Ay
Egyptologist Bob Brier suggested that Ay murdered Tutankhamun in order to usurp the throne, a claim which was based on X-ray examinations of the body done in 1968. He also alleged that Ankhesenamun and the Hittite prince she was about to marry were also murdered at his orders. This murder theory was not accepted by all scholars, and more detailed CT scans of the mummy undertaken by National Geographic (published in late 2005) suggested that Tutankhamun did not die from a blow to his head as Brier had theorized. The "National Geographic" forensic researchers instead presented a new theory that Tutankhamun died from an infection caused by a badly broken leg since he is often portrayed as walking with a cane due to spina bifida, a hereditary trait in his family on his father's side. The bone fragments found in Tutankhamun's skull were most likely the result of post-mortem damage caused by Howard Carter's initial examination of the boy king "because they show no evidence of being inundated with the embalming fluid used to preserve the pharaoh for the afterlife". However, Brier has stated that the bone fragment in the skull is not relevant to the issue of whether Tutankhamun was murdered, acknowledging that it was likely caused by the embalmers. The evidence Brier presents for the murder is a dark spot on the base of the skull, indicating a blow to the head. Dr. Gerald Irwin agrees with Brier on this point.
KV55
Later re-examinations of the remains confirmed Smith's original identification of the mummy as belonging to a young male (although with feminine trends) but pushed the estimated age of death back to around 20 years. These re-examinations also indicated that the body showed no signs of delayed maturation and that, while the skull was of unusual shape, it certainly wasn't abnormal, and showed no indication of hydrocephalus. Reconstruction of the facial features of the skull also indicated that there was no resemblance with Akhenaten's representation on his monuments. It must be remembered though, that Akhenaten's representations are highly stylised. After the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun a close resemblance was noted between his mummy and the body found in KV55 and later tests showed both shared the same blood-group (A2) and serum antigen (MN), all of which suggests Tutankhamun and the individual found in KV55 were closely related to each other, either as father and son, or brothers. Based on these results it was concluded that the KV55 body was too young to be Akhenaten and they were seen to support the claim that the mummy was that of Smenkhkare, an idea first proposed by Rex Engelbach in 1931.