Rick Baudé Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
when I wrote:
> >
> > Imagine that you are the king out on a
> hunting field. You have a charioteer driving your
> chariot. You are shooting at game and as,
> say, the charioteer makes a pass-around curve,
> the chariot hits rock or some obstruction. You,
> the king have a bow in your hand - you are not
> anchored totally into the chariot (as you
> need to turn and pivot for your arrow shots), so,
> assuming you were in a full rear-turn at the time of
> impact, you have your balance thrown off*,
> and with padded arm bands and bow in hand, you
> fly out of the chariot sideways, probably the lower
> half of your body first, probably landing on the
> leg and belly-first. You have no time for
> "defensive" actions as your hands are full with the
> archery equipment.
>
> No chances are you're going out head first because
> the upper torso contains most of the bodies
> weight. If you don't have a chance to extend your
> arms defensivelyyou're going face first into the
> hard desert floor at about 20 miles an hour.

Consider what I said: Your chariot, heading north, hits a rock or other obstruction. You, as king, are thrown backward from that blow, and if, you are in a drawn position with a bow at the time and turning for a pivot shot, you're going to move south and likely land on your belly and chest.

Holding the bow and having padded arm guards (which the article notes were present in the tomb), could protect your arms if pulled up as you fell, so the face and upper chest/neck may have been padded from severe injury (such there was no skull fracture, which is attested as not being present). But the mid/lower chest and lower body would have taken the brunt of the impact.

> > * Hoffmeier wrote that the ancient Egyptian
> archer of the 18th Dynasty had a peculiar archer
> stance when hunting, such that "the hunter (stood)
> with his front foot planted firmly on the ground,
> while the back foot rests on the ball of the foot
> and toes" (Hoffmeier 1980: 196). This widened
> and non-planted stance would cause an archer in
> a chariot to be off-balance in general, and
> particularly so in a pivot shot.
> >
> > >In addition to that he should have been
> damage to the skull as he undoubtedly would have
> rolled over the desert pavement, or been dragged along
> since iirc they put the reins around their waist
> while they fired their arrows.
> >
> > Not if you have your own charioteer. No
> matter what the "official" representations show in
> > Egyptian art, chariots were two-man forms of
> > transport. In Egyptian, there were two terms
> for the inhabitants of a chariot in war: /kTn/
> for the chariot driver, and /snny/ for the chariot
> > warrior. This organisation was the same in
> > hunting as well (Hoffmeier 2000: 411; Schulman
> > 1980).
>
> As usual absolutely fascinating. But I maintain
> physics says if you get thrown out of the chariot
> you're going out head first.

As I pointed out to Dawn in another post, the chariot is open-backed, the king is NOT lashed in and can move his body up to 360 degrees in the chariot.

Unless you hit a full wall at full speed (and as I noted, you can see that coming and move the horse/chariot), there's very little possibility of doing a header over the top of a chariot. The more likely scenario in that upon impact with an obstruction, such as a boulder, the king would fall out of the back of the chariot - not go over the top of the chariot, into the horses.

> > > No only that but he probably should have had some fractured vertebrae
> and a smashed up rib cage along with a
> damaged pelvis
> >
> > Assuming my 'belly flop' scenario, I suppose
> it's worthwhile to mention there is chest damage
> to Tutankhamun, such that the manubrium sternum
> and some of the front ribs are missing.
>
> But if he did a "belly flop" he would undoubtedly
> would have gone head first and smashed up his
> skull.

No, read above. If the king falls backward out of the chariot, and is in a turn while drawing a bow, as Tutankhamun could have been, he could even fall sideways out of the chariot, never damaging head or skull - BUT he would end up with torso and lower body damage, as seems to have been the case. Nothing I've read to date requires Tutankhamun to go out of the chariot head-first.

I wrote:
> > While there's been some speculation that
> Derry and/or Carter created that damage, Burton's
> photos of the time don't show that either touched
> this area in the anatomical examination. See
> Picture 1, and Picture 2 (Chest detail).
> >
> > The damage to the ribs is clean, I should
> add; that is, there are signs the front part of
> the rib tips are cut clean, which to me means the
> bone and cartilage were still alive (as opposed to
> cutting through ancient dead bone in 1925, which
> would show signs of splintering). It's possible
> ancient physicians, seeing the damage ot the king's
> chest (and likely his inability to breathe from a
> flail chest injury), probably cut away the tips of
> the ribs in the centre of his chest to allow him
> to breathe.<<
>
> Frankly I find this incredible. I agree that the
> mysteries of Tut's missing ribs is certainly one
> of the more interesting things in Amarna. But
> what instruments would these ancient physicians
> use? Flint knives? Iron was still incredibly rare
> and they didn't have the technology to make saws
> with it or fine scalpels. Copper is too soft and I
> imagine so is bronze.

James Allen, in an interview concerning his 2005 book about medicine in ancient Egypt, recently noted this:

"...Though Egypt had metal tools, its doctors used stone knives, because 'They could make flint knives much sharper, and a freshly sharpened flint knife is sterile.'

Source: New York Times, September 10, 2005

If the flint knife is sharpest and can make the cleanest/sharpest sterile cuts, I see no reason why surgery with the flint knife couldn't be done, particularly if the impact injury caused breathing difficulties for Tutankhamun, suhc that possible loss of the king's life from asphyxiation was at stake.

The Egyptians were surely familar with the idea of chest injury to the sternum, as the Edinw Smith Papyrus indicates (Case 43):

Case Forty-Three: Instructions concerning a dislocation of the ribs of his breast.

Examination: If thou examinest a man having a dislocation of the ribs of his breast, (and) thou findest that the ribs of his breast are projecting and their heads are ruddy, while that man suffers continually with swellings in his two sides.

Diagnosis: Thou shouldst say concerning him: "One having a dislocation in the ribs of his breast. An ailment which I will treat."

Treatment: Thou shouldst bind it with ymrw; thou shouldst treat it afterwards with honey every day, until he recovers.

Gloss: "A dislocation in the ribs of his breast," means a displacement of the heads of the ribs of his breast (sternum), which are fastened to his breast (sternum).

"He suffers with swellings in his two sides," means that he suffers in the articulations thereof in his breast (sternum) spreading in his two sides.

It's very possible that if the injury described above led to difficulties in breathing (i.e., the "swelling"), I could see that to relieve the swelling one might need to create more space in the chest cavity, possibly by cutting away damaged cartilage (NB: the manubrium sternum is missing from Tutankhamun's body, as I recall; similarly the same is also missing in the KV 55 mummy as well).

> I'm not a doctor but your
> suggestion of cutting away the ribs to allow him
> to breathe sounds terminally flawed. The pain
> would be absolutely unbearable and the king would
> quickly go into shock and die.

You assume the ancient Egyptian did not have pain relief, but if one has dislocated ribs in a flail chest situation, such that you cannot breathe, then creating space for breathing by surgery makes a lot of sense, as I see it. In anticipating this surgery, the king is not going to have it without medication, however. There is full documented use in ancient Egypt with the use of heavy pain killers, particularly opium in the New Kingdom (El Ansary,Steigerwald, et al. 2003: 84)

>In addition to
> that there would be saw marks all over those ribs,
> or chip marks where they chiselled away the bone.
> I honestly believe you've created more problems
> than you've solved.

Not if you have a sharp knife which was very sterile, as Allen noted, supra. Further, Nunn noted in his book Ancient Egyptian Medicine that the flint knife was the equivalent of a disposable surgical scalpel used today (Nunn 1996: 155), since it could be freshly flaked, making any incision a sterile one, and then disposed of after use.

There was discussion in the 2005 CT scan that the ribs did look as if they were cut clean (which is why I said this), which got me to wondering about a chest injury. After they found the leg fracture, I assumed some for of trauma had taken place, and the chest could certainly reflect some surgical procedure.

> BTW whatever happened to the Tut was "killed in
> battle" theory? Gone the way of all the other
> theories?

I am guessing here, but I assume they found no weapon indications in the wound, such as metal residue or cutting blows to the knee and thigh, which is why I would guess they went off the "war" theory.

Reference:

Allen, J. 2005. The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt/ Metropolitan Museum of Art Series. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

El Ansary, M. I. Steigerwald,et al. 2003. Egypt: Over 5000 Years of Pain Management—Cultural and Historic Aspects. Pain Practice 3/1: 84–87.

Nunn, J. F. 1996. Ancient Egyptian Medicine. London: British Museum Press.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom