In death if not in life, a bond unites King Tut, Egypt’s boy pharaoh, with the multitudes high and especially low through human history. Palace walls could not shield him from the enemy without: the anopheles mosquitoes infesting the Nile Valley with malaria parasites. A post-mortem on Tutankhamen’s mummy, scientists reported last week, shows that malaria was one of the most probable agents of his death at age 19, in the 14th century B.C.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/weekinreview/21wilford.html