Tutankhamun’s DNA test results unveiled
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UPDATE: June 28, 2010 – German researchers at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in the northern city of Hamburg said in a letter published online Wednesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association that closer scrutiny of Tutankhamun’s foot bones pointed to sickle cell disease, in which red blood cells become dangerously misshaped.
One of the most common genetic disorders, sickle cell disease causes blood cells to take the shape of a crescent instead of being smooth and round, thereby blocking blood flow and leading to chronic pain, infections and tissue death.
Source: AFP
Modern genetic testing and computer technology have revealed King Tut’s parental lineage and the cause of his death, experts said.
Scientists spent the last two years scrutinizing the mummified remains of the 19-year old pharaoh to extract his blood and DNA.
They found traces of the malaria parasite in his blood.
Not long before his death, Tutankhamun fractured his leg. The bone did not heal properly and began to die. This would have left the young king frail and susceptible to malaria infection, which finished him off.
There is no compelling evidence to suggest King Tut or indeed any of his royal ancestors had Marfan’s – a disease some scholars have mentioned to explain a somewhat female appearance in Tutankhamun’s male relatives.
But they did confirm that the king may have had some form of inherited disease, a rare bone disorder affecting the foot called Kohler disease II, as well as a club foot and a curvature of the spine.
Using partial Y-chromosome information, the researchers also determined that Akhenaten, the controversial pharaoh who ruled from around 1351-1334 BC and tried to radically transform religion in ancient Egypt, was Tut’s father, and that Tutankhamun’s mother was Akhenaten’s sister.
Tutankhamun also sired two children, both girls, but they died in the womb, the study found.
Sources: BBC News and Almasry Alyoum
The principal conclusions made by the team are that Tutankhamun’s father was the “heretic” king, Akhenaten, whose body is now almost certainly identified with the mummy from KV 55 in the Valley of the Kings. His mother, who still cannot be identified by name, is the “Younger Lady” buried in the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV 35). The mummy of the “Elder Lady” from the same tomb can now be conclusively identified as Tutankhamun’s grandmother, Queen Tiye. New light was shed on the cause of death for Tutankhamun with the discovery of DNA from the parasite that causes malaria; it is likely that the young king died from complications resulting from a severe form of this disease.
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