King Tut Killed by a Knee Infection?

adminsr writes to tell us the Discovery Channel is reporting that an Egyptian-led research team claims to have found compelling new evidence relating to the cause of death of King Tutankhamen From the article: "According to the Italian doctors, it was likely that King Tut suffered a violent blow, most likely by a sword. The blow would have lodged gold fragments from the decorations of the Pharaoh's armour or dress into the knee."

How many ways can the guy die?

[phantomfive]

Can't we get a better source for these things than the discovery channel? I rarely watch TV and yet I have STILL seen three documentaries explaining how King Tut died, all in different ways. Died from an infection due to gold dust? I guess it is possible, but it seems fairly far fetched to me. Is there a reason that they didn't publish their findings in a regular journal like Nature or Science or whatever journal Egyptologists use? The whole thing seems rather like fools gold to me.

Re:How about the 130 walking sticks???

[stonecypher]

Who said anything about unusual? For that matter, who said anything about an arrowhead? Tutankhamen was believed to have died from a blow to the head which led to partial paralysis, hence the walking sticks, but now we found scraps of gold in the knee which look like decorations from armor, suggesting he healed over a wound from presumably a sword which gave way to infection which killed him.

How that got modded informative is beyond me.

Re:form vs. function

[bipolarpinguino]

Or just do what leaders do today and not goto war at all and sit on your fat ass at home.

Re:Armor?

[Fred_A]

Armor doesn't have to be iron or steel. Leather, or just padded material have also been used. Wood has also been used in armor, as well as a number of other natural materials.
People didn't wait for the late middle ages (which is where you would have found the classical plated steel armor one usually associates with the term) to seek protection from physical harm.