King Tut's Clothing Puzzles Researchers

August 8 -- A little digging has uncovered some of King Tut’s belongings — and an examination of the king’s clothing suggests the pharaoh had a physique shaped something like a pear.

The royal robes and beaded tunics from the tomb of King Tutankhamun were uncovered by Dutch researchers — not in the Valley of the Kings — but deep in the storerooms of Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. Here the items had been buried for more than 70 years since their original discovery in Tut’s tomb.

Many of the items were still packaged in their original boxes and wrapped in newspaper from the 1922 excavation of the tomb by British archaeologist Howard Carter in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, across the Nile from the modern city of Luxor.

An Overlooked Treasure

When they took measurements of the king’s clothing, the researchers of the Tutankhamun Textile and Clothing Project were puzzled.

“We were wondering, why does Tutankhamun have this more feminine figure rather than a masculine figure?” says Dr.Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood, a British scientist and director of the project. “He was not fat but he had some illness that left a fatty deposit on his hips.”

King Tutankhamun ruled Egypt over 3,000 years ago, from 1361-1352 B.C., and died unexpectedly at the age of 18. He is Egypt’s most famous pharaoh because his tomb was one of the few to escape looting. Archaeologists found the king nested in a series of three coffins, the innermost of which was solid gold. Other rooms of the burial chamber were packed with furniture, statues, weapons, a chariot and his clothing, even baby clothes.

Through a study of his clothing and images of his father, Amenhetep IV, researchers say Tutankhamun may have suffered from some type of hereditary disease that gave him large hips. His clothes reveal his a measurement of 31”, 29”, 43”, which seem to indicate an extremely small upper body and very wide hips.