Egypt reveals Tutankhamun's cause of death
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A DNA study shows Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun who suffered from a club foot died of malaria and that his father was the "heretic" king Akhenaten, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Wednesday.
![The photo taken on Feb. 17, 2010 shows the mummy of King Tutankhamun's grandmother Queen Tiye displayed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, capital of Egypt. A DNA study shows Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun who suffered from a club foot died of malaria and that his father was the 'heretic' king Akhenaten, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Wednesday. [Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20100218/0011432100f50ce6e51304.jpg "The photo taken on Feb. 17, 2010 shows the mummy of King Tutankhamun's grandmother Queen Tiye displayed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, capital of Egypt. A DNA study shows Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun who suffered from a club foot died of malaria and that his father was the 'heretic' king Akhenaten, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Wednesday. [Xinhua]") |
| The photo taken on Feb. 17, 2010 shows the mummy of King Tutankhamun's grandmother Queen Tiye displayed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, capital of Egypt. A DNA study shows Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun who suffered from a club foot died of malaria and that his father was the "heretic" king Akhenaten, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Wednesday. [Xinhua] |
Speaking at a press conference, Hawass said two years of DNA testing and CT scans on Tutankhamun's 3,300-year-old mummy and mummies either known or believed to be members of his immediate family are helping reveal many of the myths surrounding the boy king's lineage and cause of death.
Tutankhamun's father was the "heretic" king, Akhenaten, whose body is now almost certainly identified with the mummy from KV 55 in the Valley of the Kings, said Hawass, secretary general of Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Tut's mother, who still can't be identified by name, is the " Younger Lady" buried in the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV 35), Hawass said, adding that the mummy of the "Elder Lady" from the same tomb can now be conclusively identified as Tutankhamun's grandmother, Queen Tiye.
Tutankhamun died of severe malaria, Hawass said, citing the results of the DNA project carried out by a team of Egyptian scientists on ancient mummies.
"We found evidence from DNA that proves he had very severe malaria," Hawass said.
"He was ill, weak, walked on a cane. When he was 19, and got malaria, he fell, how we don't know, maybe he fell in the bathroom," he said, adding that "When he fell, and was weak from malaria, he died."
