Study: King Tut slain by sword in knee
Deadly infection found in wound, experts say --ANSA, Italy
Tutankhamun was killed by a sword blow to the knee, Italian experts claim .
Two doctors from Bolzano University, longtime researchers into Italy's famed Iceman, were part of an international team that recently took another look at Egypt's most famous mummy .
The group found traces of gold leaf bearing animal symbols in the late pharaoah's right kneecap, leading them to surmise that it had fallen off Tutankhamun's raiments and lodged in a hole during mummification .
The hole in question appears to have been caused by a sword, they say .
Experts have so far been baffled by King Tut's cause of death, since his remains are in such great shape .
The new research has thrown up the hypothesis that the sword blow led to a fatal infection .
The new findings have yet to be made public because Egypt's archaeological chief Zahi Hawass is awaiting a final report, an Italian newspaper reported on Thursday .
The two Italian researchers, Eduard Egarter and Paul Gostner, have conducted several studies into Italy's 5,000-year-old Iceman mummy .
Among other things they discovered that he, too, was killed by a weapon .
Egarter and Gostner spotted an arrow-head fragment in one of the Iceman's shoulders, embarrassing Austrian scientists who had the mummy for several years and concluded he died of exposure after getting lost in the mountains .
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