A mystery finally solved? Tutankhamen could have been the victim of a simple road accident caused by drink and excessive speed… In any case, this is the hypothesis put forward on the BBC by the biomedical Egyptologist Sofia Aziz, who relies on the latest certainties surrounding the death of the young pharaoh. Namely that he probably died of an open fracture of the left femur and that there were a significant number of tanks and amphoras of wine in his grave. “People don’t think about wine,” insisted the specialist. In their tombs, the ancient Egyptians took the things they wanted to the afterlife…”

According to Sofia Aziz, the majority of the King’s reserves consisted of dry white wine, suggesting that he preferred it over all. And there were also six chariots laid with him in his grave. “This new approach proves that he is a warrior king and therefore rode chariots. She argues that the 18-year-old king could very well have been the victim of a simple road accident while intoxicated, as is still the case today for young drivers. “He was like a typical teenager, drinking and probably driving the tank too fast,” she suggested on the BBC. His leg would have hit the guardrail of the vehicle during a brutal shock, causing the fracture detected in the scientific reports and a wound resulting in gangrene, then death…

A theory that some will not fail to find crazy, but, after all, History is full of this kind of anecdotes… Everything has been written about the death of Tutankhamun, mowed down at the end of his adolescence then buried with a sumptuous treasure that has come down to us intact: poisoning, malaria, epilepsy, bone disease, fall, snakebite… It is known that the young pharaoh was not brutally killed or murdered by the sword, because no wound with a blunt object appears on the mummy. And the hypothesis of an accident is not new: some historians have already put forward the idea that he succumbed to a violent shock, relying on the absence of a sternum on the mummy. The young pharaoh could thus have been struck by a tank which would have rammed his rib cage. Or fatally hit by a horse or even charged by a hippopotamus during a hunting party…

But researchers recalled that the sternum was nevertheless clearly visible, with a large pectoral, in photos taken in 1926, before the mummy was placed back in its sarcophagus. On the other hand, the large necklace and the pearls were stolen later, probably during the Second World War, and the looters would have cut and torn everything, jewels, ornaments, ribs and sternum, as the Egyptologist had reminded us. Marc Gabolde in an interview with Le Point. Which would explain Tutankhamun’s very damaged chest, a condition that has nothing to do with a frontal impact.

On the other hand, most researchers agree to affirm that the death of Tutankhamun would be linked to this open fracture of the femur at the height of the knee. So why not a full-speed tank crash? But here again, some historians have doubts, recalling that the teenager probably suffered from clubfoot, and therefore had difficulty standing up without help… In any case, these are the conclusions of an autopsy virtual made from 3D scans of the mummy of the deceased royal in 2014 – he would have developed Köhler’s disease, a painful osteonecrosis in the foot which would explain the presence of many canes and sticks found in his grave.

False, answers today the specialist Sofia Aziz, who believes that we can now exclude this handicap, arguing that the process of mummification can naturally deform a body to make it appear deformed. According to her, Tutankhamun was much more active than is supposed. An opinion shared by Sahar Saleem, professor of radiology and specialist in mummies at Cairo University, who, after thorough analysis of CT images, found no evidence of ankle arthritis, which is a long-term effect walking on the side of the foot. “So my opinion is that the presence of this slight deformity (clubfoot) did not cause any significant disturbance to the king’s gait. He was an active teenager,” she recalled on the BBC.

A century after its discovery, the most famous mummy in the world has therefore not revealed all its secrets… Many researchers today agree that the pharaoh probably died of a superinfected wound, in connection with a decrease in immune defenses linked to malaria. But as for knowing what caused this famous fracture, the mystery remains whole…