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Revealed at last: who killed Tutankhamun

Jonathan Thompson
Sunday 22 September 2002 00:00 BST
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Two American detectives are convinced they have solved one of the oldest murder cases in the world.

Greg Cooper and Mike King believe the teenage pharaoh Tutankhamun, who died more than 3,000 years ago, was the victim of a brutal assassination by a politician greedy for power.

They analysed a wealth of material, including books, papers, photos and X-rays of the mummified remains, in an inquiry that took them from Salt Lake City to London and all over Egypt.

And they will point the finger at Ay, Tutankhamun's prime minister, in a Channel 5 documentary next month.

"We're used to looking at cold-case homicides that are 10-15 years old, so the chance to investigate one from 3,300 years ago was intriguing," said Mr King. "We had a body, the disposal site – the tomb – and Egyptologists travelling with us to give us an impression of the contemporary scene."

Mr King, a criminal profiler who advises the FBI, and Mr Cooper, a former FBI agent who is a police chief in Utah, were commissioned by Atlantic Productions, a London-based TV company.

"It appeared to us that criminals would behave exactly the same way then as today," said Mr King. "Behaviour is a universal factor, and the motivation for the crime is the same everywhere at any time. It boils down to power, dominion and control."

The cause of Tutankhamun's death has been a source of historical debate ever since his tomb was discovered in 1922 by the British archaeologist Howard Carter. It was arguably the greatest archaeological discovery of the century because it had escaped desecration by tomb raiders.

The pharaoh was only 18 when he died, and an anatomical study of the remains commissioned by Carter in 1925 found a number of intriguing clues to the cause of death. The mystery deepened in 1968 when the body was X-rayed by a researcher from Liverpool University.

Mr King and Mr Cooper have re-examined the X-rays and are convinced that the key to the mystery is a shard of bone in the brain cavity. They believe it was dislodged after a vicious blow to the back of the head by Ay, an astute politician and a commoner who went on to succeed the childless pharaoh.

However, Dr Paul Doherty, argues in his new book The Mysterious Death of Tutankhamun that he died after hitting his head on the throne during a fit. Dr Doherty had worked alongside Mr Cooper and Mr King – but they fell out when their conclusions differed.

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