KING TUT REVEALED

Using information from a CT scan, scientists have reconstructed the face of Tutankhamun, and he looked, well, a lot like we thought he did:

Three teams of forensic artists - French, Egyptian and American - built separate but similar models of the king's face using scans of his skull.

The French and Egyptians knew who they were recreating, but the Americans were not told where the skull came from.

The models of the boy king, who died 3,300 years ago, reveal a young man with plump cheeks and a round chin.

The models bear a striking resemblance to the mask which covered the mummified face of King Tutankhamun when his remains were found by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 and other ancient portraits.

"The shape of the face and skull are remarkably similar to a famous image of Tutankhamun as a child where he was shown as the sun god at dawn rising from a lotus blossom," said Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

And it seems I've wasted a few hours of my life watching all those "Who Murdered King Tut" documentaries:

[The scans] suggested that the king was a slightly built, but healthy man of 19 when he died, but that he most likely died of complications from a broken leg, rather than being murdered as long suspected.

They think gangrene got him.

Depending on which side of the Exodus date debate you fall on, Tut may well have ruled near the time of the Exodus.

Great stuff.