The Death of King Tutankhamen
Shannon Murray
Dr. Donna Reeves
HUM 111 World Cultures 1
November 3, 2014

For many years people was trying to find the cause of King Tutankhamen’s death. Was it natural causes, suicide, homicide? King Tut burial was not like any other king’s burial. He was buried as a nobleman in the Valley of the Kings. The actual burial itself was a rushed job. (King 2004) The archaeologist that made the discovery of the tomb of King Tut was Howard Carter in 1922. Before Carter made the discovery of the boy king he was already excavating a number in tombs in the Valley of the Kings from 1902 to 1903. (King 2009)
Many people tried to say King Tut was murdered; the first suspect in the Tut’s murder theory was Horemheb, the commander of Tut’s armies. He would have overthrown the king and took over the kingdom. But, some people say Horemheb could have been away on military expedition at the time of Tut’s death. Horemheb who eventually became pharaoh seemed the most likely candidate as an assassin. (King 2009) The second suspect is Ay, King Tut’s vizier who had been the prime minister to Tut’s father and Tutankhamen. Ay appointed himself to the position of pharaoh before Horemheb, but before he was pharaoh he was the chief high priest of the Amun priests. (King 2004)

Another scenario is that King Tutankhamen was poisoned by gangrene that took over his body through a fracture of his left leg. The fracture was found by Carter’s team during the examination of the body once it was removed from the tomb. (answers.com) The second bodily injury that had occurred is suggesting that King Tutankhamen was murder. It is a blow to the back of the head from a spear near the nape of his neck. (livescience.com) The suspect that took that weapon to cause such a blow is an unnamed individual. This individual is said to be a man hiding in the shadows of the palace just outside the bedroom of Tutankhamen as his wife leaves his bedside. He follows her to room and then quickly runs to the room of