Walk into any museum exhibit featuring the "Boy King" and you’ll see towering gold statues. They make him look like a giant, a golden god carved from the sun itself. But if you actually stood next to the real Tutankhamun back in 1323 BCE, you might have been surprised. Honestly, he wasn't exactly a physical powerhouse.
So, how tall is King Tut?
If we’re talking about the man beneath the gold mask, the scientific consensus puts him at approximately 5 feet 6 inches (167 to 168 cm).
That’s not exactly short for the time, but it’s a far cry from the larger-than-life image most of us have in our heads. For a long time, people just guessed based on the size of his coffins. Big mistake. His outermost coffin is massive, but as any Egyptologist will tell you, the size of the box doesn't always match the size of the person inside. It’s mostly about status and the room needed for all those layers of resin and linen.
The Science of Measuring a Mummy
You’d think measuring a person would be easy. Just pull out a tape measure, right? Wrong.
Tut’s body has had a rough century. When Howard Carter found him in 1922, the mummy was stuck to the bottom of the gold coffin by hardened embalming resins. To get him out, Carter’s team used some pretty brutal methods—heat, knives, and basically prying him apart. The body ended up in pieces.
Because of this damage, you can’t just measure him head-to-toe and call it a day. Instead, researchers have to use forensic osteology. This basically means measuring the long bones, like the femur (thigh bone) or the tibia (shin bone), and using mathematical formulas to estimate total height.
The 2005 CT Scan Breakthrough
In 2005, a team led by Dr. Zahi Hawass performed a full CT scan on the mummy. This was a game-changer. They didn't have to touch the fragile remains; they could just look at the digital slices.
- The team took over 17,000 images.
- They looked at the length of his tibia.
- They used the Trotter-Gleser formula (a standard tool for forensic scientists).
The result? A height of about 170 cm, which is roughly 5 feet 7 inches.
However, later re-evaluations and different formulas often pull that number back down closer to 5 feet 6 inches. When you account for the fact that he was only about 19 when he died, he might have had a tiny bit of growing left to do, but not much.
Why His Height Actually Matters
Height isn't just a trivia fact. For Tut, it tells a story about his health. You've probably heard the rumors that he was a frail, sickly kid. Some of that is actually true.
The scans showed he had a cleft palate and a mild case of scoliosis (a curvature of the spine). Now, the scoliosis wasn't severe enough to make him a "hunchback," as some sensationalist documentaries claim, but it might have affected his posture. If you have a curved spine, you're going to look shorter than you actually are.
Then there’s his foot.
The Clubfoot Controversy
The 2005 and 2010 studies revealed that King Tut had Köhler disease II, a rare bone disorder that basically kills off bone tissue because of a lack of blood supply. He also had a clubfoot (talipes equinovarus) on his left side.
Why does this matter for his height? Because he likely walked with a heavy limp.
His tomb was packed with over 130 walking sticks. For years, historians thought these were just symbols of power. "He's a king, of course he has fancy sticks," they said. But the wear and tear on the bottom of the sticks suggests he actually used them to get around. If you’re leaning on a cane and dragging a necrotic foot, you aren't standing tall and proud. You’re hunched over. You're smaller.
Comparing Tut to Other Pharaohs
To really understand how tall is King Tut, you have to look at his family tree. And man, that family tree is more like a tangled vine.
His father (widely believed to be Akhenaten) and his grandfather (Amenhotep III) were roughly the same height. Ancient Egyptians, on average, were shorter than modern humans, but the royals were usually better fed and taller than the commoners.
- Ramesses II (The Great): Stood about 5 feet 8 inches (173 cm).
- Thutmose III: Around 5 feet 3 inches (160 cm).
- Commoners: Average males were often around 5 feet 2 inches to 5 feet 4 inches.
So, at 5'6", Tut was actually on the taller side for his era. He wasn't a "tiny" king. He was just a slender, slightly built teenager who happened to have a lot of health problems.
The Myth of the "Giant" Pharaoh
Why do people keep thinking he was taller? Blame the art.
Ancient Egyptian art used something called hieratic scale. This is a fancy way of saying "the most important person is the biggest." If you see a wall painting of Tutankhamun defeating enemies, he looks like a 10-foot-tall titan. The enemies look like toddlers.
This wasn't meant to be a literal photograph. It was propaganda.
Also, the discovery of his "giant" chariots and massive statues fuels the fire. But if you look at the 2024 and 2025 research coming out of the Grand Egyptian Museum, experts are increasingly focusing on the function of these items. The chariots weren't built for a giant; they were built with high dashboards to help a kid with a bad foot stay balanced.
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What This Means for History
Understanding Tut's physical stature changes how we view his reign. He wasn't a warrior king leading charges into battle. He was a young man dealing with significant physical pain, likely trying to hold a crumbling empire together while his own body was failing him.
He was human.
When you look at his clothes—which survived in the tomb—you see the reality. His tunics and loincloths are sized for a slim, medium-height teenager. They have large waistlines, possibly to accommodate the bandages or the "orthopedic" braces he might have worn for his spine and foot.
Real Talk: Does it Change Anything?
Honestly, knowing he was 5'6" makes him more relatable. He wasn't a monster or a god. He was a kid who probably had a bit of an overbite (also confirmed by CT scans) and struggled to walk without a stick.
If you want to get a real sense of his size, the next time you're near a doorway, mark 5 feet 6 inches on the frame. That's him. No gold, no hype, just a 19-year-old guy who happened to be buried with the world's most expensive "sorry you died" gifts.
Actionable Takeaways for History Buffs
If you're digging into the physical history of the 18th Dynasty, keep these points in mind to avoid the common "tourist trap" facts:
- Check the Source: If an article says he was over 6 feet tall, they are likely looking at the coffin measurements, not the mummy. Ignore it.
- Contextualize Height: A 5'6" man in 1300 BCE was equivalent to a man being roughly 5'10" or 5'11" today. He was "tall-ish" for his time.
- Look at the Bones: The most accurate data always comes from the 2005 CT scan and the 2010 DNA/Radiology study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
- Ignore the Art: Never use statues or wall reliefs to judge the physical dimensions of a pharaoh. It’s all PR.
The mystery of King Tut's height isn't really a mystery anymore—it's one of the few things we actually have a solid, scientific answer for. He was a medium-sized king with a massive legacy.