24he was still considered part of this heretical era.
10:27This was the catalyst potentially for theories that murder
10:30was the reason Tutankhamun died.
10:32With speculation about political intrigue
10:37providing a possible motive,
10:39another aspect of Carter's discovery
10:41also contributed to the idea that the young king was murdered.
10:45A media frenzy stoked by images and news reports
10:49from the dig site and the fate of Lord Carnarvon,
10:52the financial backer of Carter's excavation.
10:54The so-called curse of the tomb of Tutankhamun
10:59was a story that erupted after the death of Lord Carnarvon.
11:05So Lord Carnarvon had a mosquito bite, it got infected
11:10and he died of sepsis soon after the burial chamber had been opened.
11:14Of course, there is no such thing as the curse.
11:18You would have thought that the discovery of such a tomb
11:23and all these items obviously is going to completely enrich
11:27the knowledge of Egyptologists, archaeologists.
11:30But there's a sense that perhaps the discovery actually complicated
11:35Tutankhamun's history.
11:36Absolutely, you're right.
11:38The archaeological evidence uncovered by Howard Carter
11:42seems to offer little support to rumours of murder.
11:46An alternative explanation is that the excavation itself
11:50might have played a role in the traumatic injuries seen on the mummy.
11:54When the king's body was found and the sarcophagus opened,
11:58resin and pitch had been used as part of the mummification
12:02and the body had become physically stuck to the coffin itself.
12:05So the excavators had to physically chisel the body loose
12:10in order to remove the burial mask.
12:12In their haste to do so, in their excitement,
12:14the king's head was pulled from the body.
12:16As part of the autopsy itself, the limbs were physically dismembered.
12:21By the time that the king was put back in sand and stored away
12:26after the autopsy, he had been treated more like an animal carcass
12:30than a human body.
12:31Another look at the pathology supports alternative explanations
12:37for Tutankhamun's broken skull.
12:40It's enticing and dramatic to think that Egypt's most famous pharaoh
12:48was the victim of some salacious plot.
12:51But in forensic pathology, I have to work with science and with facts.
12:55CT scans showed that the fragments of bone
13:01came from the uppermost vertebrae
13:05and from areas at the base of the skull.
13:08But we can also see patterns of injury
13:11looking at the bone and the brain
13:14that give us a clue to what caused the damage in the first place.
13:19If they had come from blows before death that killed him,
13:24they'd have been lying within the embalming material.
13:28If there was damage to Tutankhamun's bones before mummification,
13:34any free-floating shards would have been bound together
13:38by the sticky materials like wax and resin that were used in the process.
13:42If shards remain loose without a trace of embalming liquids,
13:47then the damage must have occurred after the mummy was laid to rest.
13:53The fragments of bone were lying free within the skull.
13:58And so it's most unlikely that Tutankhamun was murdered
14:04by a blow to the head, at least.
14:09So it's probable that the broken skull occurred
14:12either as a result of Tutankhamun's hasty burial
14:15or in the handling of his body in the years since it was discovered.
14:21Howard Carter's archival records and pictures are illuminating,
14:25but they certainly don't confirm the idea of foul play.
14:29Yes, Tutankhamun died young and unexpectedly.
14:33He was the son of a problematic king with a divisive legacy.
14:37And there are signs that his burial was rushed.
14:41But vitally, the skull damage was likely caused post-mortem, after death.
14:50It seems that Tutankhamun wasn't murdered
14:53by having his skull bashed in.
14:55So what else could have killed a king in the prime of his life?
14:59The mania that followed the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922
15:21has lodged certain ideas in the public imagination.
15:24That Tutankhamun was a boy king, that his tomb was cursed
15:28and that he suffered from a violent blow to the head that led to his death.
15:33None of these things is true.
15:35The pathology shows that the bitter bone broken off in his skull
15:39was probably a result of the mummification
15:41or perhaps because of the abuse that his corpse suffered after the discovery.
15:46Perhaps the truth about Tutankhamun's death lies closer to home.
15:50In the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt's new kingdom,
16:06the royal court was a place where practices we now frown upon
16:10were part of everyday life.
16:13Perhaps something the young pharaoh considered normal
16:16could have led to his death.
16:18There's a lot of evidence to suggest that Tutankhamun
16:22had physical and quite possibly developmental problems
16:25associated with close family inbreeding.
16:28Tutankhamun's family were not unique in this, however.
16:32As with a lot of other dynasties throughout history,
16:35marriage within the family was a way to secure power,
16:39especially after periods of upheaval.
16:41It was simply a way to prevent power being diluted
16:45and to sort of establish and to legitimise one family's claim to the throne.
16:50Incest was common among Egyptian royalty,
16:55but we now know it can cause serious medical problems,
16:59some of them even fatal.
17:01But just how sure are we about Tutankhamun's own family tree?
17:06Professor Aidan Dodson, an Egyptologist from the University of Bristol,
17:11is an expert on the pharaoh's ancestry.
17:14Hello.
17:15Hello.
17:16Lovely to meet you.
17:17Lovely to meet you too.
17:19So, Aidan, I'm hoping you can help me solve a bit of a riddle.
17:25I know that we're uncertain about Tutankhamun's parentage.
17:30What do we know about his family?
17:32OK.
17:33The bit which we know absolutely certainly is who his wife was.
17:38That's Ankhessun Amun and that's Tutankhamun.
17:41This is a replica of a box lid which was found in the tomb.
17:45And here we've got the two of them.
17:47And, yeah, we know that his wife, Ankhessun Amun,
17:51is a daughter of Akhenaten, the famous heretic pharaoh,
17:55and his wife, Nefertiti.
17:57Can I have a little look?
17:58Yeah.
17:59It's very beautiful, isn't it?
18:01It's a gorgeous thing.
18:02The original actually is coloured,
18:03but that is a very, very good replica of the thing.
18:07So, we know her parentage.
18:10We're not sure about his.
18:12It's 99% certain that Tutankhamun's father was Akhenaten.
18:16And so, therefore, he's at least a half-brother of his wife.
18:21The big question has always been who his mother was.
18:24Now, in 2010, a DNA study of a number of mummies
18:29proclaimed that Tutankhamun was the offspring of Akhenaten
18:33and a sister, a full-blooded sister.
18:36However, there's a problem with this.
18:39Because we have no sister-wife of Akhenaten.
18:43But actually, the same DNA signature in Tutankhamun's body
18:48would be produced if his parents had been first cousins,
18:52his grandparents had been first cousins, and great-grandparents.
18:56So, three generations of first cousin marriages
18:59is exactly the same genetically as a brother-sister marriage.
19:03OK, so, what we have is a tradition amongst the pharaohs
19:11of marrying within their family.
19:13So, sometimes it's brother-sister,
19:16and sometimes you're suggesting it's cousins, first cousins.
19:19Yeah, and certainly that sort of set of first cousin marriages
19:24is far more credible than this completely unknown sister-wife.
19:31It's almost certain that Tutankhamun was the product
19:35of an incestuous relationship between either siblings or cousins.
19:39But what might this have meant for the young pharaoh medically?
19:43Analysis of the mummy has suggested a long list of genetic conditions
19:50that may have affected him.
19:52An overbite and cleft palate, wide hips and a club foot.
19:56But surely none of these were serious enough to be fatal.
20:02Using a 3D digital body, forensic pathologist Dr. Shepard
20:07can peel back the skin to try and give us an answer.
20:10Incest for many generations means that any diseases caused
20:15by recessive genes were much more likely to occur
20:18as the chances of two abnormal genes being present
20:22was greatly increased.
20:24And DNA analysis of King Tutankhamun showed that he suffered
20:29from one very rare genetic disease of the foot.
20:35Kohler's disease affects children.
20:37It's five times more prevalent in boys than in girls.
20:41And it affects the navicular bone,
20:43which is deep within the centre of the foot
20:46that extends between the ankle bone and the cuneiform,
20:50the main bones of the foot.
20:52Crucial to how we walk.
20:54And it causes pain and it causes limping.
20:59The question is, could something like Kohler's disease
21:02caused by necrosis in the foot lead to death?
21:04Although Kohler's disease is interesting in giving us an insight
21:09into his incestuous origins
21:11and researchers linking Kohler's disease with inbreeding,
21:16it's not the smoking gun.
21:18It's unlikely that Kohler's disease would have killed Tutankhamun.
21:22But incestuous relationships can result in a myriad of issues
21:26such as a weakened immune system
21:28and increased risk of heart problems
21:30that are potentially lethal.
21:32Might another of these have caused Tut's death?
21:34Or is the inbreeding theory a red herring?
21:37This has been a quite controversial question
21:49because the mummy was comprehensively CAT scanned a few years ago
21:53and some of the people who examined those scans
21:56did come up with a whole list of possible things
22:00which were wrong with him.
22:02The trouble is that other experts have said,
22:05well, no, not at all.
22:07It's some of them are actually more to do with
22:10clumsy embalmers and things like that.
22:13Well, if we find the physical evidence,
22:17the CAT scans, the other analyses, producing different results,
22:21is there anything in the archaeological evidence
22:23that we could look to, artefacts or iconography in the tomb,
22:26things like this, that might help us solve the question?
22:30On this here, he's got a walking stick there
22:33and there are a lot of walking sticks found in the tomb.
22:36And people have then said,
22:38ooh, could that be because he has a degree of disability
22:41and therefore needs a stick?
22:43There are a couple of issues with that.
22:45First of all, staves, sticks were a sign of status in ancient Egypt
22:49and we have a number of tombs which have got
22:52a huge number of staves in them
22:55and there's no indication that the owner of that tomb
22:57was in any way disabled.
22:58Indeed, the actual sign for a noble is a man with a stick.
23:03Right.
23:04So, what you're saying is we can be completely misled
23:08if the iconography of a stick is actually about power,
23:11but you put the two things together
23:12and you go off in completely the wrong direction?
23:14It's really dangerous sometimes for the people to go,
23:16ooh, cherry-pip all these things,
23:18without recognising what the context of Egyptian iconography
23:23in general is.
23:28People interested in this period
23:30love to explore the idea of the inbreeding and the genetics.
23:35Partly, this is also fostered by the art style of the period.
23:39The royal body, in particular,
23:41was pictured as androgynous with wide hips
23:45and this has obviously been pointed to many times
23:48as evidence of his actual physical appearance
23:51and associated conditions.
23:53It's important to remember that Egyptian art isn't true to life.
23:58Egyptian art had always showed not how a person looked,
24:01but how they wanted to be seen.
24:03It's unlikely that the art of the Amarna period
24:06and depictions of Tutankhamun's immediate family in art
24:10are indicative of physical appearance.
24:15What you're saying is this idea of Tutankhamun
24:19being the product of incest
24:21and that leading to his death is full of holes.
24:25Yeah, I think it's not impossible that the result of his ancestry,
24:29the way the genes had come together,
24:32made him less resistant to something or other.
24:34But I think they're just simply saying,
24:36because he was the outcome of a number of generations of inbreeding,
24:41caused his death, it might have been a contributor,
24:44but I don't think there's any way it can actually be the cause.
24:46Strange as it might seem to us,
24:56marrying your sibling or your cousin
24:58was a perfectly normal ancient Egyptian practice.
25:01Designed to strengthen the bloodline,
25:03it may have done the exact opposite.
25:06The pathological evidence points to necrosis
25:09in Tutankhamun's left foot.
25:11The archaeological evidence suggests
25:13that the walking sticks in his tomb
25:16maybe he had an affliction,
25:18maybe walking was difficult for him and painful.
25:21But on the other hand,
25:23staves and canes could indicate status.
25:26So maybe he didn't have a disability at all.
25:29And even if he did, it wouldn't have killed him.
25:32So in the end, I think we have to rule out incest
25:36as the cause of his death.
25:40But if inbreeding didn't kill Tutankhamun,
25:43then what did?
25:44I am learning that when it comes to Tutankhamun's death,
26:01nothing can be said with any certainty.
26:03So far, we have seen the theory of a blow
26:06to the young Thoreau's skull discredited,
26:08and that the ancient Egyptian practice of inbreeding
26:11is unlikely to have been the main cause of his death.
26:14Neither theory really scratches the surface of the mystery.
26:17But there is one piece of pathology evidence
26:19I haven't yet considered.
26:21It is without question that the body of Tutankhamun
26:28bears numerous signs of physical damage,
26:31everything from broken ribs to a missing heart,
26:34leading to speculation that perhaps an accident could have killed him.
26:40More recent examinations of the body revealed one devastating injury
26:44that seems to support this theory.
26:49The fact that we have King Tut's body in this case is so illuminating.
26:53In 2005, a CT scan showed the body was in poor condition,
26:58but crucially, it did confirm the presence of a fractured left femur.
27:03The femur is the biggest and strongest bone in the whole of the body.
27:09This particularly applies to a young adult male.
27:14It's a massive bone, incredibly powerful and crucial,
27:18obviously, for walking and locomotion.
27:21To have a fractured femur without support
27:25would mean that the person could not move on their own.
27:28There are some diseases that can weaken it,
27:31both genetic and acquired things like infection,
27:34but we know from the x-rays that Tut has had
27:37that none of those apply.
27:39So the damage to his femur must be due to trauma.
27:46To break the femur would have taken a huge amount of force.
27:49So what might have caused this?
27:54Do the archaeological finds uncovered in his burial chamber offer any clues?
27:59There is much evidence in the tomb of the king's love of chariot racing
28:05and of hunting.
28:06There are six chariots in the tomb itself.
28:08Hunting, spearing, racing were considered religious demonstrations
28:13of power and control over the wild chaos of nature.
28:18And so by ritualistically being shown hunting,
28:21the king was maintaining order.
28:23might riding a chariot,
28:27the very thing that symbolised Tutankhamun's status as pharaoh,
28:31also have led to his downfall.
28:35To explore this theory,
28:37I need to understand just how dangerous this royal pursuit could be.
28:41Now where I am might seem strange.
28:46I am a long way from Egypt.
28:48I have come to Yorkshire to meet Mike Lodes,
28:51who is a historian.
28:52He's a master of historical reconstruction
28:55and he knows an awful lot about chariots.
28:57Ancient Egyptian chariots were the Ferraris of their day.
29:09Used since 1600 BCE by pharaohs and the elite of society
29:14for warfare, parades and hunting.
29:17By Tutankhamun's time, chariots were so key to royal life
29:21that they were frequently exchanged as gifts from one king to another.
29:25It's likely that the young pharaoh began riding a chariot
29:30at around 16 years old.
29:36I think the horses need a rest.
29:39This chariot, is this like something that Tutankhamun would have had?
29:45It is exactly like it.
29:47There were six chariots found in Tutankhamun's tomb
29:51and this is a replica of one of those.
29:54And the style of chariots in Tutankhamun's tomb
29:58are hunting chariots like this.
30:00I'm really struck by the fact that the wheels are very narrow.
30:03Yeah, the whole thing is very slight and delicate looking, isn't it?
30:07That's because we have these small horses.
30:11They can't take a lot of weight.
30:13The way you get that is with this bentwood technology,
30:17because a curve is stronger than a straight piece of wood.
30:21If you look at the wheel here...
30:24..you see how that comes like that?
30:25Yeah.
30:26There's a join inside there.
30:28That is one piece of wood.
30:31And it's probably a grown bend.
30:33So you get extraordinary strength with minimal spokes, minimal weight.
30:43The chariot was designed to be light, nimble and fast.
30:47And now I have the chance to experience just how fast for myself.
30:51Wish me luck.
30:56Now, this is certainly one way for a pharaoh to get his thrills.
31:02But hunting in them, travelling at speeds of 25 miles per hour,
31:07was a challenging feat.
31:09And Mike believes there are certainly moments when accidents could happen.
31:13So, I'm shooting a gazelle or an ostrich.
31:19OK.
31:20And it changes sides.
31:22I can't come in front of you because you've got the reins.
31:25Because I've got the reins, right.
31:26So, when I say change, you scoot over here.
31:28Change.
31:31And we're the other side, you see?
31:33Change.
31:36And we're the other side.
31:37Yes, that takes a little bit of choreography, I reckon.
31:39But that's the moment of vulnerability.
31:41It is the moment of vulnerability.
31:42And I'm also really struck by the fact,
31:44when I was going round, I was hanging on for dear life.
31:46And if you're moving around like that, you're not hanging on at all.
31:49No, because if you're shooting about, you're shooting.
31:51And you're shooting.
31:52If Tutankhamun had fallen out of the back of the chariot,
31:56at a vulnerable moment like that, and he'd fallen onto sand,
32:00he surely couldn't have broken his femur.
32:02The desert in Egypt can be sand drifts,
32:07but it's very often hard rock with potholes and rocks.
32:11So, change.
32:14If at that moment we went over a bump,
32:17that's when I could have fallen down.
32:20Now, if I've fallen down,
32:23a pharaoh doesn't hunt alone.
32:26A pharaoh has security, a posse.
32:29There's a squadron of chariots.
32:32He's fallen down.
32:34He's just getting up.
32:36And he either gets knocked by the wheel,
32:39or he's just getting up, gets knocked by this hub.
32:42You can see how that gets by Neil.
32:44So, people trying to avoid him,
32:47this is what will break the femur.
32:49Not running over you,
32:51but just impact into it.
32:53I think it was a hunting accident.
33:00Mike may be convinced,
33:03but I'm not certain we can be sure that Tutankhamun broke his leg in this way.
33:06That said, there is compelling archaeological evidence for his love of hunting in a chariot.
33:15One stunning find from his tomb was an ostrich feather fan,
33:19created after one of the pharaoh's many hunting expeditions.
33:24The ostrich fan is delightful because it's personal.
33:28It originally had feathers in it from an ostrich
33:31that Tutankhamun himself hunted on a chariot like this one.
33:36What I've just learned is that acquiring those feathers involved something so dangerous
33:42that it could have been one of the only things that could have broken his femur.
33:48But does the pathology support the idea that a broken leg bone
33:51could have been serious enough to kill him?
33:54There were two key pieces of evidence of the femur.
33:59The recent fracture did not show any changes associated with healing.
34:05And embalming fluid could be seen covering the entire site.
34:12Ancient Egyptian funeral practices mean that Tutankhamun's embalming
34:16would have taken place very shortly after his death.
34:19So any fresh injuries to the pharaoh's body
34:22would have been coated with the embalming liquids.
34:27He must have died very close to the time that he received this injury.
34:32And in pre-antibiotic Egypt,
34:35a fracture of this severity in this bone
34:39is very likely to have proved fatal.
34:42Thousands of years ago,
34:46the significant amount of blood loss from an injury on this scale,
34:50the shock to the body,
34:51and even infection of the wound,
34:53could all be life-threatening.
34:55Tutankhamun losing his life in a chariot crash
35:07is certainly a thrilling image.
35:09That he sustained an injury that hadn't healed by the time he died
35:13does raise some intriguing possibilities.
35:15But am I making too much of one broken bone?
35:20Is it a leap too far to pin the pharaoh's death on this alone?
35:25There's one final piece of evidence that needs examining.
35:29So far I've learnt that when it comes to Tutankhamun's death,
35:49murder is unlikely,
35:51the theory of incest is misleading,
35:54and the broken femur from a chariot crash
35:57that hadn't healed by the time of his death
35:59is compelling, but perhaps not sufficient.
36:03Is there something that I'm missing?
36:10Throughout my exploration of the death of Tutankhamun,
36:13one unusual and unique piece of evidence has been key.
36:18The body of the pharaoh himself.
36:21I think it's worth revisiting the mummified remains
36:25to see if there's anything I've overlooked.
36:28Egyptologist Dr Chris Naunton is an expert
36:32in the ancient practice of mummification.
36:36Hello.
36:37Hello.
36:40We're very fortunate to have his mummy,
36:43and the mummy allows us to, to some extent,
36:46see aspects of the condition of his health.
36:49What does mummification normally involve?
36:52A very small incision could be made
36:54in the sort of lower left torso area,
36:58and from this they extract
37:00the liver, lungs, intestines and stomach.
37:03Those are then wrapped and mummified separately.
37:06The body is then embalmed
37:08and then wrapped in linen bandages.
37:11But, although the mummy has survived,
37:13we can see telltale signs that, in his case,
37:17things were not done quite as they should have been.
37:20And what is that?
37:21It seems like a botched job.
37:23The embalming scar's in the wrong place.
37:25It's too big.
37:26The heart, which is not one of those organs
37:29that should have been removed, is missing.
37:32One possibility is that he was nowhere near
37:36a decent embalmer.
37:39Could he have been away from the Nile Valley?
37:42Could he have been outside Egypt?
37:44It's all kind of speculation,
37:46but if we're looking for a cause of death,
37:49you can't ignore the fact that his mummy is a bit strange.
37:54Perhaps, then, the physical state of the mummy
38:00can't always be trusted when it comes to the cause
38:03of Tutankhamun's death.
38:05But the fact that it still exists
38:07has allowed us to apply the latest developments
38:10in medical science to examine the young pharaoh's general health.
38:14And one of these, the same DNA study
38:18that suggested his incestuous origins,
38:20did reveal something else that might have been responsible.
38:24for his death.
38:28Tutankhamun's body suggested quite heavily prominence of malaria.
38:34We don't know if the ancient Egyptians
38:36would have recognized what malaria was or what caused it,
38:40but there's certainly a lot of evidence that malaria was rife
38:44in ancient Egypt.
38:45It was a civilization along a water where there were mosquitoes.
38:49It would have been a real and ever-present concern.
38:54It's a disease that still affects people around the world today,
38:58but just how serious could it have been for the young king?
39:04By looking beneath the skin to examine the vital organs
39:07of a 3D digital body,
39:09might forensic pathologist Dr. Shepard
39:12be able to shed some more light?
39:14Malaria is one of the oldest diseases,
39:19and yet it still kills half a million people globally every year.
39:24It's affected and infected the human population
39:28since the beginning of time.
39:30The malaria parasite affects mainly the red blood cells in the body,
39:35but that in turn causes damage to many organs
39:39as those red cells move around.
39:41In particular, it causes damage to the spleen,
39:45tucked under the ribs on the left-hand side.
39:47When the person is infected by malaria,
39:50the spleen gets bigger and bigger and bigger
39:53and may actually rupture,
39:55causing sudden haemorrhage into the abdominal cavity,
39:58collapse and death.
40:00So the pathology confirms that malaria,
40:05if left untreated, can have deadly consequences.
40:13But what do we know about Tutankhamun's experience
40:15of this illness in day-to-day life in ancient Egypt?
40:21Very crisp that Tutankhamun had malaria.
40:24Was it endemic?
40:25And what was the sort of state
40:27of ancient Egyptian medical knowledge?
40:29Did they have ways of dealing with it?
40:31It does seem likely that malaria was a constant problem
40:36that affected all levels of society.
40:39We know that the Egyptians were certainly aware
40:43of a whole variety of conditions affecting
40:46all kinds of different parts of the body.
40:49And their remedies, which we know about,
40:52mostly from documents, papyrus documents,
40:56are mostly herbal, magical in some cases as well.
41:01There's quite a lot of overlap between magic
41:03and medicine for the Egyptians.
41:05By the time these papyri were written,
41:08they had had an awful lot of experience
41:10of observing conditions, treating them in various ways,
41:13probably with some success.
41:15So it may well be that had Tutankhamun been suffering
41:17from malaria, they might have known exactly what it was,
41:19exactly what caused it, and how to treat it.
41:21And it might not have been an issue for them, really, at all.
41:24It's interesting, isn't it?
41:25Because we come across this mixture of incantation
41:29and science, you know, herbal remedies.
41:34Maybe some of those things are not quite so contradictory
41:37as we might previously have thought.
41:38Yeah, absolutely.
41:40I think it's difficult to get into the mindset
41:43of an ancient culture.
41:45Religion for everybody in ancient Egypt is the world.
41:49It's not a thing that you can step outside of.
41:51While it might be useful to apply, you know,
41:55a rub of palms crushed up or something like that,
41:59if you can also do that with the right words
42:02to invoke the right spirits or the right gods
42:04at the same time, then it's going to be more effective.
42:06The Egyptians do seem to have been observing
42:10and experimenting and applying these things
42:14and presumably noting success as well.
42:17So I think we have to give them some credit.
42:19Surviving documents such as the Ebers papyrus
42:22written in 1550 BCE show that ancient Egyptians
42:27were very used to the threat of malaria.
42:29They were able to manage symptoms with herbal remedies,
42:36such as garlic and other plants with anti-fever properties
42:40or with practices like enemas
42:42to try and flush illness from the body.
42:46Perhaps then, malaria isn't the definitive culprit in this case.
42:50So, Chris, do you think the most likely cause
42:57of Tutankhamun's death was that he had malaria?
43:01I'm not sure it's the most likely cause.
43:05There's good evidence to suggest that he was suffering from malaria, sure.
43:09Were it not for something else, he might well have survived,
43:12got over it, maybe it didn't affect him that badly.
43:14I think we also need to consider
43:16to what extent malaria was unusual in the population,
43:20whether this was something that was endemic,
43:23that wasn't killing everybody off, but was carried by people.
43:27It's an intriguing possibility,
43:29but we can't conclude that that is how he came to die.
43:33Historical and archaeological evidence
43:39of how the ancient Egyptians dealt with diseases,
43:42including malaria, cast doubt on the theory
43:45that it was the sole cause of the young king's death.
43:49But could it have been a contributing factor?
43:52Can we find the answer in the pathological evidence?
43:58So, we know Tut must have had malaria many times,
44:01even in his short life, and those episodes of malaria
44:05would have weakened his immune system
44:07and possibly made him anemic as well by damaging his bone marrow.
44:13That would have made him more susceptible to other diseases,
44:16particularly infections.
44:19And that means that malaria itself, whilst it didn't kill him,
44:23is highly likely to have contributed to the cause of his death.
44:29So, Tutankhamun's compromised immune system,
44:36combined with other injuries,
44:38his broken thigh bone, unhealed at the time of his death as an obvious candidate,
44:42could have proved fatal.
44:44As my exploration into the death of Tutankhamun draws to a close,
44:55and after examining all the evidence,
44:57what can we conclude about its cause?
45:00The famed and fabulous curse of Tutankhamun
45:05has fermented the idea that the young pharaoh died as a result of murder.
45:09But the pathology doesn't support this.
45:12The genetic study was fascinating,
45:14but didn't go far enough to explain his death.
45:17Having ridden in a chariot myself,
45:19I know how dangerous it could be.
45:21And he had a broken femur that hadn't healed properly by the time of his death.
45:25And then there's malaria.
45:27Maybe, just maybe, malaria and a break to the largest bone in his body
45:31were together enough to overwhelm his immune system.
45:35In an age before antibiotics and anti-malarials,
45:38it certainly would have been enough to kill him.
45:41I imagine that however much we poke and prod at his body,
45:44we'll never be able to be more definitive than that.
45:47more than that.
46:17Sure.
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