What the 2010 DNA study found about King Tut's death, when he was born and ruled, where his mummy, coffins and gold mask are today, and how to see them in Luxor and at the Grand Egyptian Museum.
Nobody knows for certain how King Tut died. The main scientific study, a 2010 DNA and CT examination of his mummy published in JAMA, found malaria and a bone disease in his foot and called them the most likely cause, while warning that caution is needed. He died at about 19, after a reign of about nine years, and his mummy still lies in his tomb in Luxor.
Key Takeaways
- The cause of death is not settled. The 2010 JAMA study names bone necrosis in the left foot together with malaria (Plasmodium falciparum) as "most likely"; other researchers argue for sickle cell disease or an infected leg fracture.
- He ruled for about nine years and died at about 19. Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities dates his reign to about 1336–1327 BC; other scholars' dates differ by up to a few decades.
- His mummy is still in tomb KV62 in the Valley of the Kings, in a climate-controlled glass case since 4 November 2007. The gold mask and all three coffins are now at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
- KV62 needs its own ticket: EGP 700 for a foreign adult on the ministry's price list, on top of the EGP 750 Valley of the Kings ticket.
- Howard Carter found the first step of the tomb on 4 November 1922. It held 5,398 objects and is the only royal tomb in the valley found relatively intact.
How did King Tut die?
No record of his death survives, so every answer comes from his mummy. Five explanations have been put forward since the first X-rays in 1968. Two of them have been ruled out or disputed; the rest are still debated.
| Explanation | What the evidence is | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|
| Malaria plus bone disease | The 2010 JAMA study found DNA of the malaria parasite in his mummy, Köhler disease II (bone death in two bones of the left foot) and a mild clubfoot. The tomb held 130 whole and partial walking sticks and staves. | The study's "most likely" cause, with a warning that "caution must be taken". |
| Infected leg fracture | CT scans in 2005 found a break in the left thighbone. A 2006 report found embalming resin on the break and no healing, so it happened shortly before death. | Possible. Part of the 2005 team thought the embalmers caused the break. |
| Sickle cell disease | A 2010 letter in JAMA from the Bernhard Nocht Institute in Hamburg argued it fits the foot bones better than malaria, and questioned the DNA data. | A challenge, not a conclusion. |
| Chariot accident | In 2013 an Egypt Exploration Society team, for a Channel 4 documentary, reported evidence that he "may have been killed in a chariot accident". | Disputed. Research for a 2014 BBC programme judged a crash unlikely. |
| Murder by a blow to the head | A 1968 X-ray showed bone fragments inside the skull. | Ruled out. CT scans found no skull fracture; the fragments broke off after death, probably when the mask was removed in the 1920s. |
We found no newer study of his cause of death published between 2024 and 2026.
When was King Tut born, and when did he rule?
Tutankhamun was a king of the 18th Dynasty. He was born Tutankhaten, "living image of Aten", and took the name Tutankhamun, "living image of Amun" when he restored the worship of the god Amun. He became king as a boy of about 8 to 10. The highest year of his reign found in inscriptions is year 9, and he died at about 19.
The 2010 DNA study identified the mummy from tomb KV55 as his father, "most probably Akhenaten", and found that his parents were brother and sister. Exact dates depend on which chronology a scholar uses:
| Source | Reign |
|---|---|
| Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities | About 1336–1327 BC |
| Wikipedia ("conventional" dates) | About 1332–1323 BC |
| Getty Conservation Institute | 1328–1319 BC |
Where is King Tut's mummy now?
In his own tomb. Tutankhamun's mummy was never moved to a museum: it lies in tomb KV62 in the Valley of the Kings, on the West Bank of Luxor. On 4 November 2007 it was lifted out of its stone sarcophagus and placed in a sealed, climate-controlled glass case in the tomb's antechamber, where visitors see the face and feet; the body is covered in linen. In June 2025, before the Grand Egyptian Museum opened, the director of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir confirmed it would stay in the tomb as "an essential part of the original archaeological site".
| What | Where it is now |
|---|---|
| His mummy | Tomb KV62, Valley of the Kings, Luxor (glass case in the antechamber) |
| Quartzite sarcophagus with its granite lid | Tomb KV62, burial chamber |
| The three nested coffins | Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza |
| The gold mask | Grand Egyptian Museum, centrepiece of the Tutankhamun hall |
| The rest of the tomb's treasures | Grand Egyptian Museum (published counts range from about 4,500 to 5,398 objects) |
The sarcophagus and the three coffins
The king was buried in three coffins shaped like a mummy, one inside the other, all lying in a stone sarcophagus. The outer coffin is gilded wood, 223.5 cm long; the middle one is gilded wood inlaid with coloured glass; the innermost is solid gold and weighs 110.4 kg. The 23-carat gold mask lay over the head of the mummy inside it.
The middle and inner coffins went to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo soon after the discovery. The outer coffin stayed in the tomb until 12 July 2019, when it was moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum for restoration. Since the museum's opening in November 2025, all three coffins and the mask are shown there together. The sarcophagus itself, quartzite with a red granite lid painted yellow, is still in the burial chamber of KV62.
Tomb KV62 and its discovery
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 4 November 1922 | Howard Carter found the first step of a staircase, about 4 m below the entrance of the tomb of Ramesses VI. |
| 26 November 1922 | The doorway to the antechamber was opened. Asked whether he could see anything, Carter answered, in his journal, "Yes, it is wonderful"; in his 1923 book he remembered it as "wonderful things". |
| 29 November 1922 | Official opening for invited guests. |
| 16 February 1923 | The burial chamber was opened (Carter's journal; some accounts say 17 February). |
| 5 April 1923 | Lord Carnarvon, who paid for the dig, died in Cairo. |
| 4 November 2007 | The mummy went on show in its glass case in the tomb. |
| 1 November 2025 | The Grand Egyptian Museum opened with the full Tutankhamun galleries; the public came in from 4 November 2025. |
For a king, KV62 is small: the ministry calls it "quite modest" next to the other tombs, in size and decoration, possibly because he died before a larger tomb was ready. Only the four walls of the burial chamber are painted. On the north wall, his successor Ay performs the Opening of the Mouth ritual; the east wall shows the funeral procession; the west wall shows twelve baboons for the twelve hours of the night, from the book of the underworld. The brown spots on the paintings, first noted in 1923, turned out to be dead microbes; a Getty Conservation Institute project that ended in 2019 left them in place and added a viewing platform and new ventilation to protect the walls. A full-size replica of the burial chamber stands next to Carter House, near the entrance to the valley. Our Valley of the Kings guide covers the other tombs worth seeing on the same visit.
Lord Carnarvon and the "curse"
George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, financed Carter's work and held the permit to dig in the Valley of the Kings from 1914. In March 1923 a mosquito bite became infected; he developed erysipelas, a skin infection, then blood poisoning and pneumonia, and died in Cairo on 5 April 1923, aged 56. Newspapers turned his death into the story of a pharaoh's curse. The numbers do not support it: of the 58 people present when the tomb and the sarcophagus were opened, only 8 died within the next 12 years, and Carter himself lived until 1939. Carter called the curse talk "tommy-rot".
How do you pronounce Tutankhamun?
For the spelling Tutankhamen, the American Random House dictionary gives toot-ahng-KAH-mun. For Tutankhamun, the British Collins dictionary gives too-tun-kah-MOON. Both are in the dictionaries. The name means "living image of Amun".
Where to see Tutankhamun in Egypt
| Place | What you see | Ticket, foreign adult |
|---|---|---|
| Valley of the Kings, Luxor (open 06:00–17:00) | The royal valley and its tombs; KV62 is not included | EGP 750 |
| Tomb KV62 | His mummy, the sarcophagus and the painted burial chamber | EGP 700, extra |
| Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza | The gold mask, the three coffins and the tomb's treasures | Standard admission includes the Tutankhamun Galleries; prices on the museum's official ticket site |
Luxor prices are from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities' price list, which shows no date, so check them at the ticket office. Students pay half at both Luxor sites.
To see the treasures first, our full-day tour of the Grand Egyptian Museum and the Pyramids of Giza covers the museum and the plateau in one day, and the Grand Egyptian Museum guide explains its halls. To stand in front of the king himself, the 6-day Cairo to Luxor tour includes the museum in Cairo and the Valley of the Kings in Luxor; ask us whether the KV62 ticket is included when you book.
Frequently asked questions
Is King Tut's mummy in the Grand Egyptian Museum?
No. The mummy stays in his tomb, KV62, in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. The museum shows his gold mask, his three coffins and the treasures from the tomb.
How old was King Tut when he died?
About 19, according to the CT scans of 2005 and the 2010 DNA study. He had been king for about nine years.
Can you see King Tut's mummy?
Yes. It is on show in a glass case inside tomb KV62, which needs its own ticket (EGP 700 for a foreign adult on the ministry's list) on top of the Valley of the Kings ticket.
Was King Tut murdered?
There is no evidence of it. The murder idea came from a 1968 X-ray of bone fragments in his skull, but CT scans showed no fracture and that the fragments broke off after death.
Sources
Hawass Z. et al., "Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family", JAMA, February 2010; Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Tomb of Tutankhamun and the gilded coffin; Griffith Institute, Oxford, Howard Carter's journal and Lord Carnarvon; AFP, King Tut's collection at the Grand Egyptian Museum (November 2025); National Geographic, the 2006 CT findings.
Cover photo: Tutankhamun's gold mask, by Dawid Wdowczyk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0; placed on a blurred copy of itself to fit the wide format.
