Klippel-Feil Syndrome Support Group

To back up their claims of Tutankhamun's murder, Cooper and King cited new evidence that the boy-king suffered from a crippling bone disorder called Klippel Feil Syndrome (KFS). This is a rare disorder caused by the congenital fusion of two or more of the seven cervical (neck) vertebrae, resulting in a number of possible symptoms including restricted mobility of the upper spine and cranium. It occurs with the failure in the division of upper vertebrae during the first few weeks of foetal development. However, it is not considered a hereditary disease. Richard Boyer, a pathologist, claims to have identified evidence of KFS in the x-rays of Tutankhamun's remains taken by R. G. Harrison in 1969, the last time that permission was given for their examination. He also believes that he has identified the same congenital fusion of vertebrae in the pictures of one of the two unborn foetuses found by Howard Carter in the tomb of Tutankhamun, and thus believes that this new pathological evidence suggests that the foetuses are definitely those of Tutankhamun and his royal wife Ankhesenamun.

This is a bold new theory, and Collins and Ogilvie-Herald look forward to reading the published report of these new findings. However, the manner in which this apparent evidence of KFS was used on the documentary must be called into question. For instance, the discovery of as many as 30 walking sticks, some used, inside the tomb of Tutankhamun was cited as evidence that the boy-king was a virtual invalid. Yet hunting scenes of him show that he was able to ride chariots on his own, while at the same time firing a bow; surely not the actions of an invalid. Furthermore, no image of the king found in the tomb even hints at the possibility that he suffered from some disabilitating disease. In addition to this, a painted relief showing a king leaning on a walking stick in the presence of his queen, who offers him a lotus flower, was identified in the programme as Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun, and thus was used to ramify the idea that the boy-king suffered from KFS. However, the relief, which was found at the site of Akhenaten's city at Tell el-Amarna in Middle Egypt, is usually considered by Egyptologists to represent either Smenkhkare and his royal wife Meritaten, or Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti. Never is it identified as Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun, for if it was found at Amarna then it would mean that it had to have been fashioned before the abandonment of the city during the reign of Smenkhkare, when Tutankhamun was no more than eight or nine years old. The relief in no way shows a child of just eight or nine years old. Thus in the knowledge that a number of the objects found in the tomb of Tutankhamun bear a throne name used by the former king Smenkhkare, including one of the gold mummiform coffins, while even the quartzite sarcophagus would seem to have been originally intended for Smenkhkare, then the presence in the tomb of the walking sticks suddenly becomes ambiguous. Moreover, how it can be proposed that one of the unborn corpses suffered from KPS simply by the examination of a single photograph taken of the mummified remains in the 1920s is difficult to understand.