Could you check the tenses in this text please

I'm really baffled by the amount the past perfect was used here. Is this actually grammatically correct? Could I just use the past simple instead?

Tutankhamen was an Egyptian pharaoh who lived approximately 1341 BC – 1323 BC. The 1922 discovery of his nearly intact tomb received worldwide press coverage. DNA tests showed that Tutankhamen had been the result of an incestuous relationship; his father had been Akhenaten and his mother had been one of Akhenaten’s 5 sisters. CT images discovered congenital flaws common among the children of incest. He had had large front incisors and the overbite that is characteristic of his royal line. He had also had an elongated skull, a slightly cleft palate, and possibly a mildly curved spine. He had been buried with 2 mummified foetuses who had probably been his 2 stillborn children with wife (and half-sister) Ankhesenamun. The exact cause of Tutankhamen’s early death is unknown; as well several genetic defects caused by inbreeding, he had been infected with the most severe strain of malaria several times in his short life, and had possibly suffered from a crippling bone disease. A CT scan showed that he had badly broken his leg shortly before his death, and that the leg had become infected.