The Science of King Tut

The two year genetic investigation of King Tut has come to a close and the results are in.

It was malaria! Unbelievable! You'd think that a pharaoh in Egypt would somehow be immune to a disease caused by a  mosquito.  Was there no cure or preventative measure?

King Tut who I always considered to be a healthy and elegant perhaps

even athletic young buck was not murdered as was previously thought but died of malaria and a broken leg. 

He also had a cleft palate, Kohler's disease and a club foot!   

I can't help but think there could have been correlation between the club foot and Kohler's disease because Kohler's disease causes the bones especially in the foot to collapse. 

He walked with cane.
There were 130 canes and staves found in his tomb -- many of them were worn with use.  Obviously, all kings had and used staves, so the cane must have been in his other hand. These worked like crutches or  a walker. He was so frail.  Poor King Tut, he probably stayed in bed most of the time.

His parents were found to be brother and sister, not surprising.  This practice was often found in Ancient Egypt (particularly with the Ptolemaic Dynasty) and was not illegal in the ancient world.  Abraham and Sarah were brother and sister for example -- or half brother and half sister to be more exact.  The emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus AKA Caligula was rumored to have wanted to marry his sister, Drusilla.  

Some even believed the young king to have had Marfan syndrome which causes elongation of the limbs. Apparently, Abraham Lincoln may have had it. In the recent study of Tut and other mummies, Marfan syndrome was ruled out.  Egyptian art often depicts people as being elongated and feminized.  The actual bodies were not always so.

My heart goes out to King Tutankhamum.  May he rest in peace now.