Summary Of Dr. Bob Brier The Murder Of King Tutankhamen

Dr. Bob Brier, a philosophy professor specializing in paleopathology and previous host of The Great Egyptians on The Learning Channel uses evidence from technology and what we know about historical events to form an argument about King Tutankhamen’s death. In his book, The Murder of Tutankhamen, he argues that the young King Tutankhamen of Egypt did not die of natural causes but instead was murdered by someone working closely with him; specifically, murdered by his vizier, Aye. He supports his argument by discussing different aspects of the young king’s life like his family and religion. He starts making his case by giving us a scenario in the first several lines of the book, having us imagine what he wants us to believe happened. This given account “of Tutankhamen’s death is fiction, but is based on evidence that has survived 3,300 years since his death (5).” He uses the evidence to re-create what Tutankhamen’s last days were like, and to begin pointing out his argument that the king was murdered using historical and forensic evidence. In the

Dr. Brier notes that “he must have found it disheartening to serve at a time when there were no wars providing the opportunity to distinguish himself, but Horemheb persevered (107),” but never actually suspects him on murdering the king. Egypt’s entire power was built on war. When they would ‘conquer’ land they just assumed that the people would pay a ‘tax’ to the pharaoh, and when they didn’t, the pharaoh and his army would invade the land again. When Tutankhamen came into power, the focus (or at least Aye’s focus) shifted to restoring Egypt to its former glory, and because the young king wasn’t quite capable of leading an army in battle, Horemheb was put in charge of the army. This power may have given him motive to want to kill the young king Tutankhamen to retain his leadership in the