The Murder of King Tut (9 page)

In fact, part of the expert team reviewing the results of the CT scan refused to agree that the broken leg was the cause of
death. They believed the leg was accidentally broken
after
the tomb was discovered, when someone had tried to move the body. But in a 2007 interview, Hawass again stated that Tut had
died from a broken leg.

The next bit of evidence I discovered was even more curious: X-rays had previously shown a thickening of the skull consistent
with a calcified membrane, which can occur when a blood clot forms around an area of high trauma. This is known as a chronic
subdural hematoma. However, the CT scan showed no evidence of a blow to the head. Maybe the Egyptian investigating committee
was spending too much time trying to justify the broken-leg theory and not enough on the wound at the base of Tut’s skull.

The earlier X-rays were the product of R. G. Harrison, a British anatomist who had done extensive work on Tut back in the
1960s and 1970s.

Not only had Harrison x-rayed the skeleton, but he had taken the rather extreme measure of
separating the skull
from the other bones and x-raying it individually. Based on his findings, Harrison suspected foul play.

This made sense to me. A subdural hematoma could develop if somebody whacked you very hard on the skull and you survived the
blow, only to die some weeks later. In the meantime, the bruise from the blow would become a blood clot, and that blood clot—the
chronic subdural hematoma—would calcify.

All of which made me wonder why anyone would say that Tut had died from a leg fracture.

A contrarian position seemed more likely, and that got me excited. Based on the results of the 2005 report, combined with
the 1969 and 1978 X-rays, it appeared that Tut’s leg had not been broken during his lifetime, and that he had suffered a blunt
force trauma to the back of the skull.

So if Tut had been murdered, possibly clubbed to death, who did it?

1907

OH, HOW THE MIGHTY had fallen!

Howard Carter stood outside the Winter Palace Hotel with a clutch of watercolors under one arm. His jacket was threadbare,
with unsightly patches at the sleeves. The shoes on his feet weren’t much better, the leather unpolished and worn.

He set up his easel near the great marble steps leading up to the hotel lobby, praying that some fool tourist might take a
shine to one of his paintings. The sale would net him much-needed money for whiskey and cigarettes, and perhaps even a civilized
lunch inside the hotel.

Howard Carter may have become a street bum, but he still had standards.

His problems had begun when he was transferred away from the valley by the Antiquities Service. His new posting, near Cairo,
meant that Davis had to find a new executive Egyptologist. Even worse, the ancient tombs at Saqqara proved to be an administrative
nightmare for Carter.

When he had allowed his Egyptian tomb guards—quite justifiably—to use force against a drunken mob of French tourists, it became
an international incident. After nine months of increasing shame and disgrace, Carter had been forced to resign.

Truth be told, he desperately wanted to get back to the valley. He still hoped to find Hatshepsut’s mummy—and maybe even the
ever-elusive virgin tomb.

That tomb, if recent events in the valley were any indication, might belong to a long-forgotten pharaoh named Tutankhamen.
King Tut had somehow slipped through the cracks of history—or been purposefully edited from it.

His name was
nowhere
to be found among the many shrines and temples where the succession of pharaohs had been chiseled in stone. In 1837, British
Egyptologist Sir John Gardner Wilkinson had noticed the name on a statue. But other than that single mention, Tutankhamen
was virtually
unknown.

Ironically, it was the American Theodore Davis—the man Carter had originally persuaded to finance a valley concession—who
had stumbled upon interesting new evidence about Tutankhamen.

1907

THE INCREDIBLE STORY, as Carter heard it, began with Theodore Davis and his new chief executive Egyptologist, Edward Ayrton,
taking a midday break from the stifling heat.

The valley, as always, was crowded with European tourists eager to see the ancient tombs. Davis was the sort of man who enjoyed
being fawned over, but now he ignored the gawking stares that seemed to follow him everywhere.

Davis could hear the distant bray of donkeys from the corral. That chorus mingled with the constant clang of workmen striking
their tools into the hard-packed red-yellow soil. Those were the sounds of the valley during dig season, and after four seasons
searching for tombs, they were sounds Davis knew quite well.

Davis and Ayrton “owned” the Valley of the Kings, in a manner of speaking. Davis still held exclusive rights to dig there,
and with Carter exiled, the Petrie-trained Ayrton was now Davis’s top man.

The season had been solid so far, with the tomb of the pharaoh Siptah discovered on December 18—the day after Ayrton’s twenty-fifth
birthday. Now, the January sun having driven them to find a sliver of shade in the valley’s southwest corner, the two men
took a moment to plan their next excavation.

Ayrton smoked quietly as the eccentric Davis stared off into space—or so it appeared.

“My attention was attracted to a large rock tilted to one side,” Davis later recalled, “and for some mysterious reason I felt
interested in it.”

The two men trekked back out into the sunlight. The rail-thin Ayrton had just been hired by Davis a few months earlier but
was already used to the man’s impulsive behavior.

If Davis wanted to have a look at the rock, then they would have a look at the rock.

Ayrton appraised the boulder from several angles. Then, noticing something peculiar, he dropped to his knees and began moving
the loose soil away from the base.

There, buried for ages, was a spectacular find!

“Being carefully examined and dug about with my assistant, Mr. Ayrton, with his hands, the beautiful blue cup was found,”
Davis later wrote. The cup was of a glazed material known as faience and, with the exception of a few nicks, was intact.

The ancient Egyptians had used such cups at funerals. This one was stamped with the name of a pharaoh—
Tutankhamen.

The cup seemed to imply that this Tutankhamen—
whoever he was
—had been buried nearby in the Valley of the Kings.

Davis had made his fortune as a lawyer and practiced Egyptology as an avocation, so his techniques were far from typical.
He was a short man with a giant white mustache and an evil temper that had led several talented Egyptologists to quit after
working with him. There had also been several complaints about the way he ransacked tombs rather than cataloging the contents
for history.

But however people felt about Theodore Davis or his methods, there was no denying his Valley of the Kings monopoly. And until
it was totally exhausted, he would not give up his concession.

With the “beautiful blue cup” clutched firmly in the palm of his hand, Davis added the name of this mysterious new pharaoh
to his list of tombs to be found. And Davis was sure he would be the one to do it.

Howard Carter, making his living selling watercolors to tourists, could do nothing about this new development. He merely stored
the information away.

Tutankhamen was out there somewhere just waiting to be found by somebody.

1335 BC

THE MORNING SUN, so benevolent and omniscient, blessed Nefertiti as she awaited Tut’s arrival in her private quarters. Akhenaten
had been dead for only a few hours. She had already selected a group of “mourners,” women who would openly grieve at her husband’s
funeral, beating their exposed breasts and tearing out their hair.

The time had come for the queen and her boy to have a grown-up talk about his future and, indeed, the future of all of Egypt

Nefertiti loved the six-year-old Tutankhamen: his trusting brown eyes, his passion for board games, even his endless questions
about why the royal family never traveled to cities like Thebes and Memphis. In fact, Nefertiti adored everything about Tut
except for one niggling detail: he wasn’t her son by birth.

As a very bright and practical woman of the times, Nefertiti understood that a pharaoh might have needs that could not be
fulfilled by just one woman. But as a passionate queen and a woman unaccustomed to being trifled with, it had infuriated her
when Akhenaten had married and impregnated Kiya. The great god Aten had been just and wise when he had taken Kiya’s life as
she gave birth to Tut. And Nefertiti made sure that there would never again be a second wife around the royal court.

She had tended to her husband’s every fantasy, and when she couldn’t, Nefertiti directed his affections toward the harem girls,
for it was common knowledge that no pharaoh, not even one as outlandish as Akhenaten, would marry a common whore.

So it was that Nefertiti began to raise Tutankhamen as her own.

The boy never knew his real mother, and though he had been told of her life and tragic death, he was still too young to fully
comprehend being conceived in the womb of one woman and reared by the loving hands of another.

“Did you want to see me, Mother?” He was so innocent—and yet so full of life. Nefertiti was overcome with warmth as she gazed
upon the boy. She did love him, deeply, but not everyone in the court did. For some, he was already a hated rival.

“Yes, Tut. Come. Sit next to me. Sit close to your mother.”

Tut walked across the tile floor in his bare feet and plopped onto the divan next to Nefertiti.

“I heard about the pharaoh,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

She placed a hand underneath his chin and lifted it until his eyes met hers. “Your father hadn’t been feeling well for a long
time,” she told him.

“How did he die?” Tut asked next. Always the questions with him.

She could never tell him the truth, but a lie didn’t feel right either. “He died in a burst of happiness. His heart was so
filled with joy that it exploded.”

There. Not so bad.

“Tut, there’s something else we need to talk about. I need you to pay attention to what I have to tell you now.”

“Yes, Mother?”

“You are just a boy and have not yet been trained in the ways of the pharaoh. But you must know that this is your destiny.”

The boy stopped her. “I don’t understand.”

“You will be pharaoh one day, Tut.”

“I don’t want to be pharaoh. I don’t! Why can’t you be pharaoh, Mother?”

“It is not considered best for a woman to rule Egypt, Tut. But because I am of royal blood, I will find a way to rule for
as long as it takes you to learn to be a great pharaoh.”

“How long will that be, Mother?”

“A dozen years, maybe less. Because you’re so bright, Tut. There is no hurry. The important thing is that you learn to be
wise and strong and full of compassion for the people of Egypt, as your father was. He was a good man, always a good man.”

“Smenkare would have made a good pharaoh,” said Tut. “And he was your son. This day must make you sad.”

The boy was smart, which was probably why she loved him as she did.

“Smenkare is dead, Tut.” She neglected to add that she had never loved her own son as much as she loved Tut. She had tried,
but there was no light in Smenkare’s eyes, and she felt no connection between them. Someone like that should never rule Egypt,
and it was almost fitting that the job would now go to this precocious boy at her side.

“No, Tut. It must be you.”

Tut simply nodded. “So what do I do next? Help me, Mother.”

“See how we’re sitting here? You and me, right next to each other?”

“Yes. Of course I do.”

“This is how we will rule Egypt at first. Side by side, the two of us. For now I will make the decisions, because you are
too young. But as you become a man, you will fill a bigger space and have the knowledge to make good decisions.”

“Then I will rule as pharaoh?”

“Yes, Tut. And I know that you will do great things. You will be a pharaoh people always remember.”

1334 BC

THAT WAS THE PLAN for the boy who would be king, though it didn’t turn out that way. Not even close. Once again death would
intrude—perhaps even murder.

“You live in a house full of women,” the military instructor informed Tut. “To be pharaoh, you must become a man. Someday,
you will be as big and strong as I. Once you are through with your training, no man will stand in your way.”

Studying the instructor’s bulging biceps and massive chest, Tut had a hard time believing that could ever be true, but he
listened closely to every word.

They stood in a great green field on the west side of the Nile. It was February, and the mild sun kissed the earth.

Tut was a skinny child whose slightly cleft palate gave him a mild lisp but who otherwise bore the flawless beauty of his
mother. His arms were thin, and his sandal-clad feet supported legs that weren’t much bigger around. At the time of his death,
Tut would be approximately five foot six, and his build would still be slight.

“Are you ready, sire?” asked the instructor.

Tut tried to speak, but in his nervousness only a sigh escaped his lips.

The instructor concealed a smile. “Let’s talk about the types of bows we will be using in our archery practice, then.”

The list was too long and too dazzling for Tut to remember right away—though the instructor made it very clear that the pharaoh
would be proficient in each of them, along with shield and mace, sword fighting, spear throwing, chariot riding, horseback
riding, hand-to-hand combat, daggers, throw sticks, boomerangs, clubs, and battle-axes. For today’s lesson there was a double-composite
angular bow, composite angular “bow of honor,” bow staves, and short self bows. That was
all
he had to master.