Tutankhamun was the first royal Egyptian mummy that had been found untouched since its burial [GETTY]

HIS face is one of the most recognisable in history, which is quite something considering he lived nearly 3,500 years ago. We know it from the golden death mask found on the mummy case in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings. It shows a striking figure with delicate, pointed nose, huge almond shaped eyes, full lips, and pierced ears pulled clear of his elaborate headdress. He died aged just 19 but it is unclear what killed King Tutankhamun of Egypt. We do know he was the epitome of androgynous royal glamour. Or at least we thought we did. But just as King Tut didn't actually walk around with a coiled cobra on his forehead (as the death mask shows) and his face wasn't actually made of gold, a computer generated 3D image made for a BBC documentary to be screened next weekend has revealed that, in the flesh, the boy pharaoh had a pronounced overbite. The full body image also shows he was developing breasts, had wide, feminine hips and had a club foot. That last detail, along with the fact he suffered from the bone condition K¶hler's disease, may be enough to rule out a chariot accident as the cause of his death, which is one theory popular with Egyptologists. Driving a chariot was a physically demanding business and it would have been nigh on impossible for someone with that level of disability to control one. The 130 canes found in the tomb further support the theory that he struggled to walk unaided and was probably in great pain.

In the flesh, the boy pharaoh had a pronounced overbite. The full body image also shows he was developing breasts, had wide, feminine hips and had a club foot.

Reigning for 11 years in the 18th dynasty - from 1336 to 1327BC - he was an unremarkable king. He inherited the throne at the age of eight or nine from his father Akhenaten, who had abandoned the old gods in favour of the solar deity Aten and built a new capital on the Nile about halfway between Cairo and Luxor. Tutankhamun, advised by the army commander Horemheb who would later become pharaoh himself, ended the worship of Aten after his father's death and moved the capital back to Thebes - the site of modern Luxor. THE reason he is the pharaoh we've all heard of is not because of anything special in his reign. Instead it relates to the discovery of his tomb. This was small for someone of his status but after being robbed a couple of times within a few months of burial, it was covered by stone chippings from subsequent burial work and its location was lost. In later years huts for workers were unwittingly built over the entrance. In the early 20th century British Egyptologist Howard Carter and his wealthy patron the fifth Earl of Carnarvon found evidence of a king named Tutankhamun and realised his tomb had never been found. Carter searched for it for five years in the Valley of the Kings and was about to give up when he finally found the entrance in November, 1922. The discovery was sensational. As well as the vast cache of treasures they uncovered, the body of the boy king - discovered the following spring - was the first royal Egyptian mummy that had been found untouched since its burial. The excavation became the focus of media mania, fuelled by talk of a curse which an American journalist claimed had been inscribed at the door, threatening doom on anyone crossing the threshold. There is no evidence any such inscription existed but when Lord Carnarvon died after aggravating a mosquito bite while shaving just six weeks after entering the inner chamber, the legend took off. Other victims were said to include a pet canary belonging to Carter which was eaten by a cobra, an American visitor to the tomb who died of fever shortly afterwards, an Egyptian prince who visited the tomb twice and was shot dead that summer by his French wife, as well as two of Carnarvon's brothers and a London radiologist who X-rayed the mummy.

A computer generated image shows the boy pharaoh had a club foot [STV]

In fact there was nothing remarkable about the deaths of people travelling in a malarial country before modern drugs. Carter lived for another 16 years and a historian who traced the fortunes of 26 Westerners present when the tomb, the sarcophagus or the coffins were opened found there was nothing abnormal in their longevity compared with other people who were in Egypt at the same time. Nevertheless, talk of the curse strengthened the grip of Tutankhamun on the 20th century imagination. When the treasures were brought to the British Museum in a temporary exhibition in 1972, nearly 1.7 million people viewed them, forming long queues every day and setting the template for the modern museum blockbuster.