March 7, 2006 — King Tut's case is closed, top Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass has told Discovery News. Other, new exciting findings are waiting to be uncovered from the Egyptian sands.

"The mystery of his life still eludes us — the shadows move, but the dark is never quite dispersed." was how Howard Carter, the British archaeologist who discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922, described his fascination with the 3,300-year-old boy pharaoh.

In an exclusive interview with Discovery News, Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and one of the most famous Egyptologists in the world, said some shadows surrounding King Tut have now totally disappeared. Yet, he said, the the dark will never be quite dispersed.

"We have carried out the deepest investigation on King Tut. We have to accept that some questions will never be answered," Hawass told Discovery News.

The best-known pharaoh of ancient Egypt, King Tut has been puzzling scientists ever since Carter discovered his mummy- and treasure-packed tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

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Discover what we already know about King Tut!

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Only a few facts about his life are known. Tut.ankh.Amun, "the living image of Amun," ascended the throne in 1333 B.C., at the age of nine, and reigned until his death in 1325 B.C., aged 19. As the last male in the family, his death ended the 18th dynasty — probably the greatest of the Egyptian royal families — and gave way to military rulers.

Speculation about his parentage, his short reign and his early death abound. Hawass believes he has answered all the possible questions about Tut after a CT scan was carried out on the boy king last year

"The CT scan is the most important thing we have done. No one else can do anything on this mummy after this investigation," Hawass said.

More than 1,700 3-D images produced the most accurate picture of the boy pharaoh, including a facial reconstruction of how he may have looked.

Tutankhamun was about 1.70 meters tall (5' 6"), had a slight cleft palate, large front teeth and the overbite characteristic of other kings in his family.

Despite speculation about a series of diseases he might have suffered — researchers over the years have called him a basket case — the CT scan revealed that King Tut was a healthy young man with no sign of childhood malnutrition or infectious diseases. Nevertheless, he died at about 19.

Since the Egyptian authorities will not allow DNA tests, doubts about King Tut's parentage will remain. Indeed, it is unclear if King Tut is the son or a half-brother of Akhenaton, the "heretic" pharaoh who introduced a monotheistic religion by overthrowing the pantheon of the gods to worship the sun god Aton.

Big Question Unanswered
But most of all, nobody will be able to answer for certain the big question: how did Tut die?

Hawass confirmed to Discovery News that following a fracture in the left leg, an infection set in.

According to Eduard Egarter Vigl, the caretaker of Ötzi the Iceman and one of the eight experts on the Egyptian-led team who examined the CT scan images, King Tut died shortly after the fracture.

"There is no doubt that King Tut's kneecap was broken, as well as his foot," Egarter told Discovery News.

As the embalming liquid had entered the spaces within the knee fracture, Egarter concluded that the pharaoh was mummified when the wounds were still open.

"We can't tell how the fracture occurred. One can have a theory about this accident King Tut had one day before he died, but no one will ever be able to come up with a definitive answer," Hawass said.

"The Italians working with us believe it could have happened by a sword, but I do not think it is true. This is one of those questions that cannot be answered. I believe that the best thing about King Tut is that his mystery will continue," he said.

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THE LATEST DISCOVERY: King Tut Drank White Wine

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More Mysteries
Other mysteries of the ancient Nile kingdom might soon be revealed, Hawass said. He estimated that only 30 percent of Egyptian monuments have been found so far.

"Here in Egypt you never can know what the sand might hide. Just look at tomb KV63. Since 83 years and three months and six days nothing had been found in the Valley of the Kings. You would have never imagined that this tomb was just six meters away from King Tut's tomb," he said.

Hawass told Discovery that since the announcement of the finding, two more coffins — "one of a child and the remains of another one" — have been found.

The wood is damaged by termites, so it will to take a lot of conservation work on the coffins before they can be taken out.

Egyptologists have not discounted the possibility of a royal cachet of mummies, but Hawass doesn't believe a lost pharaoh will come to light.

"In the Valley of the Kings you can bury the king as well as the cook of the king. Those could be people that the king wanted to be buried beside him," Hawass said.

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Discover what we already know about King Tut!

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KV63 is the fourth-ever-discovered cachet in Luxor. The first one, found in 1881, revealed 40 intact royal mummies. The second, discovered in 1898 by Egyptologist Victor Loret, showed 12 royal mummies inside king Amenhotep II's tomb.

The third, found by Edward Ayrton and Theodore Davis in 1907, is known as KV55 and is perhaps the most controversial find ever made in the Valley of the Kings. Scholars now believe that the most likely occupant of the coffin is the short-lived pharaoh Smenkhkare.

Some of the mightiest pharaohs emerged from these cachets, including Ramses II, Ramses III, Thutmose III, Amhenpotep II, and Amenhotep III.

But some other important rulers, such as Queen Hatshepsut, are still missing.

"If they open the coffins and find royal mummies, we might be able to discover mummies of kings we know little about. We might even find the long-sought mummy of Akhenaten. However, if they open the coffins and they don't find any royal mummy, it will be also nice: we will be able to identify the six mummies in the Valley of the Kings that we know nothing about," Hawass told Discovery News.