7 Facts About Tutankhamun You Probably Didn't Know
A look into the life of Egypt's most mysterious ruler.
The year is 1332 BC. Ancient Egypt is the most powerful empire the world has ever seen, yet has been left in turmoil thanks to Pharaoh Akhenaten. This largely forgotten figure of Ancient Egyptian history had a reign shrouded in controversy and a hunger for totalitarian rule. Akhenaten moved the Egyptian capital, undermined Egyptian religious teachings and changed the nation's chief deity to Aten, the Disc of the Sun.
When Akhenaten finally passed, the throne and a state in borderline anarchistic chaos was passed to his child heir, Tutankhamun, aged just nine years old. With the help of his advisers, King Tut managed to turn Egypt around and reverse all the damage caused by his father in little under a decade. But a tragic turn of events once again plunged Egypt into uncertainty, as Pharaoh Tutankhamun suddenly died while still in his teens.
Thousands of years later, the stories, myths and legends of Tutankhamun are amongst the most discussed topics in the study of Ancient Egypt. Working through the truths, conspiracies and results of the global rumour mill, this article has managed to find seven of the most shocking and overlooked facts of the boy King, Tutankhamun.
7. Tutankhamun Had A Clubfoot And Could Barely Walk
When Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered by Howard Carter and his team in 1922, they discovered six dismantled chariots buried with him. Initially, this led to the idea that King Tut had been an avid chariot rider and a fan of chariot racing. This also led to theories that the young king may have died in a chariot crash.
However, a recent MRI scan of King Tut's mummy showed that he had a clubfoot with two of his toes pointing in the completely wrong direction. This MRI scan from 2015 also showed that he suffered a rare bone related illness which caused some of his toe bones in the same foot to essentially die. This means it would be extremely painful and almost impossible for Tutankhamun to put any weight on his foot at all.
Because of this, the idea he died in a chariot crash has mostly been abandoned by experts as if you can't walk you'll be lucky to stand in a chariot, let alone drive one.