New Facts Uncovered on Death of King Tut

TEMPO.CO, London - British researchers believe they have found evidence explaining how the famed King Tutankhamun, or simply King Tut, died some 3,300 years ago as the mystery surrounding his death and mummification has continued to haunt scientists.

In the process of their discovery, these scientists discovered that after King Tut was sealed in his tomb in 1323 BC, his mummified body acturally caught fire and burned, said Livescience on its website. 

Archaeologist Chris Naunton, director of the Egypt Exploration Society, recently came across comments in Howard Carter's original notes stating that King Tut's body appeared to have been burned, the Independent reports. Howard Carter was an Egyptologist who uncovered King Tut’s tomb in 1922. 

Naunton then contacted Egyptologist Robert Connolly of Liverpool University, who had small samples of Tutankhamun's bones and flesh in his office. 

When the team examined the pharaoh's remains under an electron microscope, they found that the pharaoh's flesh did, indeed, burn after he was laid to rest inside a sealed tomb — an extremely odd event, given the meticulous attention usually afforded to the mummification of a king. 

These and other revelations are detailed in a new British documentary, "Tutankhamun: The Mystery of the Burnt Mummy," featuring Naunton's investigative work (which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal). 

The question that arises now is, how could have a fire occurred in the king's tightly sealed tomb? 

Some experts suspect the oils used in the embalming process soaked the linen that formed the king's burial shroud. In the presence of oxygen, these flammable oils started a chain reaction that ignited and burned King Tut’s body at temperatures exceeding 200 degrees Celsius. 

However, others have also reconsidered the possibility of spontaneous human combustion, a theory that has once been slammed by scientists across the world yet recently sparked new interests. 

British biologist and author Brian Ford believes that flammable acetone produced by a body could – in the presence of a spark from static electricity or some other ignition source – cause a human body to catch fire and burn, writes Livescience. 

By analyzing injuries sustained by car-crash victims, forensic scientists have now shed light on the events surrounding the death of the boy king, who is believed to have been just 17 years old when he died. 

Investigators were able to determine that the young pharaoh was on his knees when a horrific chariot accident smashed his rib cage, shattered his pelvis and crushed many of his internal organs, including his heart, according to the Guardian. This could also explain why his heart was never found in his mummified body.

LIVESCIENCE