"King Tut's Final Secrets", National Geographic Society, 2005, 95 minutes.

Sad to say, this is not the most sterling example of productions sponsored by the National Geographic Society. And since the articles from the National Geographic Society report the findings of this study objectively and accurately, you wonder why they allowed their organization to sponsor this show. Even more sadly some of the misinformation in this show has rapidly become the accepted wisdom. Such is the sad power of television when the difference between education and entertainment gets blurred.

The basis of the film is the CAT scan of Tut's mummy. This should have been the entire focus of the show. As it is there is only a short time devoted to looking at the actual images and you get only a hint of how CAT scan technology is a major boon to Egyptology.

As it is "King Tut's Final Secrets" is all too typical of so-called educational films we get these days. The final message is one geared for sensationalism and salesmanship at the expense of accuracy. Still if you can wade through the hyperbole, padded script, distracting editing, overly dramatic (and boring) narration, incorrect statements, rehash of old ideas as new revelations, and at times sloppy science, you might, just might learn a little something new about Tut.

The important finding - and the only definitive one - was that the scans show there was no evidence of damage to Tut's skull. So it's highly unlikely he was murdered by a crack on the head as has been proposed. However, the conk on the noggin theory had also been effectively reputed in 2003 by other researchers who took a more careful look of the 1968 X-rays. Still the result of the CAT scan though is a major finding as it seems to put the question to rest beond doubt.

But this leads to the worse part of the show. The film makers aren't content with giving giving a final proof that Tut was not smacked on the head. They have to make it look like they found a final and definitive answer for the cause of death. This is completely and totally false.

The sad truth is the real information could have been told in a half an hour. To stretch the show out to an hour and a half (two hours if you had seen it on television), the writers added other side stories and snippets, most of which are without any point. For instance, do we really need have a ponderous pseudo-dramatic reading about there were technical problems with the equipment heating up - which they quickly corrected with a fan?

Of course, they just had to mention the Curse. Thankfully, though, the script is honest enough to assume that the so-called curse was only due to natural causes. So at least we don't have to go wading through the intermidable list of people who eventually died after seeing the tomb.

But you have to ask. Did they have to spend half an hour building up the idea that the curse could be Lord Carnarvon's dying of a bug caught in the tomb just so at the end they could shoot the idea down in ten seconds? This part of the film - told over shots of serious looking researchers in dust masks taking samples of the air and mold from dark and creepy looking tombs - should have been condensed into about thirty seconds. The study of microbes in the tombs might have some point in another show, but here all it does is increase the brouhaha and adds another half hour to an already over-padded script.

The editing - and the script - is dreadful. You flip-flop back and forth from one story to another, completely destroying any continuity of the presentation. Evidently trying to build suspense, the narrator peppers the viewer with fatuous phrases like "the TRUTH of Tutankhamun's death is finally about to emerge", "now it's time for answers", "the answer to that question will come later", and "the clue that finally busts the case wide open". Finally you feel like shouting for the narrator to cut the stalling and get to the point.

But the absolutely worst aspect of this film is how some things stated as fact or strongly implied are completely, totally, and entirely false.

To wit:

1) Howard Carter had no idea he had found a royal tomb.

Not true. From the first he knew he believed he found Tut's tomb, a tomb, by the way, he had been actively seeking. It's even likely Howard, Lord Carnarvon, and Lady Evelyn got into the tomb the first night and even cracked open the hole into the burial chamber. And remember Howard cabled Lord Carnarvon he had "found magnificent tomb", not "found some steps leading to a door that might be a tomb or a cache or nothing". The telegram, by the way, makes you wonder if Howard may have taken a peek inside even before Lord Carnarvon arrived.

2) The CAT scan crew discovered Tut had been cut in pieces.

Well, yes, they did "find" Tut was chopped up, but the implication that this was something new is completely false. In 1968 when R. G. Harrison X-rayed the mummy, he found the body in pieces. But that Tut was in disarticulated parts has been known since the time he was (pardon the quotes) "unwrapped".

And pardon us if we shout. It was STATED DEFINITIVELY IN THE ORIGINAL REPORT OF 1925 BY DR. DERRY THAT THEY CUT TUT UP. Yes, this report may not have been published in its entirely until 1972, but it was accessible and read by a number of Egyptologists. The first photos of the mummy, in fact, clearly showed Tut was not intact, particularly the photos made of Tut's head propped up and sitting sans corpus on a table. Earlier books and films have the head photos carefully selected and cropped to cover up that Tut's head was independent of his body. This proves early on Egyptologists knew what was up.

3) Most people had previously believed Tut was killed by a blow to the head.

Again strongly implied and not true either. Although this theory had been put forth since Harrison's X-rays were made available, the evidence was never convincing, and no properly refereed article ever stated this was even the most probable cause of Tut's death. Responsible investigators have always pointed out that the area of unusual thinness of the skull (possible sign of a blow) was within normal limits. To be fair, this is mentioned in the film, but as usual on shows written with an agenda, such contrary viewpoints are limited to rarely more than two second soundbites without elaboration.

The truth is you can't prove murder by head trauma showing an X-ray of a normal skull. And to repeat, the re-examination of the X-rays in 2003 - two years before this film - concluded there was no evidence of unusual thinning or a violent blow to the head.

4) The medical team believes the break to Tut's knee occurred while he was alive.

Probably the most deceptive part of the film as all the fatuous polemics lead up to this point. The truth is the medical team was divided in their opinion - again as the articles (including National Geographic's) all point out. Some team members believed that if the break occurred during life then there would be a hemorrhage or haematoma evident - and there wasn't. They think the embalming resin could very well have been pushed into the fracture during Carter and Derry's examination.

5) A leg injury to Tut was so severe that his kneecap was ripped off and was missing, a fact also noticed by Howard Carter.

Blantantly false. Dr. Derry's original report said the kneecap could be lifted out - that is, it was loose, not missing. The photgraphs show it's in place. And the kneecap on the broken leg was with the mummy when they did the CAT scan - wrapped with the left hand.

But here's the kicker and perhaps the experts can forgive a humble layman in actually coming to a contrary conclusion - or at least for raising a question based on reading the original report on Tut's mummy.

If you look at the location of the "fracture" on the CAT scan, it looks like it's where the epiphyseal plate is in an adolescent who's bones haven't completely fused (X-rays of fused and non-fused knees can be viewed at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~anatomy/Lowerextremity/leg-knee/radiology/APknee-child.htm) ). Is it possible, then, that Dr. Derry broke the bone at the epiphyseal line? Or did it even need to be broken at all? Could it be that it was not yet fused because of Tut's youth and simply came away?