King Tut’s DNA Paternity Test
Even though the legendary Egyptian king has been dead for thousands of years, King Tutankhamun’s mummy is undergoing paternity tests to see if the mummified remains of two stillborn children found in his tomb are his offspring. According to a BBC online article, the British archaeologist who discovered King Tut’s tomb in 1922 found the fetuses then, but this is the first time scientists have attempted DNA paternity testing on the mummified tissue. Scientists will also compare the fetuses’ DNA to each other to determine if a sibling relationship exists, which will aid scientists in confirming both the fetuses’ paternity and maternity.
Scientists and scholars believe that the fetuses’ mother was King Tut’s only known wife, Ankhesenamum, daughter of the beautiful, legendary Queen Nefertiti. They hope that by identifying the relationship between the fetuses and King Tut they may eventually be able to locate Queen Nefertiti’s mummy, which has never been found.
King Tut ruled Egypt from 1333-1324 BC and rose to power around age 8 or 9. He died around a decade later and is believed to have had no surviving children. King Tut became famous around the world when his tomb was discovered by British explorer Howard Carter in 1922. Tut’s tomb was intact and contained immense amounts of gold and ebony treasures, as well as archeological finds like perfectly preserved bones and tissue of the king himself.
The DNA paternity tests will be performed at the Cairo School of Medicine.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Home Paternity Tests.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the 
RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Digg it