Assassin slit throat of Pharaoh Ramses III to alter line of succession
Removal of windings around throat of last great pharaoh reveal fatal wound of assassin believed to have been sent by his wife and son
An assassin slit the throat of Egypt's last great pharaoh at the climax of a bitter succession battle, scientists say in a report on the 3,000-year-old royal murder.
Forensic technology suggests Ramses III, a king revered as a god, met his death at the hand of a killer, or killers, sent by his conniving wife and ambitious son, they say in a report released on Monday. And a cadaver known as the Screaming Mummy could be that of the son himself, possibly forced to commit suicide after the plot, they add. Computed tomography (CT) imaging of the mummy of Ramses III shows his windpipe and major arteries were slashed in a wound 70 millimetres wide and reaching almost to the spine. The cut severed all the soft tissue on the front of the neck.
"I have almost no doubt about the fact that Ramses III was killed by this cut in his throat," said palaeopathologist Albert Zink of the European Research Academy's Institute for Mummies and the Iceman. "The cut is so very deep and quite large, it really goes down almost to the bone - it must have been a lethal injury."
Ramses III, who ruled from about 1188BC to 1155BC, is described in ancient documents as the "Great God" and a military leader who defended Egypt, then the richest prize in the Mediterranean, from repeated invasion.
He was about 65 when he died, but the cause of his death has never been clear.
Sketchy evidence lies in the Judicial Papyrus of Turin, which recorded four trials held for alleged conspirators in the king's death, among them one of his junior wives, Tiy, and her son Prince Pentawere.
In a year-long appraisal of the mummy, Zink and experts from Egypt, Italy and Germany found that the wound on Ramses III's neck had been hidden by mummifying bandages.