TUTANKHAMUN鈥橲 mysterious death as a teenager may finally have been explained. And the condition that cut short his life may also have triggered the earliest monotheistic religion, suggests a new review of his family history.
Since his lavishly furnished, nearly intact tomb was discovered in 1922, the cause of Tutankhamun鈥檚 death has been at the centre of intense debate. There have been theories of murder, leprosy, tuberculosis, , sickle-cell anaemia, a snake bite 鈥� even the suggestion that the young king died after a fall from his chariot.
But all of these theories have missed one vital point, says , a surgeon with an interest in medical history at Imperial College London. Tutankhamun died young with a feminised physique, and so did his immediate predecessors.
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Paintings and sculptures show that Smenkhkare, an enigmatic pharaoh who may have been Tutankhamun鈥檚 uncle or older brother, and Akhenaten, thought to have been the boy king鈥檚 father, both had feminised figures, with unusually large breasts and wide hips. Two pharaohs that came before Akhenaten 鈥� Amenhotep III and Tuthmosis IV 鈥� seem to have had similar physiques. All of these kings died young and mysteriously, says Ashrafian. 鈥淭here are so many theories, but they鈥檝e focused on each pharaoh individually.鈥�
Ashrafian found that each pharaoh died at a slightly younger age than his predecessor, which suggests an inherited disorder, he says. Historical accounts associated with the individuals hint at what that disorder may have been.
鈥淚t鈥檚 significant that two [of the five related pharaohs] had stories of religious visions associated with them,鈥� says Ashrafian. People with a form of epilepsy in which seizures begin in the brain鈥檚 temporal lobe are . It鈥檚 likely that the family of pharaohs had a heritable form of temporal lobe epilepsy, he says.
This diagnosis would also account for the feminine features. The temporal lobe is connected to parts of the brain involved in the release of hormones, and epileptic seizures are known to alter the levels of hormones involved in sexual development. This might explain the development of the pharaohs鈥� large breasts. A seizure might also be to blame for Tutankhamun鈥檚 fractured leg, says Ashrafian ().
Tuthmosis IV had a religious experience in the middle of a sunny day, recorded in the 鈥� an inscription near the Great Sphinx in Giza. But his visions were nothing compared with those experienced by Akhenaten. They encouraged Akhenaten to raise the status of a minor deity called the 鈥渟un-disk鈥�, or Aten, into a supreme god 鈥� abandoning the ancient Egyptian polytheistic traditions to start what is thought to be the earliest recorded monotheistic religion. If Ashrafian鈥檚 theory is correct, Akhenaten鈥檚 religious experiment and Tutankhamun鈥檚 premature death may both have been a consequence of a medical condition.
聯Visions on sunny days encouraged the start of the earliest recorded monotheistic religion聰
鈥淧eople with temporal lobe epilepsy who are exposed to sunlight get the same sort of stimulation to the mind and religious zeal,鈥� says Ashrafian.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a fascinating and plausible explanation,鈥� says , a medical historian at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. However, the theory is almost impossible to prove, he adds, given that there is no definitive genetic test for epilepsy.
, a neurologist at the New York University Langone Medical Center, thinks the theory must remain speculative.
鈥淭he exact timing of Akhenaten鈥檚 religious conviction is not so clearly documented, and most cases of sudden religious conversion are not due to epilepsy,鈥� he says. 鈥淢onotheism could be related to epilepsy, or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, or drug intoxication from a fungus 鈥� but this paper does not sway me to any of these options.鈥�
Markel agrees: 鈥淒o we know that a seizure led to monotheism? It鈥檚 a nice idea, but we don鈥檛 know,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very interesting hypothesis, but it鈥檚 just that 鈥� there鈥檚 no definite proof.鈥�
