Tutankhamen was unlikely to have been murdered, despite such programs. Why? Because the Egyptology head at the British museum told me this and gave me some information that so far I have not seen made public.
Tutankhamen was buried hurriedly - despite the fact the injury to his head may have had him lying in a coma for up to 2 months, his tomb wasn't ready. There is new bone growth around the injured area at the back of his skull indicating he survived it. Plus the evidence that he had a haematoma of the brain that showed up in the x-ray (blood clot) is not conclusive. All this was in the program.
What wasn't made so clear is that he was buried with objects obviously intended for Ay's tomb as they bear his name - this Ay would not have done had he killed him. It was also common to recycle grave goods from earlier disturbed burials. When priests found a tomb robbed, around this period, they did unwrap and rewrap the mummies, in some cases keeping amulets from their bodies to be recycled, with overcarved cartouches etc for a current deceased ruler. This is shown more clearly in the caches of bodies they have found, like that of Ramesses 2nd.However, these goods of Ay's were valuable. Also accom0anying him were some obvious childhood treasures. It's quite possible his young wife as so distraught she didn't see to that herself, but Ay did. Conjecture, yes, but Ay would have overseen the whole burial process.
But what showed utterly that no one had killed the young king, was the discovery of a small knife bound to his body, under the wrappings, made of extremely rare steel and unknown in Egypt then. It is only maybe 3-4 inches long, but its very existence shows Tutankhamen was loved enough to have the one item worth more than all the gold and precious objects in the whole tomb, placed with his body = the steel knife. This was a bronze age culture, steel was thought to be unknown to the Egyptians at that time. They were certainly incapable of producing it, and no more had been imported then. My guess is that Horemheb, the General who had travelled to many places, had it put there. Why would he have an item worth more than a king's ransom, placed on the body of his dead King if he had murdered him?
That rules out immediately the 2 prime suspects - Ay, his Chamberlin and chief advisor, and probably his Regent till he came of age, also the grandfather of his wife, Ankhesenpaaten/Ankhesenamun, and Horemheb his General. And if they had someone else kill him for them, why place such obviously personl gifts with the body when it was unnecessary for them to do more than what was acceptably normal?
As for there being 2 other suspecta, I don't think so. There was no one else who could have gained from Tutankhamen's death. For these reasons, I regret to say, I think he died of an accident, rather than murder. Regret because a murder makes it far more exciting.
As for Akhenatren's mummy, that will have to wait for some time for him to be identified as if you look carefully, you will see that Dr Hawass and the Egyptian government are refusing to allow any DNA testing of any mummies from the Armana period, or up to and including Ramesses family. Why? Because they are woorried it will turn out they have any Jewish genes and the Jewish people will request the return of the bodies of their Jewish Patriarchs! I think they have nothing to fear because I am sure Moses was adopted or at most, a more remote bastard royal. Plus as I beleive it, wasn't Akhenaten buried at his city of Akhetatent, now Tel al Armana? I can't see any priests of Amun, considering he closed all their temples and emptied their treasuries, then banned all worship of Amun for at least 12 of the 17 years of his reign, rescuing his desecrated corpse and putting it in the Valley of the Kings for safety!
Hawass says he wants to wait until DNA testing has progressed to the point it gives more details. I agree. Given the similarity and earlier occurrences of monotheism and the Genisis creation story (as old as the pyramid texts in which some of them are found) I am sure the Jews lived closely with the Egyptians, if not were a sub-sect of them very much farther back than recorded history, even such as that of Ancient Egypt. Early Egyptians worshipped the sun in the form of Amun, if memory serves me (away from home so no access to my books right now) and as they advanced up and down Egypt, conquering the other people there, they assimilated their local gods and goddesses, thus going to polytheistic beliefs. Akhenaten was not the first to bring about a monotheistic belief, the people of the pyramids and older were.
Hawass wantrs to wait until DNA testing can prove the Armana royals are all related back to other royal lines, I am sure, so that even if there is a Jewish connection, it is proved to be slight. After all, they could stand to lose all their most famous mummies.
Sorry for the lecture, but I am passionately interested in this civilization which brought so many Firsts to civilization and still affects us all with their Art, religion, philosophy and medicine.
Miut
Reality is for those who can't face SF
http://www.sff.net/people/Lisanne
[This message has been edited by Miut (edited 08-19-2003 @ 01:06 AM).]