“Virtual autopsy” reveals Pharaoh Tutankhamun was the ugly outcome of incest

THE golden boy of history wasn’t as pretty as you may think: Behind Tutankhamun’s elaborate death mask was a sick, crippled and deformed product of incest.

THE golden boy of history wasnÂ’t as pretty as you may think: Behind the golden features of King TutankhamunÂ’s iconic death mask was a sick, crippled and deformed product of incest.

New 3D modelling of his mummified body shows a completely different picture to the idealised funeral mask, statues and paintings unearthed in the boy-king’s virtually untouched tomb in 1923.

News_Image_File: Golden Boy ... The death mask of King Tutankhamen has projected an image of a dashing young man since its discovery in the 1920s. Source: Supplied

News_Image_File: No pretty boy ... An earlier reconstruction of Tutankhamun’s face.

Previous reconstructions of his skull have been … forgiving.

Many of its deformations had been removed after being attributed to a suspected chariot accident believed to have contributed to his death.

But combining more than 2000 digital scans of the body into a comprehensive computer model of the living god enabled historians to conduct a “virtual autopsy”.

It revealed 19-year-old god-emperor of the Egyptians had a prominent overbite. His face was naturally skewed. He had a clubfoot. His hips were malformed. He suffered epilepsy.

News_Image_File: King Tut unmasked ... His misshapen features were the result of his father, King Akhenaten, and his unidentified mother being siblings. Source: BBC

Institute of Mummies expert Ibert Zink says these features had been with the boy-king for life.

He has told the upcoming BBC documentary Tutankhamun: the Truth Uncovered that the “Living Image of the god Amun” had a twisted body as he was a direct product of incest.

News_Image_File: Behind the spin ... The true form of Egypt’s famous boy-king, according to a new documentary. Source: BBC

The boy-king was incapable of driving a chariot anyway, Zink says. “We concluded it would not be possible for him, especially with his partially clubbed foot, as he was unable to stand unaided,” Zink said.

News_Image_File: True form? ... There has been much speculation about Tutankhamun based on characteristics such as breasts being included in statues of the god-king. Source: Supplied

One characteristic of Tut’s mummy, his fractured skull, has also now been shown to have been caused after the boy died. It had previously been thought to be one of the chariot-crash injuries.

So even the boy king’s misshapen face may have been with him for life: Not just in death.

News_Image_File: Beneath the mask ... The mummified head and face of Pharaoh Tutankhamun as displayed in a climate-controlled case at his tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Source: Supplied

Zink says that combining the 3D scans with new genetic tests involving Tut’s family has produced strong evidence that his parents — including the “heretic” King Akhenaten — were siblings.

These inbreeding deformations would have contributed to Tutankhamun’s death, he says. Malaria — traces of which were found in the boy king — also would have played its part.

News_Image_File: Presence, or just PR ... One of the wooden busts of King Tutankhamun recovered from his tomb. Was the reality too gruesome to reproduce? Source: Supplied