When the mummy of King Seqenenre Tao II was unwrapped in 1886, he immediately stood out from the other pharaohs discovered alongside him. Holes of various sizes penetrated his skull. His hands were twisted. His body appeared to have decayed before mummification. Scholars knew that the king had lived in turbulent times – his family, based in the south of Egypt, were at war with the Hyksos, foreign rulers who controlled the north. But no surviving records shed light on how he met his grisly end. This left his mummy as our only source of evidence. The body was examined. Scholars noted the angles of the impacts, and saw that a combination of Hyksos and Egyptian blades matched the shapes of Seqenenre’s wounds. Intriguingly, all of the blows were to his head. How could this be explained? Did the king die on the battlefield, valiantly fighting his Hyksos enemies? Was he assassinated in the palace? Or was he captured and ceremonially executed?
Ideas, Inventions And Innovations : What CT Scans of Egyptian Mummy Revealed About The Death of A Pivotal Pharaoh
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Egyptian 3D scan reveals cause of pharaoh s gruesome demise
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Sahar Saleem
Modern medical technology is helping scholars tell a more nuanced story about the fate of an ancient king whose violent death indirectly led to the reunification of Egypt in the 16th century BC. The research was published in
Pharaoh Seqenenre-Taa-II, the Brave, briefly ruled over Southern Egypt during the country s occupation by the Hyksos, a foriegn dynasty that held power across the kingdom for about a century (c. 1650-1550 BCE). In his attempt to oust the Hyskos, Seqenenre-Taa-II was killed. Scholars have debated the exact nature of the pharaoh s death since his mummy was first discovered and studied in the 1880s.