Given that pharaohs often wore false beards it does seem likely that Tut’s beard falling off would have been a potential problem for him.
But probably a greater problem for Hatshepsut.
In the British Museum they have a mummy of a temple worker. From the outside you can tell that the wooden casket wasn’t made for it’s occupant, as his feet stick out the bottom, but it wasn’t until the whole thing was CAT scanned that it was found that the corpse’s head had fallen off during the embalming process, and been wedged back onto a couple of sticks jammed into his neck hole.
Someone three thousand years ago had a really crappy day at work, but managed to fix up the body, and hide the evidence, presumably thinking “no-one will ever find out about this”, until, millennia later, some scientists found the shoddy handiwork.
What I’m saying is, doing bodged repairs to mummies is a very long standing Egyptian tradition.
Maybe they took the head off to help get the corpse to fit in the box better, and then got told that wasn’t an acceptable solution?
The guy had a rough life, short as it was, but rough.
The guys in charge of cleaning the Great Sphinx tried a similar tactic after botching the job.
Amiga Tut!
“We concluded it would not be possible for him, especially with his partially clubbed foot, as he was unable to stand unaided.” Scientists believe genetics and inherited diseases played a role in Tut’s bad health because of inbreeding.
You don’t say? They don’t think he caught club foot from his clubfooted neighbor then?
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