King Tut's father and mother were siblings

[spookyturtle 9,466]

(Feb. 16) -- The most famous of all pharaohs was a frail and sickly king who walked with a cane and suffered from a painful bone disease and a club foot. But it may have been a severe case of malaria that finally killed him, according to groundbreaking new genetic analysis.

A team of researchers from Egypt, Germany and Italy also developed a definitive family tree for King Tutankhamun, including the identity of his father and grandparents and the two still-born fetuses found in his tomb. The genealogy also confirms that Tut's family was largely the product of in-breeding.

Tutankhamun was only 19 when he died, circa 1324 BC, after a nine-year reign over Egypt's New Kingdom. His death marked the end of his family's 200-year rule, which was then replaced by a military regime.

More than 3,000 years later, Tut and 10 other royal mummies have undergone a two-year examination by the research team. The work has been ongoing at a $5 million, custom-designed DNA lab in Cairo, paid for by the Discovery Channel, which will broadcast two films about the project.

"It's incredibly difficult to obtain the kind of access to the mummies we did, and this has been years in the making," Dr. Carsten Pusch, lead study author from the University of Tübingen, said in an interview with AOL News. "The Egyptians are very proud of their history; they don't want foreign people invading that."

The DNA tests determined that King Tut had a clubbed left foot and no use of his right foot, because he suffered from a lack of blood flow that leads to collapsed bones (avascular necrosis). Those ailments explain why 130 wooden sticks and staffs were found in his tomb.

The conditions would have weakened his body and immune system, but they wouldn't have been enough to kill him. Rather, the team suspects that Tut sustained a fall -- which explains the head trauma and broken leg discovered in a 1968 X-ray -- and succumbed to a serious malarial infection.

Tut and four other mummies tested positive for malaria tropica, the most severe form of the illness.

The Nile region where Tut lived was marshy and humid -- the perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which carry the malaria virus. DNA evidence is likely the strongest possible evidence available in investigating such an ancient mystery, but Pusch admits that a definitive cause of death is impossible.

"Announcing a sure cause of death, 3,000 years afterward, is too much," he said. "What we do know is that King Tut suffered from many illnesses that may have combined to lead to such a premature death.

"Everybody knows the golden mask, but his was not an easy, glamorous life."

Until the latest tests were performed, the king's lineage also was widely disputed. These tests confirm that his father was Akhenaten, a revolutionary pharaoh known for introducing monotheistic religion. Tut's mother, whom many speculate was Queen Nefertiti, remains unidentified -- still known as Mummy KV35YL.

DNA analysis has yet to identify KV35YL but did conclude that the unnamed mummy is the sister of Akhenaten, as well as his mating partner.

Some also speculated that Queen Tiye, a wife of Akhenaten whose body was also embalmed alongside Tut's, was the young pharaoh's mother. In fact, the tests revealed, she was his grandmother.

The two still-born bodies in Tut's tomb, once thought to have been his half-siblings, have been identified as his children.

Pusch suspects that a long history of in-breeding might be responsible for the premature deaths of Tut's offspring.

"In-breeding in successive generations reduces genetic fitness," he said. "This would also explain many of Tut's own physical ailments, which might be caused by the sibling relationship between his mother and father."

Researchers have only scratched the surface of readily available DNA from ancient Egyptian mummies. Work at Cairo's DNA laboratory will continue, and Pusch hopes to find secrets from other famous dynasties. King Tut and Co. offered readily available DNA samples, but Pusch cautions that other bodies might not be so well-preserved.

"If it were a question of being overly invasive, then we'd stop the testing," he said. "Save those secrets for future generations, when they can use new advancements to cause less damage."

Knowing the secrets of King Tut's life, lineage and death lends a new perspective to royal life in Ancient Egypt, if you ask Pusch. "At first, he was a specimen in a museum, but now he's become a person I know intimately," he said. "His was a painful life and one of suffering.

"Not very royal, is it?"

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/dna-d...354862?icid=mai

Edited February 16, 2010 by spookyturtle

[Calypso 464]

Inbreeding isn't new. Cleopatra had to marry her own younger brother. Even in some wealthy Muslim clans nowadays, some girls marry their own uncles. It's a way to keep the wealth just within the same blood and no outsiders. That's the case in the past European monarchs and then came hemophilia.

Well, about the findings on the real cause of Tut's death, NatGeo had a lengthy feature about that a few months ago. What I can say is that these scientists keep changing their findings. I hope the next generation of scientists will stop wasting money for such researches and tests. These mummies have no more juice to squeeze.

[Nagishkaw 510]

Interesting.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

There was a lot of inbreeding in the Royal British family...back in the day.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Hardly even newsworthy--as Egyptian tradition mandated sibling marriage, especially among royalty (while Akhneton did change religious observances, he's not known for having done diddly about that tradition).

[Niels Bohr 72]

Well, I do remember from World History studies in high schools that the Egyptian dynasties were siblings and that they marry their own siblings. Nothing new.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Ive done my family tree too. Spook how did you get the info of yours going back so far?

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Ive done my family tree too. Spook how did you get the info of yours going back so far?

When you come from an inbred family, it's easy.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

When you come from an inbred family, it's easy.

Dont you all look the same or do you guys just wear name tags?

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Dont you all look the same or do you guys just wear name tags?

Hi, I'm Larry. This is my brother Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl.

Your Honor, after we get divorced will she still be my sister?

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Actually, the genetic information they are getting from mummies - not just the royal mummies but others in museum collections around the world - is fascinating. Disease pathology is especially fascinating. I browsed through a book the other day on just this topic: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Conversations-Mumm...s/dp/000220181X about the ongoing discoveries from doing autopsies and genetic analysis on mummies around the world, and focusing on several held in British collections.

One of the Museums where I was Curator in Ontario had a mummy that had been collected by local world travellers and brought home as a 'souvenir' around 1900. The Canadian Conservation Institute did the initial examination of the mummy, then it was further analyzed by the Royal Ontario Museum, filmed for "The Mummy Show" and finally a reconstruction of the face was made from digital imaging of the skull (we never unwrapped her). It was fascinating to see the various 'stories' unfold as more and more scientific tests and techniques became available. A friend of mine there was a paleopathologist and spent months every year on archaeological digs in Egypt. His job was to try and determine ancient pathologies from the mummies. There was much that could be learned from the basic skeletal remains but to be able to analyze ancient blood and ancient DNA - well, it really is fascinating. Hehehe, I don't agree that mummies "have no more juice to squeeze' - they may be dried up but they are still a wealth of information about the living conditions of an ancient culture.

Thanks for sharing the story.

Edited February 17, 2010 by Kathryn41

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Actually, the genetic information they are getting from mummies - not just the royal mummies but others in museum collections around the world - is fascinating. Disease pathology is especially fascinating. I browsed through a book the other day on just this topic: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Conversations-Mumm...s/dp/000220181X about the ongoing discoveries from doing autopsies and genetic analysis on mummies around the world, and focusing on several held in British collections.

One of the Museums where I was Curator in Ontario had a mummy that had been collected by local world travellers and brought home as a 'souvenir' around 1900. The Canadian Conservation Institute did the initial examination of the mummy, then it was further analyzed by the Royal Ontario Museum, filmed for "The Mummy Show" and finally a reconstruction of the face was made from digital imaging of the skull (we never unwrapped her). It was fascinating to see the various 'stories' unfold as more and more scientific tests and techniques became available. A friend of mine there was a paleopathologist and spent months every year on archaeological digs in Egypt. His job was to try and determine ancient pathologies from the mummies. There was much that could be learned from the basic skeletal remains but to be able to analyze ancient blood and ancient DNA - well, it really is fascinating. Hehehe, I don't agree that mummies "have no more juice to squeeze' - they may be dried up but they are still a wealth of information about the living conditions of an ancient culture.

Thanks for sharing the story.

Sounds like a total waste of money to me. I dont really care what the living conditions of a mummy are.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Actually, the genetic information they are getting from mummies - not just the royal mummies but others in museum collections around the world - is fascinating. Disease pathology is especially fascinating. I browsed through a book the other day on just this topic: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Conversations-Mumm...s/dp/000220181X about the ongoing discoveries from doing autopsies and genetic analysis on mummies around the world, and focusing on several held in British collections.

One of the Museums where I was Curator in Ontario had a mummy that had been collected by local world travellers and brought home as a 'souvenir' around 1900. The Canadian Conservation Institute did the initial examination of the mummy, then it was further analyzed by the Royal Ontario Museum, filmed for "The Mummy Show" and finally a reconstruction of the face was made from digital imaging of the skull (we never unwrapped her). It was fascinating to see the various 'stories' unfold as more and more scientific tests and techniques became available. A friend of mine there was a paleopathologist and spent months every year on archaeological digs in Egypt. His job was to try and determine ancient pathologies from the mummies. There was much that could be learned from the basic skeletal remains but to be able to analyze ancient blood and ancient DNA - well, it really is fascinating. Hehehe, I don't agree that mummies "have no more juice to squeeze' - they may be dried up but they are still a wealth of information about the living conditions of an ancient culture.

Thanks for sharing the story.

Very cool.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

If there are Muslim girls marrying their uncles, that has nothing to do with Islam because Islam forbids that. We do have a habit of marrying cousins, and perhaps that's what you meant. And, yes, it does have a lot to do with keeping the wealth in the family.

Inbreeding isn't new. Cleopatra had to marry her own younger brother. Even in some wealthy Muslim clans nowadays, some girls marry their own uncles. It's a way to keep the wealth just within the same blood and no outsiders. That's the case in the past European monarchs and then came hemophilia.

Well, about the findings on the real cause of Tut's death, NatGeo had a lengthy feature about that a few months ago. What I can say is that these scientists keep changing their findings. I hope the next generation of scientists will stop wasting money for such researches and tests. These mummies have no more juice to squeeze.

[Calypso 464]

Actually, the genetic information they are getting from mummies - not just the royal mummies but others in museum collections around the world - is fascinating. Disease pathology is especially fascinating. I browsed through a book the other day on just this topic: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Conversations-Mumm...s/dp/000220181X about the ongoing discoveries from doing autopsies and genetic analysis on mummies around the world, and focusing on several held in British collections.

One of the Museums where I was Curator in Ontario had a mummy that had been collected by local world travellers and brought home as a 'souvenir' around 1900. The Canadian Conservation Institute did the initial examination of the mummy, then it was further analyzed by the Royal Ontario Museum, filmed for "The Mummy Show" and finally a reconstruction of the face was made from digital imaging of the skull (we never unwrapped her). It was fascinating to see the various 'stories' unfold as more and more scientific tests and techniques became available. A friend of mine there was a paleopathologist and spent months every year on archaeological digs in Egypt. His job was to try and determine ancient pathologies from the mummies. There was much that could be learned from the basic skeletal remains but to be able to analyze ancient blood and ancient DNA - well, it really is fascinating. Hehehe, I don't agree that mummies "have no more juice to squeeze' - they may be dried up but they are still a wealth of information about the living conditions of an ancient culture.

Thanks for sharing the story.

I love history and geography so much and their related fields but in the part where these "geniuses" keep taking the mummies in and out of the dead's resting place, I don't think it's right anymore. In the late 1960's, in the early 1990's and even up to present, they still study how the mummies died or who killed them. What for?

I am completely fine with ancient scrolls being discovered and interpreted. I watched the docu about the Romanovs and so on. Yet, I think the mummies have had more than enough.