Bob Brier (Photo: Pat Remler)
Head of Aye, King Tutankhamen's prime minister.
Dr. Bob Brier concludes that Aye (pronounced "I") killed Tut as
part of a conspiracy to dethrone him as King of Egypt. (Photo: Pat Remler)
Death Mask of King Tutankhamen
(Photo: Tony Stone Worldwide) |
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King Tut Murder Mystery Solved by LIU
Egyptologist Bob Brier
Egyptologist Bob Brier, Ph.D. of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University
may have solved one of the world's oldest murder mysteries. Who killed King
Tut?
Bob Brier, who gained world-wide recognition in 1994 for making a modern-day
mummy announced at a California news conference on January 17, 1997 that
King Tutankhamen's murderer was probably none other than Tut's prime minister
and closest confidant, Aye (pronounced "I").
Working with archaeological and medical evidence, Brier concludes that Aye
(no last name), or one of his associates, may have killed King Tut by striking
him with an unknown object on the back of his head, perhaps while he was
sleeping.
Brier is amazingly low key about this theory, and is quick to point out
that he is far from the first to suggest murder and that the clues he has
pieced together have been around for a long time, the products of other
scholars' research. "As part of my research for a special on The
Great Egyptians for The Learning Channel, I was able to take these clues,
develop them, and put together this theory," says Brier.
In June 1996, newspapers around the world carried the story of the reevaluation
of the X-ray of Tutankhamen's skull that suggested the boy-king may have
suffered a violent death, and the new finding by Brier and Dr. Gerald Irwin
(medical director of the Radiologic Technology Department at the C.W. Post
Campus of Long Island University) that Tut may have lingered for months
before dying.
Surprisingly, Brier says this is the weakest part of his theory. He points
out that it is a long way from a blow to the back of the head to murder.
Brier says, "Remember, there was no intravenous feeding in ancient
Egypt. If Tutankhamen lingered for several months, he had to have been conscious
enough to take nourishment." It is the other clues to the murder that
Brier thinks are the strongest parts of his theory:
1) First,
Tut's young widow Queen Ankhesenamen wrote to a foreign king begging him
to send one of his sons to be her husband, unheard of request from an Egyptian
queen. "Never shall I pick out a servant of mine and make him my husband!
I am very afraid," writes the 19-year-old queen on a cuneiform tablet,
now in a museum in Turkey. Could it be that the young widow was trying
to avoid a forced marriage to her late husband's murderer?, Brier asks.
2) When the foreign king sent his son to become king of Egypt, the
prince was murdered before he reached the palace.
3) Soon after Tut's death, Aye succeeds him as King of Egypt. Aye
is shown on the walls of Tut's tomb wearing the Pharaoh's crown, thus indicating
that he became King. But how could a commoner become Pharaoh?
4) A ring discovered in Cairo in 1931 indicates that Aye married
Queen Ankhesenamen and that is how he became Pharaoh. But Ankhesenamen
never appears on the walls of his tomb and was never heard from again.
Also in the tomb, another woman, Queen Tiy, is shown to be Aye's wife and
Queen of Egypt.
Dr. Brier alleges that King Tut, Queen Ankhesenamen and the prince from
Hittite (now modern Turkey) may have been murdered as part of a conspiracy
orchestrated by Aye.
"It's the old story of power, jealousy, and greed," said Dr. Brier.
"The evidence we have would probably not convict Aye in a modern court
of law, but I think it is the best theory of what happened. Aye had the
motive and as prime minister had the power to pull it off and not be prosecuted."
Ironically, Aye's reign was short-lived. He ruled Egypt for only three years
until his death in his 70s.
The results of Dr. Brier's discovery was featured on Sunday, April 6, 1997
as part of an original three-part mini-series called The Great
Egyptians on The Learning Channel.
Doctor Mummy
At first glance he appears a bit unconventional for a college professor,
especially when dressed in his usual garb - blue jeans, a flannel shirt,
worn-out Nikes, and a bronze belt buckle shaped like a pharaoh's head. But
53-year-old Bronx, New York native Bob Brier, Ph.D. is considered one of
the world's most authoritative experts on ancient Egypt.
A Long Island University-C.W. Post Campus professor since 1970 and chairman
of the philosophy department, Brier's classes are filled with students anxious
to learn from "Mister Mummy," a title he earned in 1994 when,
working with students, he became the first person in modern times to mummify
a human cadaver with the techniques the ancient Egyptians used. The project
made world headlines and was the subject of a half-hour National Geographic
TV documentary.
A freak basketball injury when he was 25-years-old led to Brier's interest
in mummies. Laid up for months in a cast from his ankles to his hips, he
resorted to books for entertainment. A friend gave him a copy of Sir Allen
Gardner's "Egyptian Grammar," a hieroglyph textbook. "I always
enjoyed languages and studied Greek and Latin. For eight hours a day, I
had studied hieroglyphs to keep my sanity," Brier said. "When
the cast came off, I could translate, and from there I got into Egyptology."
Today, this modern-day Indiana Jones teaches one course each semester on
ancient Egypt along with two courses in philosophical topics like symbolic
logic and philosophy of science. He lectures throughout the world and continues
to conduct research in Egypt, where he scales pyramids and endures sand-storms
and 120 degree heat.
He is already on to his next project: studying diseases that existed in
ancient Egypt. "If certain diseases weren't around in ancient times,
that really tells us something about ourselves," he said. "For
instance, since soft tissue cancer has not been found in ancient Egypt,
maybe cancer is only a modern disease." He added: "Mummies are
amazing little time capsules that reveal all sorts of valuable information
about life in the ancient world."
For more information call the C.W. Post Public
Relations Office at (516) 299-2333 or e-mail pr@cwpost.liu.edu
Janurary 1997 |
