The iconic golden mask was a lie. It may have signified King Tutankhamun's power during his reign but it was nowhere near what the boy pharaoh actually looked like.
According to over 2,000 CT scans of King Tut's body for a BBC documentary, he had a club foot, girlish hips, and a pronounced overbite. Theories in the past have suggested he may have died in a chariot accident but given his physical deformity, it would have been impossible because he would not have been able to race chariots as he was depicted doing. The discovery of around 130 walking sticks in his tomb also supports the theory that he needed help from canes to move around.
Physical problems that plagued the young pharaoh may have been due to the incestuous relationship his parents had. In 2010, a genetic study was carried out, producing a pedigree spanning five generations of King Tut's immediate lineage. From this study, it was revealed that a mummy identified as KV55 (most likely Akhenaten, Tut's father) and another as KV35YL, also the Younger Lady, were also siblings aside from having produced King Tut.
Egyptians didn't frown upon incest during King Tut's time because it was believed to keep blood lines pure. Unfortunately, it had health implications that may have contributed to the boy pharaoh's early demise.
He had a large hole at the back of his skull so it was widely thought that his death was due to murder. Further research and analysis by scientists, however, show that the likeliest reason for King Tut's death was complications arising from a broken leg exacerbated by malaria.
If he didn't have Kohler's disease, a bone-wasting condition King Tut developed in adolescence, maybe he wouldn't have succumbed to complications from a broken leg. Kohler's disease is so painful that it would not have been possible for King Tut to shoot an arrow standing up. To do so, he would need to be sitting down. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, his bone condition ran in families and was likely to be passed down when first-degree relatives had children.
King Tut's tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by Howard Carter, a British archaeologist. He was the last male in his family so his death inevitably ended the 18th dynasty, considered the greatest of the royal families in Egypt. King Tut ascended the throne when he was nine years old. He died when he was 19.
