quote:A genetic investigation by French archaeologist Marc Gabolde is threatening to rewrite the history books on two of ancient Egypt's most iconic figures. For years, antiquities experts have assumed that Akhenaten and his unnamed sister were the parents of the world's most famous pharaoh, Tutankhamun. And in fact, recent DNA analyses suggested as much. But as Gabolde's new interpretation of the genetic data shows, King Tut's mom may have been none other than his father's first cousin, Nefertiti.
I don't know what Gabolde's original paper says, but this article makes it sound as if he's re-interpreting data already uncovered rather than contributing new DNA data. Nonetheless, this might be of interest to the genetics enthusiasts in here.
Posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate (Member # 20039) on :
His speech may have been interesting but the newspaper article doesn't reveal much about the actual DNA evidence.
Here's the DNA analysis of some of the 18th Dynasty mummies DNA. STR CODIS values are often used for paternity/maternity test (for what I understand, Nefertiti's mummy was never recovered or at least identified). One value (allele) comes from the mother, one from the father.
Posted by Son of Ra (Member # 20401) on :
Ewww...And in interesting at the same time.
Posted by Swenet (Member # 17303) on :
Interesting. I had noted awhile back that the others, aside from those two (KV55 and KV35YL) had recurring STR values. I will await further information before I make up my mind about this suggestion.
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
I created a thread on this topic last year or more accurately a topic about Tut's paternity and the DNA findings thereof, but the f*cking incident of relevant threads being deleted happened with my thread included!
This is not to take away from your thread Brandon, but if my thread was still around I would easily make inputs of data to your thread. I'll have to search for the data all over again, but in the meantime what we know so far from the DNA findings is that Tut's mother is the KV35 Younger Lady who was initially identified as Nefertiti by Joanne Fletcher, but is now confirmed to be the whole sister of Tut's father who is the KV55 male identified by many as Akhenaten. What we know from the records is that Nefertiti was a cousin of Akhenaten NOT a sister, but then again there is some doubt as to whether KV55 is in fact Akhenaten due to some discrepancies in the genetic data which I guess I'll have to repost the sh|t again! Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
Here is the reconstructed genealogical tree by JAMDA & Hawass.
It is pretty certain that Tut's father and mother were full siblings. The question is who exactly was his mother? It is presumed that his father is Akhenaten, but then there are findings that are inconsistent with this presumption as well.
Posted by Swenet (Member # 17303) on :
What record exactly, indicates that Nefertiti was Akhenaten's cousin?
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
^ Good question. I was just about to answer that before you asked with a follow up post!
That Nefertiti was Akhenaten's cousin comes from the few surviving records about Nefertiti and her family. It states that Nefertiti was the daughter of Aye who in turn was the son of Yuya and Tuya and thus brother of Tiye. Unfortunately the part mentioning Nefertiti's mother is too badly damaged to ascertain the name.
So here we are left with the following genealogy for Nefertiti.
^ Note the following tree above presumes that Kiya was the mother of Tut though again we don't know who Tut's mother (KV35 Younger Lady) was. The records give no indication that Kiya was even related to Akhenaten let alone who she was, only that she was a minor wife of Akhenaten. The tree also gives Smenkhare though we don't even know how he fits in the Amarna family, let alone whom he married.
The records for the rest of Nefertiti's family is more comprehensive than that of Nefertiti herself. We know that her family hails from Akhmim which is in southern Upper Egypt and they were apparently a prominent family though not royal.
Posted by Swenet (Member # 17303) on :
Hmm. I always thought that Aye the terminal Amarna period Pharao and Aye the son of Yuya were two different people.
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
^ There are some scholars who speculate so, however the Aye who ruled after Tut seemed to carry the same title of place of origin as the high priest who was Tiye's brother. This makes it likely they were the same person as his assumption of the throne is likely based on his descent from the same mother as queen mother Tiye.
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