Since his tomb was first discovered, King Tut's strange untimely death has become something of a historical mystery.

Is there an answer to the ancient question, how and why did young Tutankhamun die?

Let's find out in today's episode of...

Colossal Mysteries

The young boy, Tutankhamun, was just eight or nine years old when he was anointed Pharaoh of Egypt, well over 3,000 years ago.

During the ten years that King Tut ruled over Egypt, he didn't manage to accomplish much.

He finished a few statues and reversed a few laws, but nothing particularly memorable.

His life seemed to be fairly normal for an ancient Egyptian boy-king, until his peculiar premature death at just 18 years old.

Modern research shows that Tut was quickly buried in a smaller tomb, unusual for a Pharaoh, who were often buried in lavish tombs.

No known records of his death exist today, and he seems to have been forgotten in the centuries after his passing.

Even the location of Tutankhamun's tomb was forgotten and slowly buried under debris and sand over thousands of years.

By modern times, Tut was all but forgotten.

But that all changed in 1922 when a couple of British archeologists uncovered Tut's tomb after more than 30 years of searching the Egyptian sands.

The pair entered the interior chambers of Tut's tomb and, to their surprise, they discovered that it was almost entirely untouched.

They found his preserved mummy inside a golden coffin, where it had been resting for thousands of years.

The fascinating find became an instant sensation, earning worldwide press coverage and helping fuel modern interest in ancient Egypt.

People all around the world were fascinated by the boy-king and his mysterious death at 18.

Over the years, experts have worked diligently to try and uncover exactly what happened to Tutankhamen all those years ago.

Once scientists got their hands on the mummy, the plot quickly thickened and a mystery was uncovered.

They noticed fractured bone and a hole in the back of King Tut's skull.

This led some historians at the time to assume that the young king was assassinated by a blow to the back of the head, possibly by his political rivals.

This sounds like quite the salacious story, but it doesn't hold up.

A state-of-the-art body scan of the mummy in 2006 proved that King Tut's skull was cracked after he died, either by the people mummifying him or by the team that found him in his tomb.

So how did the boy-king Tutankhamun die?

DNA tests from 2010 may have possibly proved an answer.

The testing showed that he suffered multiple malaria infections and walked with a cane.

He also had a broken leg that was infected with gangrene when he died.

It's possible that malaria may have made his legs weak and the infection worse, ultimately leading to his early demise at 18.

But even today, with state-of-the-art technology at our fingertips, we still can't say for certain what exactly happened to Tutankhamun over 3,000 years ago.

And until we can say for sure, King Tut will continue to be clouded in mystery.