The papyrus documents, known as the Judicial Papyrus of Turin, describe how one of Ramesses III’s harem of wives, Queen Tiye, was involved in a plot to oust the pharaoh and put her son, Pentawere, on the throne.
Together with renowned Egyptologist and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, Zahi Hawass, Saleem has been gathering fresh evidence on what went down during Ramesses III’s final moments, which they first described in a paper published in the BMJ back in 2012, and now add greater detail to in a new book, Scanning the Pharaohs: CT Imaging of the New Kingdom Royal Mummies.Īccording to Pappas, the pair has studied royal mummies from the 18th to 20th dynasties of Egypt, spanning from about 1543 BC to 1064 BC and including famous rulers such as Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Tutankhamun, and Seti I, and have more recently been attempting to round out circumstances of Ramesses III’s death, based on evidence outlined in ancient court documents from the time. "So there must have been an assailant with an axe or sword attacking the king from the front, and another one with a knife or a dagger attacking the king from his back, both attacking at the same time." “he shape of the fractured toe bones indicate that it was induced by a different weapon than that used to induce the neck cut," Cairo University radiologist Sahar Saleem told Stephanie Pappas at Live Science.
Researchers have further examined his remains to suggest that he was outnumbered and attacked by multiple weapons at the time of his death, and likely had his toe hacked off by an axe. And now new evidence has shed more light on this gruesome encounter between Ramesses III and his assassins.