A recent study of traces on the walls of the tomb suggests that the king, who died at the age of 18 or 19 around 1300 BC, may have been hastily buried.

The interior of the tomb of King Tutankhamun in Luxor, Egypt, discovered in 1922.

Biologist Ralph Mitchell from Harvard University believes that the dark brown stains that appear on most of the elaborately painted walls of the tomb hold the answer to this suspicion.

He ᴀsserts that they show that the young pharaoh was buried inside before the walls were dry.

The funeral mask of King Tutankhamun.

Egyptian experts remove the lid of King Tutankhamun’s coffin in 2007.

Tutankhamun was an Egyptian king of the 18th dynasty. The cause of his sudden death remains a mystery.

Various investigations have suggested that he suffered from head trauma, an infected broken leg, malaria, sickle cell anemia, and possibly other illnesses.

The coffin containing King Tutankhamun’s body.

It is believed that the pharaoh’s death was sudden and occurred before a grand royal tomb was built. This means that he was buried in a tomb that was smaller than his status would have indicated.

The unusual markings on the walls have puzzled scientists since the tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922.

Like many ancient sites, the tomb is a tourist attraction and is now suffering from peeling paint and cracked walls.

The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities has taken a keen interest in preserving the tomb and contacted the Getty Conservation Insтιтute for help. The insтιтute turned to Professor Mitchell.

He was asked to examine the strange markings and find out whether allowing tourists to visit would make them worse.

His team combined ancient microbiology with cutting-edge technology for the study – which involved culturing samples of living organisms leeched from the tomb walls and analysing their DNA sequences.

The Getty chemists also analysed the brown stains that had seeped into the paint and plaster at a molecular level.

They identified it as melanin – a typical byproduct of fungal metabolism – but no living organism matched the marks.

“Our results suggest that the bacteria responsible for the marks are ᴅᴇᴀᴅ or, to be more conservative, inactive,” said Professor Archana Vasnathakumar.

His face revealed for the first time.

Analysis of pH๏τographs taken when the tomb was first opened in 1922 also showed that the brown stains had not changed over the past 89 years.

The idenтιтy of the ancient creature remains a mystery, but evidence that the microorganisms are not growing could shed light on the cause of King Tut’s death.

“King Tutankhamen died young and we think the tomb was prepared in haste,” said Professor Mitchell. We suspect that the paint was not yet dry when the tomb was sealed.”

The humidity, food and incense inside the tomb were a good environment for microorganisms to grow until they were completely dry, he added.

He said there had been little research into the 3,000-year-old traces because the strange damage had already occurred and they should have been left alone.

“This is part of the whole mystery of the tomb,” he said.

Professor Ralph Mitchell – pictured in his lab at Harvard University – believes that traces left by ancient Egyptian microorganisms could reveal new secrets about King Tut’s death.