The mystery surrounding the death of Ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamun’s death recently took another turn, with researchers now of the belief his funerary mask may have been intended for somebody else entirely.
A team of researchers from the University of York has said the earing holes on the mask indicate it may have originally been prepared for a high status female or child.
Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves had previously made similar claims about the origins of the mask, suggesting in 2015 that the striking gold face covering had originally been made for the Pharoah’s stepmother, Queen Nefertiti.
Tutankhamun ruled Egypt from 1332 to 1323 BC after ascending to the throne aged just nine. He would die less than a decade later, beset by various ailments.
Scientists previously used molecular genetics and advanced to study multiple mummies, and believe he died from a combination of malaria and a broken leg.
The experts said Tut also had a cleft palate a curved spine and a club foot and was likely weakened by problems with his immune system and inflammation, as per NPR.
It’s been suggested that many of his physical problems may have been due to inbreeding, which was common in the royal line. DNA from mummified bones has suggested that his probable father married a sister, and that King Tut himself married either a sister or half-sister, as per the outlet.
The team from the University of York believe the sudden nature of King Tut’s death, at just 18, may have meant some improvisation was needed to ready him for the afterlife.
Professor Joann Fletcher, an Egyptologist and honorary visiting professor in the Department of Archaeology at York, examined the burial records left by Mr Carter at Oxford University’s Griffith Institute.
One document stood out, which has recently been scrutinised and “honed in on one long-overlooked feature… the decidedly pierced ears [on the death mask].”
Prof. Fletcher, who discusses the thrilling new clues in a History Hit documentary, said: “This mask was not made for an adult male pharaoh when the gold was compared, [they found] the face is made of completely different gold to the rest.”
“Evidence of soldering is clearly visible on the mask,” she continued. “It now seems as if Tutankhamun’s own face was effectively grafted onto the mask of the previous ruler. They may have had pierced ears, they may have been a woman, it may well have been Nefertiti.”
Nerfertiti, who was the principal wife of the pharaoh Amenhotep IV (later Akhenaten) and lived in the 14th century BC, is among the most iconic figures in the ancient civilisation’s ruling dynasties.
She was thought to have had considerable influence in the Eighteenth Dynasty and remains a figure of intense intrigue among historians, but her tomb has never been found.