Recently, former Scotland Yard employee Graham Melvin and professor of medicine and neurologist Ian Isherwood, now a retired, made a sensational statement - they managed to solve one of the oldest detective mysteries in human history. They revealed the secret of the death of the heir to the Egyptian king Akhenaten - the young pharaoh Tutankhamun, who at the age of nineteen in 1352 BC. e. died suddenly.
Only in the XX century the unprecedented treasures of his magnificent tomb were revealed to the world. As it turned out, the years of his reign fell on the era of turbulent and sometimes bloody events in the history of Ancient Egypt.
Tutankhamun ended his life early, becoming a victim of the pharaohs' passion for incestuous marriages, incest, and court intrigues. Incest flourished in the powerful empire for many years. Ancient Egypt was the only country where brother and sister, father and daughter, not to mention cousins and cousins, could freely go down the aisle. The desire to have a close relative as a faithful companion was simply explained. The pharaohs wanted to preserve the purity of the royal blood and not add a single drop of the blood of a commoner and even a high-ranking nobleman to it.
The opinion that as a result of incest only physical and mental freaks can appear is fundamentally wrong. With perfect health of relatives, their common child will be completely healthy, and such a marriage can even improve heredity. But if any congenital defect is inserted into the gene chain, the offspring are doomed. The victim of unsuccessful incest was probably Tutankhamun.
His father - the legendary Pharaoh Akhenaten - was the greatest ruler of antiquity, who historians call the first genius of mankind. He had an outstanding mind, but was physically ugly. Akhenaten may have suffered from Frohlich's syndrome, as a result of which his appearance underwent terrible changes throughout his life. In the portraits created in antiquity, the great pharaoh appears as an effeminate man with a painfully elongated face, drooping ears and an elongated nose. The name of Tutankhamun's mother is unknown, but Egyptologists have no doubt that she was a close relative of Akhenaten. The father's defective genes may have led to Tutankhamun's poor health and early death. The son did not inherit his father's deformity, but his body was defective. The mummies of two newborn babies were found in the famous tomb of the young pharaoh. They obviouslywere the children of Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenamun, who was Pharaoh's half-sister.
Tutankhamun ascended the throne when he was very young - he was only eight years old. After the death of his father, Tutankhamun, although he became a pharaoh, was naturally unable to rule the state due to his youth. This honorable, and most importantly profitable, duty was assumed by the stepmother of Tutankhamun, the wise beauty Nefertiti and several courtiers close to her person. Archaeologists have found inscriptions on ancient bas-reliefs that reported about the not at all chaste relationship between the already matured Tutankhamun and Nefertiti. She had to break this connection, but she did not want to lose power over her stepson-pharaoh, and therefore she took care of the fate of her daughter Ankhesenamun in advance, having married her to Tutankhamun.
As soon as Nefertiti retreated to another world, the court intrigues of the powerful priest Ey and the talented commander Horemheb began around the pharaoh. They actually became the sovereign masters of the country. Tutankhamun indulged in entertainment, hunting ostriches, lions and gazelles. Historians are not sure that Tutankhamun proved himself as a military leader, but in his tomb there are images of the pharaoh, who cruelly dealt with enemies and killed prisoners.
The youth's reign was the most vague in the history of the Old Kingdom. The reason for this was the religious conflict that broke out during the reign of the great Pharaoh Akhenaten. This king was the first to worship the single god of the Sun and banned the traditional Egyptian polytheism, closing hundreds of temples and executing many stubborn and warlike priests. But the clergy hid, waited for the death of Akhenaten and, with intrigues and promises, forced his son to renounce his father's faith.
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As a result, Tutankhamun actually established the dictatorship of the priests, and declared his father a heretic pharaoh. The noble young man was an inexperienced and weak politician, unable to master the cunning language of intrigue and the art of ruling. Some historians suggest that Tutankhamun could have been poisoned or strangled, because after his death the elderly priest Eye immediately reigned on the throne, who would hardly have waited for the natural death of the ruler if he had lived at least another ten years.
The death of Tutankhamun was unexpected. This is confirmed by the absence of a previously prepared tomb, although all the royal predecessors of Tutankhamun, even those who died in youth, showed such foresight. Thus, the funeral ceremonies were already carried out under the leadership of the new Pharaoh Ey, who inherited from the young man not only the throne, but also his wife. If Tutankhamun died slowly, as is usually the case with a hereditary disease, he would surely take care of the place of his eternal rest.
Having gone to another world, Tutankhamun put an end to the history of the XVIII dynasty - one of the most glorious dynasties of Ancient Egypt. The era of religious turmoil ended on this young man, but court intrigues and fatal incestuous marriages continued to undermine the foundations of the state and exterminate its powerful rulers. Howard Carter was almost right when he said that the most remarkable event in the life of Tutankhamun was his death, surrounded by unprecedented luxury. But the young pharaoh gave the world not only a majestic and beautiful tomb, but also the story of a man whose love and faith were trampled upon by the court intriguers.
English detective Melvin and medic Isherwood, however, disagree. Based on the documents and data from their research, they came to the conclusion that the pharaoh was most likely the victim of a palace conspiracy. Tutankhamun ruled for nine years. He was a perfectly healthy child. In adolescence, he also developed normally. About a year before his death, Tutankhamun got married and was happily married. Researchers have not found any documents that would talk about his diseases. Therefore, death came suddenly. But why?
On X-rays, Isherwood carefully examined the bones of the base of the skull and found that a strong blow had been inflicted on him from behind, from which Tutankhamun, apparently, died. The only persons interested in his death were Vizier Eye and the warlord Horemheb. It is known from history that they, the regents and teachers, wished the death of the young pharaoh, whose father had died before his birth. They feared that the young pharaoh, who had recently married, would soon have children. The heirs would have deprived both viziers of the hope of seizing the throne. Aye and Horemheb could have conspired. They urgently needed to eliminate the ruler: they were eager to take power into their own hands and rule one by one. So, in fact, it happened.
How Tutankhamun was killed, we will never know. According to Melvin and Isherwood, he was hit from behind with a heavy object on the head and the base of his skull fractured. Then they staged, obviously, the unsuccessful fall of the pharaoh. After his sudden death, power passed into the hands of both conspirators.
They paid tribute to the deceased, hid the body deeper underground and began to destroy all his temples, everything that was connected with the memory of Pharaoh Akhenaten, whose heir was Tutankhamun.
… Today, the sarcophagus of the youngest ruler of Egypt is kept in the same crypt in the Valley of the Kings, where Howard Carter discovered it in 1922.