Tut's mummy could solve mystery

A team of researchers briefly removed King Tut's mummy from its tomb yesterday and laid bare his bones for a CT scan that could solve an enduring mystery: was it murder or natural causes that killed Egypt's boy pharaoh 3000 years ago?

Tut's toes and fingers and an eerie outline of his face could be seen as the mummy, resting in a box to protect it, was placed inside the machine in a specially equipped van, parked near his underground tomb in the famed Valley of the Kings.

The 1700 images taken during the 15-minute CT scan could answer many of the mysteries that shroud King Tutankhamun's life and death - including his royal lineage, his exact age, now estimated at 17, and the cause of his death.