Was Tut-ankh-amun directly related to Kiya or Nefertiti. This has been a debate that has been in academia for eons. Most people point to Kiya,but others even suggest that Tiye was his mother and that Akenaten are brothers. Any opinions on this.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Was Tut-ankh-amun directly related to Kiya or Nefertiti. This has been a debate that has been in academia for eons. Most people point to Kiya,but others even suggest that Tiye was his mother and that Akenaten are brothers. Any opinions on this.
Ausar, I believe that Tiye is his paternal grandmother, Akhenaton his father, and Kiya his biological mother. But we won't be certain without a DNA test!
Posts: 26286 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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From the book "Tutankhamen" by TGH James and A De Luca:
This last coffin contained a lock of hair - of auburn hair as Carter romantically described it. This tiny coffin, about 12.5 cm long, carried text naming 'the great royal wife Tiye', her name in a cartouche, and requesting all benefits of food, drink etc from the multiple funerary deity Ptah-Sokar-Osiris. It is more than reasonable to conclude that the hair belonged to Tiye, and had been included in Tutankhamen's burial for reasons of piety, but it is not necessarily an indication that Tiye was his mother. The question is too intriguing!
[This message has been edited by Kem-Au (edited 14 May 2005).]
Judging from the two busts above I think there is a possibility that Tutankamun could have been another son of Queen Tiye. He seems to resemble Amenhotep III and Tiye more than Akhenaten.
Akhenaten
Amenhotep III
[This message has been edited by neo*geo (edited 14 May 2005).]
[This message has been edited by neo*geo (edited 14 May 2005).]
posted
There is some exaggeration in the elongated representation of Akhenaten's face. I have seen sculptures of him, with a somewhat more rounded face, i.e., not that indicative of a lanky person.
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posted
Modigliani, Giacometti, El Greco, others,,,, elongation of the face in thoughtful intelligence. Art through time lucas films and elongations, Tolkien and the elfs....
exaggerated or not, it's symbolic, a search
Considering Amarna art, where people are closely linked, family members present, embracing, celebrating, eating, I find it difficult to believe Twt could be Nefertiti’s and Ahenaten’s son, maybe Twt is his son from another wife, Kiye, and why not Tiya. My opinion is not definite, the theories I read from both sides, never helped me make my mind up. I feel Akhenaton and Kiya were closely linked and this relation disturbed Nefertiti’s side of the family. Did they (Akhenaton and Kiya) get acquainted in Asswan, i had that feeling at the Nilometer. these thoughts would need unerased support.
quote:Originally posted by swam: Modigliani, Giacometti, El Greco, others,,,, elongation of the face in thoughtful intelligence. Art through time lucas films and elongations, Tolkien and the elfs....
exaggerated or not, it's symbolic, a search
Considering Amarna art, where people are closely linked, family members present, embracing, celebrating, eating, I find it difficult to believe Twt could be Nefertiti’s and Ahenaten’s son, maybe Twt is his son from another wife, Kiye, and why not Tiya. My opinion is not definite, the theories I read from both sides, never helped me make my mind up. I feel Akhenaton and Kiya were closely linked and this relation disturbed Nefertiti’s side of the family. Did they (Akhenaton and Kiya) get acquainted in Asswan, i had that feeling at the Nilometer. these thoughts would need unerased support.
posted
As I've said guys, all of this is pure speculation until DNA tests are done on all members of the royal family.
The SCA and Egyptian government are afraid that DNA results might reveal inaccuracies like relations to Hebrews or accuracies like Egyptians are black Africans. Yet the only results that are in immediate need are those of family relations.
Posts: 26286 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Queen Tiye is too old to be Tut's birth mother.
Amenhotep III dies in Year 38 or Year 39 of his reign, at about age 48 or 49. Queen Tiye was probably 2 years older than her hsuband, Amenhotep III.
On the long co-regency theory, with which I am in total agreement, Akhenaten became junior co-regent in Year 28. Tut was born 10 years later, in Year 38 of Amenhotep III's reign, being Year 10 of Akhenaten's reign, give or take one year.
So Queen Tiye was approximately age 50 at Tut's birth. It is impossible for a woman age 50 in the ancient world to give birth and live to tell the tale. No can do.
Queen Tiye was too old to be Tut's birth mother, but Queen Tiye did function as the only mother that Tut ever knew. That means that Queen Tiye was very fond of Tut's birth mother. Tut's birth mother must have been Sitamen, the daughter of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. Sitamen died in chldbirth in Year 10 of Akehenaten's reign, giving birth to Tut. Sitaman would have have been about age 27 at the time. That was fairly old in the ancient world to give birth. But it is realistic, especially since Sitamen did not survive this birth (in her fairly old age).
Sitamen had previously given birth to Beketaten, whom Queen Tiye also raised as her own child.
Queen Tiye lived to Year 14 of Akhenaten's reign, so she functioned as Tut's de facto mother for about 5 years. That is why a locket of Queen Tiye's hair is in Tut's tomb, and why there is no remembrance of any kind of Tut's birth mother.
It all makes sense if one looks at the objective facts. Amenhotep III had made a huge deal out of marrying his favorite daughter, Sitamen. Certainly Amenhotep III would not deny his favorite daughter a chance to bear a son, who might well go on to become the next great pharaoh of Egypt.
Menawhile, Kiya and Nefertiti and Akhenaten's three oldest daughters are still living in Year 13, so they cannot have died in childbirth in Year 9 or Year 10 giving birth to Tut. And in Kiya's case, there is no way that Queen Tiye and Tut would have had warm feelings for each other if Tut's mother was from the harem. All the facts are against Kiya being Tut's mother.
Everything points to the same result. Sitamen was Tut's birth mother. Sitamen died in childbirth in Year 9 or Year 10. Queen Tiye raised Tut as her own child.
posted
Of course Tiye is too old to be Tut's mother which is why most scholars feel she was his grandmother while Kiya was Tut's mother.
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posted
The blood tests indicate that Smenkhkare and Tut were close enough by blood to be full-brothers, or the equivalent. So if Queen Tiye is Smenkhkare's birth mother, then outsider Kiya cannot be Tut's birth mother. No, you've got to go whole hog and posit Kiya as being the birth mother of both Smenkhkare and Tut, in order to fit the blood tests.
Since Smenkhkare is about 15 years older than Tut, it is very hard for those two guys to have the same birth mothers. It is much more likely, given their ages and the blood test, that the birth mother of Tut is a daughter of the birth mother of Smenkhkare. That is the only way to make the mothers' ages at childbirth fit comfortably, while matching the blood tests.
If Kiya is from the Hurrian state on the upper Euphrates River, which is very likely, then Kiya's blood would be totally different than that of Queen Tiye. Moreover, Smenkhkare is born before Kiya gets to Egypt. And Tut is born right at the time Kiya gets to Egypt, if not slightly before Kiya arrives. But Kiya's first child, once she finally gets to Egypt about Year 10 of Akhenaten's reign, is a girl. So the timing just will not work for Kiya to be the birth mother of either Smenkhkare or Tut.
Plus, if Kiya is a harem wife, why on earth would Queen Tiye have had warm feelings for Tut? Why would there be a locket of Queen Tiye's hair in Tut's tomb?
And it certainly appears that Akhenaten gouged out Kiya's eyes in virtually all of her imagery. Yet Tut loved Akhenaten, and insisted on being buried wearing Akhenaten's skullcap.
The wine docket indicates that Kiya was still alive in Year 16. But by then, the Maruaten, the small chapel, and most everything else formerly owned by Kiya had been given to Meritaten or Ankhsenpaaten. The objective evidence indicates that Kiya was thoroughly disgraced during her lifetime by Akhenaten. Yet Tut was very close to Akhenaten, with many things from Smenkhkare and Akhenaten's daughters being in Tut's tomb.
There is simply no way that Kiya can be Tut's birth mother. Or Smenkhkare's birth mother. Kiya bore only one child, a daughter, and was a very minor figure at Amarna. Kiya was terribly disgraced by Akhenaten during her lifetime.
posted
Once one realizes that Smenkhkare was lame, and that Smenkhkare and Tut are so close by blood as to be the blood equivalent of full-brothers, one can see that Kiya cannot be Tut's mother.
1. Akhenaten would have never chosen as his junior co-regent a lame son of a harem wife. If Akhenaten had picked as junior co-regent a man who was the son of a harem wife of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten would have picked a man in good health, who was not lame, and who had a good intellect, none of which 3 features apply to Smenkhkare. So Smenkhkare's mother must have been Queen Tiye herself, or else Akhenaten would never have picked that lame guy Smenkhkare to marry Akhenaten's beloved daughter #1 Meritaten.
2. Smenkhkare and Tut must either have the same mother, or Tut's birth mother must be the daughter of Smenkhkare's birth mother. Otherwise, the blood test results do not make sense, as Smenkhkare and Tut are by blood the equivalent of being full-brothers.
3. Therefore, since neither Kiya, nor Kiya's mother, is the birth mother of lame Smenkhkare, then Kiya cannot be Tut's birth mother either.
That's the way I see it.
I readily admit, and in fact assert, that many Egyptologists keep on saying that they are hoping that Kiya will one day prove to be Tut's birth mother, once more evidence is found. My point is that the evidence we already have rules that out, in my view.
If we focus on the key fact that Smenkhkare was lame, everything about Amarna becomes clear. The Egyptologists cannot change those images. The Egyptologists cannot change the key fact that Tut, an athletic teenager, had a collection of 130 walking sticks. Most of those 130 walking sticks must have come from lame Smenkhkare, who needed walking sticks to hold himself upright.
In my view, the images are the key to understanding Amarna. Those images of a lame Smenkhkare, plus the 130 walking sticks, speak louder than (Egyptologists') words.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Of course Tiye is too old to be Tut's mother which is why most scholars feel she was his grandmother while Kiya was Tut's mother.
Recalling...
"Bearing in mind that the most probable sequence of the mummies from the viewpoint of inheritance of craniofacial characteristics is the sequence of the mummies labeled Thutmose IV, Amenhotep II, and Amenhotep III (in fact only the Amenhotep II mummy provides a suitable father to the Amenhotep III mummy), we have suggested that the Thutmose IV mummy is indeed Thutmose IV, that the Amenhotep II mummy is that of Amenhotep III, and the Amenhotep III mummy is that of Akhenaten.
Since neither the skeleton from KV 55 nor Tutankhamun are likely biologic sons of the Amenhotep III mummy or of the Amenhotep II mummy, we come to the possible conclusion that Tutankhamun was not the biologic son of a king.
Rather, we suggest that Thutmose IV was the paternal grandfather of Tutankhamun, a conclusion consonant with a literal reading of the text on the Oriental Institute astronomical instrument, and that Amenhotep III was his maternal grandfather. In other words, Tutankhamun was the offspring of a marriage between a son of Thutmose IV and a daughter of Amenhotep III.
Also...
A lock of Queen Tiye's hair, discovered in a miniature coffin in the tomb of Tutankhamun, suggests that he was related to this major queen of Amenhotep III, and indeed there are a number of inscriptions in the Luxor Temple and on the Soleb lion that refer to Amenhotep III as the father of Tutankhamun...
**What may be said on the basis of the biologic evidence of craniofacial variation is that the mummy labeled as Amenhotep III by the restorers was not a likely father, or even grandfather, of Tutankhamun**…
…In recent years Jim and Dr. Fawzia Hussein have been given permission by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization to secure tissue and bone samples from the royal mummy collection during the restoration and completion of the new show cases in the Egyptian Museum...The great problem in the study of ancient DNA from artificially mummified tissues is amplification of the original DNA without contamination and ultimately false sequencing. At the present time it is only possible to determine maternity among mummies through mitochondrial RNA, but not paternity, thus limiting the value of genetic testing in the case of the Eighteenth Dynasty line, which for the most part is represented by male members. One possible exception, however, is the case of a woman whose mummy still rests in a side chamber of the tomb of Amenhotep II. It was identified as that of Queen Tiye both by comparing her craniofacial morphology with that of her mother Tuya in the Cairo Museum and by using an electron probe to compare the amount of atomic elements in a sample of her hair with a sample from the lock of Tiye's hair that was discovered in Tutankhamun's tomb. Here genetic testing (RNA) could be used to affirm or deny the validity of this identification, although it would require an invasive procedure to secure a tissue sample from Tuya's well-preserved mummy." - Ed Wente, The Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago.
Thanks for the cite to the 1995 article by Professor Wente.
1. I can't help but notice that his "Scheme 2" fits my own theory perfectly:
"…take the skeleton from KV 55 as Smenkhkare's rather than Akhenaten's, in which case Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun would be brothers and either grandsons or sons of Amenhotep III, represented by the mummy labeled Thutmose IV (Scheme 2)."
To flesh that out a bit:
(a) Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun are brothers. They are almost full-brothers, but they do not have identical mothers. Tutankhamun's mother is the daughter of Smenkhkare's mother. Tut's mother is Sitamen, who is the daughter of Smenkhkare's mother, Queen Tiye.
(b) Smenkhkare is purely a son of Amenhotep III. Tut, by contrast, is both a son and a grandson of Amenhotep III. On his paternal side, Tut is the son of Amenhotep III. But on his maternal side, Tut is a grandson of Amenhotep III. Or to put it the other way, Sitamen bore her father, Amenhotep III, a son/grandson when she bore Tut.
That is my view of the case, and it fits "Scheme 2" perfectly, as far as I can see.
2. One item I disagree with in the article is this:
"…the age at death of this individual [the KV55 mummy] has been estimated to be about 35 years…."
All of the more recent examinations have in fact produced a much younger age than that for the mummy in KV 55. Science seems now to have agreed upon an age range of 20 – 26 for the KV 55 mummy. If that age 35 years were to be accepted, then everyone would be claiming that the KV 55 mummy is Akhenaten. Yet I believe that Nicholas Reeves is one of the few prominent Egyptologists who claims that the KV 55 mummy is Akhenaten.
3. Let me also say that I agree with the historians' great reluctance to view Tut as not being a literal, biological son of a pharaoh. As the article itself notes, there is a lot of textual evidence in which Amenhotep III is stated to be Tut's father. I was not aware of the item cited in the article where Tut says that Thutmose IV is the father of Tut's father, but of course that fits perfectly. So I have a lot of trouble going with the claim in "Scheme 3" that Tut is not literally a son of a pharaoh. I have no problem, of course, with seeing Tut as being the literal son of "a daughter to Amenhotep III". I agree with that completely. But I see Amenhotep III himself as being Tut's biological father.
Actually, my own theory comes within the literal wording of "Scheme 3", strangely enough! "…we suggest that Thutmose IV was the paternal grandfather of Tutankhamun…." Yes, on the paternal side, Tut's father was Amenhotep III, and Tut's grandfather was Thutmose IV. Moving right along now: "Amenhotep was his [Tut's] maternal grandfather." Yes, on the maternal side, Amenhotep III was Tut's grandfather, since Amenhotep III was the father of Sitamen, who was Tut's mother. So my own theory of the case neatly falls within the literal wording of "Scheme 3":
"Tutankhamun was the offspring of a marriage between a son of Thutmose IV and a daughter of Amenhotep III."
That "son of Thutmose IV" was none other than Amenhotep III himself. And of course, the "daughter of Amenhotep III" was Sitamen.
So perhaps my theory of the case semi-matches Scheme 3, while fully matching Scheme 2. Neat!
4. On a more general level, we often see "new science" conflicting with a wealth of old-fashioned documentary evidence. It may well be that 50 years from now, this "new science" will have become well-established. But when experts just begin to try out a "new science", which does not have a long track record of proven success, I myself tend to go with the old-fashioned documentary evidence. A comparable example is the volcanic eruption of Thera. I myself put a lot of credence in old-fashioned pottery evidence, and evidence of when the pumice from Thera shows up in Egypt. 50 years from now, the "scientific" way of dating Thera, which is independent of all old-fashioned documentary and archaeological evidence, may well have proved itself. But my guess is that the time periods it finds will have changed between now and then.
I am just saying that a person should not be labeled "anti-science" when a person relies more heavily on old-fashioned documentary and archaeological evidence than on new "scientific" approaches that have not yet had time to be fully verified.
As I am sure you are well aware, the various "scientific" analyses of the mummy in KV 55 have come out with many very incompatible results. So to me, the old-fashioned sources of the historian and archaeologist are still important.
5. Finally, it seems to me that the ages of the various pharaohs should be given more weight. Aye died at a very old age. Amenhotep III died at about age 50. Akhenaten died at about age 33. Smenkhkare died at about age 23. Tut died at about age 18. Rather than looking only at the craniums, the approximate ages of these people should give us a good clue as to which mummies are which.
6. It is interesting to see the claim that in ancient times, particularly in Africa south of the 2nd cataract, certain dental features of people may have matured more slowly than we are used to seeing today. That may be one reason why scientific examinations of mummies often come up with ages that seem too young to fit the documentary history.
7. Thanks again for the cite to that great article. I learned a lot from that article, even though I do not agree with everything in that article.
2. One item I disagree with in the article is this:
"…the age at death of this individual [the KV55 mummy] has been estimated to be about 35 years…."
All of the more recent examinations have in fact produced a much younger age than that for the mummy in KV 55. Science seems now to have agreed upon an age range of 20 – 26 for the KV 55 mummy. If that age 35 years were to be accepted, then everyone would be claiming that the KV 55 mummy is Akhenaten. Yet I believe that Nicholas Reeves is one of the few prominent Egyptologists who claims that the KV 55 mummy is Akhenaten.
All "recent excavations" as in what? I mean, what does "recent excavations" have to do with the determined age of an already found skeletal remain? Perhaps...literature telling us how old the individual was? If so, how do we know that this pertains to the specific specimen in question, not to mention labeling issues?...
From the aforementioned link I posted:
"How such confusion of the royal mummies could have arisen may be due to tomb-robbers having removed from the mummies the materials providing their names.
In some cases it is possible that only the original nomen, such as Thutmose or Amenhotep, both shared by several kings, was preserved, and the restorer mistakenly supplied the wrong prenomen, which was the throne name that distinguished one king from another. As these royal mummies, some deprived of their original identifications, were gathered together and moved from one hiding place to another, the possibility of confusion arose. We know that a number of tombs in the Valley of the Kings had served as temporary caches at one time or another before the final interments were made after the New Kingdom. There is also evidence that the restorations of the mummies took place at Ramesses III's mortuary temple of Medinet Habu, where according to Cyril Aldred the mummies may have been stored for some extended period of time.
One of the results of this reshuffling of the royal mummies, particularly as proposed in Scheme 3, is that the discrepancies in their estimated ages at death between the biologist and the historian become less extreme.
On the negative side, since the royal mummies are not as firmly identified as some have believed, their value to the biologist researching the inheritance of craniofacial characteristics over several generations is less than initially hoped for. However, with the exception of the Seti II mummy, the mummies of the Ramesside kings of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties do not present serious problems of attribution, so that one can be fairly confident about the mummies of Seti I, Ramesses II, and Merenptah."Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
The following 3 sites discuss KV55. The key passages about the age of the mummy in KV55 are set forth below. The majority view of Egyptologists today, with Nicholas Reeves being the most prominent exception, is that the mummy in KV55 (1) was a male, (2) who died between ages 20 – 26, and (3) who was Smenkhkare, not Akhenaten.
Your site is interesting in focusing on the mummy’s teeth, but most Egyptologists have not been convinced by that analysis. In fact, other studies cite the failure of the molar to erupt as indicating age 18 – 22.
There definitely is conflicting evidence here. But I myself go with the majority view of Egyptologists on this one.
Your site’s focus on the mummy’s teeth may have been one of the latest examinations of the KV55 mummy. But it has yet to convince most Egyptologists.
The jury is still out. But I continue to see the KV55 mummy as being Smenkhkare.
Finally, note the final sentence of site #3 below: “The recent discovery of a piece of gold foil bearing Smenkhkare's cartouche, stolen when the tomb was opened, would seem to confirm this.”
When G. E. Smith finally examined the remains, he immediately recognized them to be the bones of a man, thereby effectively refuting Davis's theory that the mummy was that of Tiye. All subsequent examinations of the remains have supported this conclusion. Aldred believes that the two doctors who had first inspected the body in KV 55 had probably mistaken it as female because the bones of the pelvic region had been dislocated and then obscured in some fashion by the remains of the bandages and other debris when the coffin had fallen. (AKoE, 199.)
Smith, who accepted Weigall's identification of the mummy as Akhenaten, reported that he had to reconstruct the skull, which had been broken into several sections, and he also noted that some of the bones were missing when the remains reached him in Cairo. He remarked that the large size and thinness of the cranium were pathological and indicated hydrocephalus, a conclusion which A. R. Ferguson of the Cairo School of Medicine supported, but which Douglas Derry rejected when he later examined the skull. Derry argued that the skull was platycephalic but non-pathological, and also noted its close similarity to the skull of Tutankhamen, whose mummy he had also examined. (ToT [vol. II], 153f.) Smith himself revised his opinion in 1924, and offered the alternative diagnosis of Frohlich's Syndrome as an explanation for peculiarities in the skull, and also for the condition of the epiphyseal closures which had originally caused him to estimate an age-at-death of 25-26 years for for the mummy. (Frohlich's Syndrome delays epiphyseal fusion, thereby obscuring the actual age of the person whose bones are being examined by causing them to appear younger than they actually are.)
Although Smith himself did not think the evidence in favor of his earlier age assignment was weighty enough to prevent identifying the mummy as the Heretic Pharaoh, others (who perhaps attached undue importance to interpretations of epiphyseal data and other anatomical dating methods) point out that Akhenaten had to have lived beyond 25-26 years, and so have looked elsewhere for the identity of the KV 55 mummy. Douglas Derry (ASAE 31 [1931], 115ff.) intensified doubts about the mummy's identification as Akhenaten by giving it an age estimate of 23 years, an estimate even younger than that originally provided by Smith. Thorough radiological examinations of the KV 55 mummy, conducted in 1963 by R. G. Harrison, A. Batrawi, and M. S. Mahmoud (JEA 52 [1966], 95-119) pushed the age-at-death estimate for the mummy to 20 years, much too short a span of life for Akhenaten but one quite consistent with the few known facts about Smenkhkare's brief life. The similarities between the skulls of the KV 55 mummy and Tutankhamen strengthened the argument that KV 55's mysterious occupant was the young man who many experts believe was Akhenaten's co-reagent and Tutankhamen's older brother.
Norman de Garis Davies had been the first to propose that the KV 55 mummy was Smenkhkare (cf. AKoE, 200,) a suggestion which was consistent with the mummy's age estimates as given by Smith (and, later, Derry). Harris and Weeks also favored identifying Smenkhkare as the KV 55 mummy, and state that their examination revealed the bones to be that of a young man with no signs of hydrocephalus or any other pathological condition that could complicate anatomical age estimates. (XRP, 143-149). Serological testing indicates a first-order (brother-to-brother or father-to-son) relationship between Tutankhamen and the KV 55 mummy (Nature 224 [1974], 325f.), and the balance of the medical evidence strongly suggests that Smenkhkare was the person found in KV 55. However, not everyone believes that the KV 55 mummy is that of Smenkhkare, the most notable dissenter to this view being C. N. Reeves, who has argued that "estimates of age at death based upon anatomical development are of quite doubtful reliability," (DRN, 49; see also Robbins in GM 45 [1981], 63ff.) Reeves contends that Akhenaten was the person found by Davis in KV 55.”
"Originally it was thought that the mummy was that of queen Tiye, but examination revealed that it was actually that of a young male. One theory says the mummy is actually of Akhenaten himself, but the mummy has been identified on the basis of partially erupted wisdom teeth of being of a person of a young age would seem to preclude this, although the wisdom tooth explanation is by no means a certain indication of age.
The most likely occupant of the coffin is the short lived Pharaoh Smenkhkare, who succeeded Akhenaten. Various other objects found in the tomb could indicate a hastily arranged burial with items from various sources gathered together. In the tomb there are objects inscribed for Amenhotep III, Tutankhamun, Akhenaten, and Tiye. The recent discovery of a piece of gold foil bearing Smenkhkare's cartouche, stolen when the tomb was opened, would seem to confirm this."
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The following 3 sites discuss KV55. The key passages about the age of the mummy in KV55 are set forth below. The majority view of Egyptologists today, with Nicholas Reeves being the most prominent exception, is that the mummy in KV55 (1) was a male, (2) who died between ages 20 – 26, and (3) who was Smenkhkare, not Akhenaten.
Your site is interesting in focusing on the mummy’s teeth, but most Egyptologists have not been convinced by that analysis. In fact, other studies cite the failure of the molar to erupt as indicating age 18 – 22.
Whoever or whatever gave you that idea?
From the link:
...comparison of the cephalograms and cluster analysis revealed that the mummy supposed to be that of Thutmose IV bore the closest resemblance in craniofacial morphology to the remains of Tutankhamun and the skeleton from KV 55, often considered to be Smenkhkare. In 1984 the nearly complete skeleton from KV 55 was reconstructed, and the jaw was remounted in its correct position. As a result of further examination, the age at death of this individual has been estimated to be about 35 years, and the facial skeleton is even more similar to Tutankhamun's than had previously been thought.
Ps - Ed Wente relies on Jim Harris, a bio-anthropologist/geneticist. Are these "Egyptologists" you talk about, bio-anthropologists?
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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1. Everyone agrees that the mummy in KV55 is very closely related to Tut's mummy.
2. People are well aware of the study of teeth you are referencing.
3. There are many other studies that have been done of the KV55 mummy.
4. The majority of people who have looked at all the studies have concluded that the mummy in KV55 only lived to age 20 - 26.
5. Plus, the surrounding evidence in KV55 is consistent with the mummy being Smenkhkare.
6. I agree that there is conflicting evidence here, including the study you cite.
At the end of the day, based on what's out there to date, most of us see the KV55 mummy as a male who died between ages 20 - 26, in which case Smenkhkare is the only known match. Nicholas Reeves is the most prominent person who goes with your view. It may or may not be relevant that most Amarna buffs don't care too much for Nicholas Reeves.
Until and unless new studies produce new hard evidence, I continue to go with the majority view on this one.
7. Why is this such an exciting issue to you? If the KV55 mummy is Akhenaten, what would that change? Certainly Akhenaten is closely related to Tut. Are you angling toward wanting to view "Smenkhkare" as being Nefertiti in drag, which is the view of Nicholas Reeves? If that's what you're driving at, then we do have hard evidence against that fantastic view. We have portrait after portrait of a young pharaoh, about age 21, who cannot stand up straight on his own two feet. Tut had 130 walking sticks in his tomb, yet Tut himself was very athletic and there was nothing wrong with his legs. Those walking sticks must have belonged to the 21-year-old male pharaoh who cannot stand up straight by himself, and who is always shown accompanied by his wife, usually in obvious fertility motifs, and with his wife often bustling around and being the active party, while he is sitting down or heavily leaning on a staff. There are no other images like that in 3,000 years of the history of ancient Egypt. It is impossible that all those portraits can be of Nefertiti in drag, or of Tut. No, those many portraits, and all those walking sticks, evidence Smenkhkare: a lame male who died at about age 23.
Even if you were right that the KV55 mummy is Akhenaten (and I do not agree that the KV55 mummy is Akhenaten), that would still not make "Smenkhkare" be Nefertiti in drag. There is no way that Nefertiti would constantly be portrayed in fertility motifs with her daughter Meritaten, where Nefertiti cannot stand unaided on her/his own two feet. No way!
quote:Originally posted by Jim Stinehart: Supercar:
1. Everyone agrees that the mummy in KV55 is very closely related to Tut's mummy.
2. People are well aware of the study of teeth you are referencing.
3. There are many other studies that have been done of the KV55 mummy.
blah, blah, blah....
I don't have time to address all these strawmen and red herrings, save for actual answers to the questions I posed to you. Do you have answers to the questions specifically asked?
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Let's look closely at the text portion that you posted.
1. "...comparison of the cephalograms and cluster analysis revealed that the mummy supposed to be that of Thutmose IV bore the closest resemblance in craniofacial morphology to the remains of Tutankhamun and the skeleton from KV 55, often considered to be Smenkhkare."
There's no real surprise that the mummy that's supposed to be Thutmose IV has similar craniofacial morphology to both the mummy that's supposed to be Smenkhkare, and to Tut. All the mummies in question are from the same family line.
A very different question is whether we should give much credence to the world's first attempt (the study you cite) to establish which mummies are which persons based on craniofacial morphology. There is no established track record for such a gambit.
The study you are touting itself gave three different scenarios for how to realign which mummies go with which Egyptian rulers. (My own views fit scenario #2 perfectly, and more or less fit scenario #3.)
There's little real excitement generated by the fact that the mummy that's supposed to be Thutmose IV has similar craniofacial morphology to both the mummy that's supposed to be Smenkhkare and to Tut. Everyone agrees that they're all in the same family line, so where's the excitement here?
2. "In 1984 the nearly complete skeleton from KV 55 was reconstructed, and the jaw was remounted in its correct position."
Yes, that's non-controversial, too.
3. [Part of the third sentence; the rest of the third sentence is at #4.] "As a result of further examination,…the facial skeleton is even more similar to Tutankhamun's than had previously been thought."
That's just #1 again. Virtually everyone agrees that the mummy in KV 55 is very similar to Tut's mummy. That is not new news. I fail to see the excitement in this innocuous sentence. I see it as being non-controversial.
Everyone had always known that the two mummies were "similar", and now we see that they are "even more similar…than had previously been thought". Virtually everyone sees the KV 55 mummy as being either the father, the full-brother, or the half-brother-and-blood-nephew, of Tut. On all of these various views, we would expect to see the facial skeletons of these two mummies as being very similar.
4. [Now finally to the only real controversy here, the rest of the third sentence.] "As a result of further examination, the age at death of this individual has been estimated to be about 35 years…."
Few people have been convinced by that particular argument. With the exception of this one study, all the other scientific studies of the KV 55 mummy in the last several decades have come up with an age of 20 – 26.
Indeed, for those people like Nicholas Reeves who argue that the KV 55 mummy is Akhenaten, the single biggest problem they have is the raft of scientific studies showing that the KV 55 mummy died between ages 20 – 26. Yes, there is the one study you cite, which gives a much older age. But why is your study so out of sync with all the other scientific studies? Why has your study failed to convince many people on this issue? The best that can be said for the view that the KV 55 mummy is Akhenaten is that the various scientific exams regarding age have been contradictory. In fact, your study is considered so unconvincing that proponents of the view that the KV 55 mummy is Akhenaten usually only cite your study to show that various scientific studies have come out with different results as to age. Other than the specific article you cite, I have never seen any Egyptologist rely heavily on your study as being determinative of the identity of the mummy in KV 55.
The study you cite as to the age of the KV 55 mummy is interesting, but has by no means proved convincing.
Summary
(a) Everyone agrees that the mummy in KV 55 is very similar to Tut's mummy. That's a no brainer.
(b) Most people do not agree that the mummy in KV 55 lived to age 35. Rather, most people see the mummy in KV 55 as having died between ages 20 and 26.
(c) The majority view today of experts in all different fields is that the KV 55 mummy is Smenkhkare, a male who died between ages 20 – 26. There is, however, a respectable minority view, headed by Nicholas Reeves, that (i) discounts the anatomical studies that show an age range of 20 – 26 for the KV 55 mummy, and (ii) sees the KV 55 mummy as being Akhenaten.
Perhaps I should add that the KV 55 mummy and its coffin are only routinely desecrated. Many of us think that the mummy of Akhenaten would have been atrociously desecrated by the Amen priests, in spectacular style.
posted
This entire thread exemplifies the fallacy of forming conclusions based upon total subjectivism; in this case, viewing Kemet from a patriarchal perspective - thus the erroneous emphasis on "the king choosing his successor..." And this subjectivism leads to "out in left field" statements such as
quote: If Kiya is from the Hurrian state on the upper Euphrates River, which is very likely, then Kiya's blood would be totally different than that of Queen Tiye. Moreover, Smenkhkare is born before Kiya gets to Egypt. And Tut is born right at the time Kiya gets to Egypt, if not slightly before Kiya arrives. But Kiya's first child, once she finally gets to Egypt about Year 10 of Akhenaten's reign, is a girl. So the timing just will not work for Kiya to be the birth mother of either Smenkhkare or Tut. Plus, if Kiya is a harem wife, why on earth would Queen Tiye have had warm feelings for Tut? Why would there be a locket of Queen Tiye's hair in Tut's tomb?
This ideology is simply a relic of "Imperial dogma" (IE, Africa is exempt from the laws which apply to all other human societies), and is why such nonsense is constantly repeated; therefore we can make things up about African history, However: --The laws of inheritance of power in a dynasty is fundamentally determined by the type of society in question; in a matriarchal society, it is determined by the female line, and in a patriarchal society, it is determine by the male line.
--Kemet was a matriarchal society! And unless there was a military coup or a foreign invasion, the ONLY way ANYONE could become the ruler, is that the individual must be descended from a ROYAL mother, who in turn, must be descended from the QUEEN MOTHER!
--A king whose mother was not related to this royal line, AND ESPECIALLY A FOREIGNER, would not be recognized as legitimate, both legally as well as culturally...
Also, it would be fantastic if the Egyptian authorities would allow a comprehensive DNA analysis of all the so-called royal mummies, but I fear that they fear unexpected and unwanted results...
Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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1. You wrote: "--Kemet was a matriarchal society! And unless there was a military coup or a foreign invasion, the ONLY way ANYONE could become the ruler, is that the individual must be descended from a ROYAL mother, who in turn, must be descended from the QUEEN MOTHER!"
Amenhotep III was not a descendant of a Queen Mother, but rather his mother was an undistinguished harem wife. Moreover, Amenhotep III did not marry a woman who was royal. No maternal ancestor of Amenhotep III's wife, Queen Tiye, was a Queen of Egypt. And no maternal ancestor of Amenhotep III's mother was a Queen of Egypt either.
Tut's mother was neither Queen Tiye (who was too old), or Nefertiti (who bore only 6 daughters), or a daughter of Akhenaten (who were too young). Tut's mother, Sitamen, was, however, the daughter of both a Queen Mother (Queen Tiye) and of a pharaoh (Amenhotep III), so Tut's mother was a royal. Tut also married the daughter of a pharaoh, who was also a daughter of a Queen Mother (Nefertiti).
Tut's successor, Aye, did not have a royal mother. Aye did marry, at least ceremonially, the daughter of a pharaoh, whose mother also had been Queen of Egypt.
Aye's successor, Horemhab, did not have a royal mother. Horemhab married the younger sister of a former Queen of Egypt, but Horemhab did not marry a pharaoh's daughter. Horemhab's wife was not a descendant of a Queen Mother.
Ironically enough, only Akhenaten and Smenkhkare, during the greater Amarna period, are sons of a Queen Mother (Queen Tiye). In addition, only Smenkhkare (not Akhenaten) married a pharaoh's daughter, whose mother was a Queen Mother (Nefertiti).
It is difficult to apply hard and fast rules to the foregoing successions. Throughout the 18th Dynasty, many pharaohs were not descendants of royalty on their maternal side, and did not marry a royal. The only "rule" that can be discerned in the 18th Dynasty is that most pharaohs either were a descendant of a previous pharaoh, or married a pharaoh's daughter. Horemhab does not quite fit that rule, yet Horemhab still seems to be a fairly typical pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty: a strong military man of non-royal ancestry who marries into the royal family.
These "unorthodox" successions in the 18th Dynasty were often a source of strength, rather than being a source of weakness, for the 18th Dynasty. In the 18th Dynasty, many pharaohs were selected in no small part on the basis of individual merit, rather than being selected exclusively, or even primarily, on the basis of their bloodlines. The bloodlines always mattered, yet bloodlines mattered less in 18th Dynasty successions than in most other monarchies the world has known.
Many people think it would have been more in keeping with the general spirit of the robust 18th Dynasty if Amenhotep III had picked as his successor a manly son of his by one of his many harem wives, instead of going with the guy with the best bloodline claim: Akhenaten. Amenhotep III was so popular, strong and rich that he could have gotten away with that. But Amenhotep III was one of those rare guys who was in love with his own main wife, and Amenhotep III couldn't bear the thought of undercutting his beloved wife's stature by selecting as his successor a man who was not a son of his wife, Queen Tiye. So Amenhotep III, albeit with great misgivings, went the straight bloodline route, giving the world Akhenaten as pharaoh. And the rest, as they say, is history.
2. You wrote: "--A king whose mother was not related to this royal line, AND ESPECIALLY A FOREIGNER, would not be recognized as legitimate, both legally as well as culturally..."
Everyone recognized Amenhotep III as being the legitimate pharaoh, even though his mother was a harem wife who was not related to the royal line by blood. (As a harem wife, of course she was related to the previous pharaoh by marriage.)
I agree with you that if Kiya is a foreign princess, from the Hurrian state of Midyaniy/Mitanni/Nahrima/Naharim on the upper Euphrates River, which is likely the case, that would make Kiya an unlikely candidate to be the mother of Tut, or of Smenkhkare, for that matter. Because the mummies of Tut and Smenkhkare are so very similar, they must either have the same mother, or Tut's mother must be the daughter of Smenkhkare's mother. So if Kiya were Tut's mother, then either Kiya, or Kiya's mother, would need to be Smenkhkare's mother. Clearly that is not the case. If Smenkhkare's mother were a mere harem wife, especially if she were a foreigner, there is no way that Akhenaten would have picked lame Smenkhkare, who could not stand up unaided on his own two feet, to be the husband of Akhenaten's beloved daughter Meritaten.
posted
You obviously cannot see the contradictions in your statements, but let us make it simple, forget Ancient Egypt for now... Choose ANY historical dynasty in history, matriarchal or patriarchal; Chinese, Japanese, the Windsor Dynasty in England and then provide us with examples of non-royal, harem type girls who were the mother of the king...
Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I think Wally is wrong for stating that dynastic Egypt was matriarchal, since the supreme seat of pharaoh was held by males and it was males in general who held many privileged areas in government...
However, he does have a point that Egyptian inheritance was quite different and 'unique' when compared to its contemporaries in the Near East in that Egyptian inheritance was not confined to patrilineage alone.
In terms of land ownership, land was passed from mother to daughter; many scholars think because paternity was always certain with the mother, but such a tradition is found in many other societies in Africa. In Egypt men commonly identified themselves by citing the names of their mothers more often than fathers, and in spiritual belief the heart which housed the soul was inherited from the mother.
With such customs in placed, it would not be surprising if inheritance to the throne also did not necessarily depend on the father or king but to the royal wife (queen).
The "heiress" theory was developed partially to explain the phenomenon, noted by Diodorus of Sicily, of brother-sister marriages in Egyptian royal family. This is a sensitive issue because it seems to imply an incestuous relationship. Some scholars believe that this was indeed the case and that royal marriages between brothers and sisters were consummated and children born. Others, however, have argued that the "marriage" was ceremonial and that there is no evidence of sexual relations between the queen and the pharaoh.
Certainly part of the problem from our standpoint is a proper understanding of what constituted "marriage" in Ancient Egypt and what was meant by the term "wife", or "husband." In surviving formal documents and texts there is no mention of any religious or legal ceremony by which a man's relationship with a woman was formalised in marriage in the modern sense of cohabitation and sexual relations. In fact, "to marry" seems to have meant little more than "to enter a household."
Records show that pharaohs had several "wives" of different standing within the royal bloodline. It would appear to be also the case that an heiress-queen could both be "married" to the pharaoh and also be married and have children with another man, a consort-king. The children of the pharaoh and his wives, and the children of heiress-queen and her consort-king, would all refer to the pharaoh as "father" and the heiress-queen as "mother." Evidence of this is the way that the pharaoh is always the "son" of his predecessor, even though there may be no physical link....
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1. You wrote: “With such [African] customs in placed, it would not be surprising if inheritance to the throne [of Egypt] also did not necessarily depend on the father or king but to the royal wife (queen).”
In the 18th Dynasty, a non-royal man, especially if he was a needed military hero, could become pharaoh by marrying into the royal family. But he usually married the pharaoh’s daughter. He did not marry the pharaoh’s wife, but he could, like Aye, marry the pharaoh’s widow.
2. Your source says: “The "heiress" theory was developed partially to explain the phenomenon, noted by Diodorus of Sicily, of brother-sister marriages in Egyptian royal family. This is a sensitive issue because it seems to imply an incestuous relationship. Some scholars believe that this was indeed the case and that royal marriages between brothers and sisters were consummated and children born. Others, however, have argued that the "marriage" was ceremonial and that there is no evidence of sexual relations between the queen and the pharaoh.”
Yes, Egyptologists tend to be very gentlemanly, without paying attention to the facts. Modern Egyptologists do not think father-daughter unions are appropriate, so they often opine that many, and perhaps all, of the times that a pharaoh married his own daughter, those marriages were simply “ceremonial”. It does not matter to Egyptologists how many children result from those “ceremonial” marriages, even if there is no other father in sight. Moses does not see father-daughter unions as being prohibited incest in Leviticus, and father-daughter unions were fairly common in the ancient world. When the female involved was of prime child-bearing age, and especially if children resulted, then to take the gentlemanly view that the marriage was merely “ceremonial” is silly.
True, Moses in Leviticus does prohibit a man from marrying either his full-sister or his half-sister. But since when do Egyptian pharaohs have to follow Mosaic law? The concept of “incest” is culture-specific, not universal. The one and only relationship universally considered incestuous is mother-son. Nothing else.
3. Your source says: “Certainly part of the problem from our standpoint is a proper understanding of what constituted "marriage" in Ancient Egypt and what was meant by the term "wife", or "husband." In surviving formal documents and texts there is no mention of any religious or legal ceremony by which a man's relationship with a woman was formalised in marriage in the modern sense of cohabitation and sexual relations. In fact, "to marry" seems to have meant little more than "to enter a household."”
Egyptians loved children. The primary reason for marriage in ancient Egypt was precisely in the context of bearing children. It was a horrible thing in the ancient world for a woman to be barren. In the ancient world, a woman desperately wanted to bear healthy sons, who would take care of her in her old age, after her husband was too old to work or had died.
Even the wife of a pharaoh had similar feelings. She might likely outlive her husband. In that case, it would be of crucial importance for her to have healthy sons, to make sure she would be taken care of in her old age.
Every woman in ancient Egypt wanted to bear a healthy son. It does not make sense to talk about Egyptian women who were marrying a man but who had no intention of trying to get pregnant by that man. That’s a very modern concept, unknown in the world (for a nubile woman) prior to a 100 years ago or so.
4. Your source says: “Records show that pharaohs had several "wives" of different standing within the royal bloodline. It would appear to be also the case that an heiress-queen could both be "married" to the pharaoh and also be married and have children with another man, a consort-king. The children of the pharaoh and his wives, and the children of heiress-queen and her consort-king, would all refer to the pharaoh as "father" and the heiress-queen as "mother." Evidence of this is the way that the pharaoh is always the "son" of his predecessor, even though there may be no physical link....”
I have never heard of such a thing. A woman would be married to the pharaoh. But that woman would not try to get pregnant by the pharaoh, but rather would openly try to get pregnant by another man?
Can you cite us an example of that? I have never heard of such a thing in Egypt, either in the royal household, or among nobles or commoners.
The nearest case we have to that, of which I have knowledge, is Meritaten. Meritaten was first married to her father, Akhenaten, the pharaoh. But then Akhenaten dissolved that marriage and had Meritaten marry Smenkhkare. But Smenkhkare himself was a pharaoh at that point, being Akhenaten’s junior co-regent. Meritaten never tried to get pregnant by any man who was not currently a pharaoh.
If you could site us which pharaoh or which pharaoh’s wife might exemplify such an unusual marriage arrangement, please do, and we’ll take a look at the specifics. I know of no such thing in the 18th Dynasty. To the best of my knowledge, every woman who ever married a pharaoh always hoped and prayed that pharaoh would sire at least one son, and hopefully many sons, by her. Ideally, one of those sons would become the next pharaoh. But even if that was highly unlikely for a lowly harem wife, nevertheless it was critical in the ancient world for a woman to have a son.
Today things are different. But in the ancient world, the #1 goal of women was to bear sons. That was a matter of life and death to women in the ancient world. Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel and Tamar were all desperate to bear sons. I see Egyptian women as feeling that same desperate imperative. An Egyptian female who was age 15 and not yet pregnant was very worried that she would end up being a barren old maid, which was not a nice status to be in the ancient world. Modern Westerners don’t think like that, but that’s the way it was in the ancient world.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Stinehart: Supercar:
Let's look closely at the text portion that you posted.
1. "...comparison of the cephalograms and cluster analysis revealed that the mummy supposed to be that of Thutmose IV bore the closest resemblance in craniofacial morphology to the remains of Tutankhamun and the skeleton from KV 55, often considered to be Smenkhkare."
...
I have dealt with people like Jim for years now on this board, and for him to come here, and act as if he is somehow able to pull off some cheap distractive antics and as though he is any more sophisticated than those past topic-drifters, a behavior which he quite simplistically thinks is one I would fall for, is nothing short of laughable.
Jim makes a rather bizzare claim that:
Your site is interesting in focusing on the mummy’s teeth,
...which according to him, had led the author in the link I had provided, to make a determination that the mummy from KV 55, was that of an individual who had died at about the age of 35 years old.
This of course raised a red flag, for I had found nowhere in the link, that the age was determined according to Jim's assessment. This prompted me to ask Jim the following question, for which a specific and coherent answer is still pending:
Whoever or whatever gave you that idea?
I asked the question above with the understanding, as I had provided earlier on, that the following was specifically stated about the mummy from KV 55:
From the link:
...comparison of the cephalograms and cluster analysis revealed that the mummy supposed to be that of Thutmose IV bore the closest resemblance in craniofacial morphology to the remains of Tutankhamun and the skeleton from KV 55, often considered to be Smenkhkare. In 1984 the nearly complete skeleton from KV 55 was reconstructed, and the jaw was remounted in its correct position. As a result of further examination, the age at death of this individual has been estimated to be about 35 years, and the facial skeleton is even more similar to Tutankhamun's than had previously been thought.
Jim doesn't tell us wherein the above, it is stated that the age of the specimen was determined from "focusing" on its "teeth". Moreover, I probed Jim further, and you guessed it...still no answer from him, other than the usual strawmen:
Ed Wente relies on Jim Harris, a bio-anthropologist/geneticist. Are these "Egyptologists" you talk about, bio-anthropologists?
Before relying on logical fallacies under the pretext of "most Egyptologists have not been convinced by that analysis", concerning the age attributed to this skeleton from KV 55, these questions have to be addressed by Jim and not dodged; these would put to test the credibility of his intepretations of what is stated in the link. Fabricating arguments and attributing them to me, is something that doesn't interest me at this point; they are mere diversions that will surely not get him anywhere. The answers to these questions, will allow us to logically pursue the conclusion to the issue he raised, and as I have highlighted herein again.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: I think Wally is wrong for stating that dynastic Egypt was matriarchal, since the supreme seat of pharaoh was held by males and it was males in general who held many privileged areas in government...
(sigh...) We are not dealing here with mere simplistic dictionary terms, but with a complex ideological system...
The Kememou's strong reverence for their ancestors and the **female's unquestioned link to them led to the Satut Kemé (Women of Black) being esteemed within Kemetian society. This led to, among other things, the matrilineal descent to the throne - by legitimate ancestral descent from the southern or Upper Egyptian royal line (via Isis/Osiris). It would therefore, be both extremely unusual and unlikely that a king would be descended from a non-royal native woman and even moreso from a foreign one!
A) Your "surname" In the Kemetian matriarchy (which, incidentally does NOT mean absolute rule by women!), the offspring belonged to their mother's clan or line. (IE, if your mother's clan name was "Smith," you would belong to the "Smith" clan and not that of your father's.)
B) The Bride Price In the Kemetian matriarchy, it was the groom who paid the dowry. It was called 'Shep en Shimé' or "payment for a wife."
C) Equal rights to education Both boys and girls were able to receive a formal education. For example, there were female as well as male scribes...
D) Wife's Equal Status with the husband --Neb per (Neb pr): "Lord of the house;" the husband --Nebé per (Nebt pr): "Lady of the house;" the wife --Nebé ta Himé (Nebt t3 Hmt): "Lady, The Wife;" a title of status; i.e., the main wife and definitely not a concubine!
E) Some important rights of the Satut Kemé; guaranteed by Law --the right to own land and property --the right of inheritance --the right to engage in commerce and business
Note: The Satut Kemé were very active as produce merchants. Compare this to the Market Women of modern West Africa, especially Ghana.
You can also gain a better understanding of the African Matriarchal/Matrilineal System by reading some cultural anthropological studies of various African ethnic groups who still use this traditional system, the Akan of Ghana for example...
----
**based upon the logic that it is the mother's baby and the father's maybe...
Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
...and besides, the lineage of the 18th dynasty, to my knowledge, is probably the most complete and well known in the history of Kemet:
We know that the original Queen-Mother of the 18th dynasty was Tetisheri, wife of Skenenre Tau I and mother of the Skenenres from the Tau clan (from Upper Egypt/Sudan that liberated Kemet from the Hyksos invasion) and all subsequent members of this family dynasty are her direct descendants (remember: royal ascent to the throne is through the female line); at least up until the military coup d'tat staged by Horemhab, who then established a different family dynasty that we now refer to as the Ramassid or 19th dynasty, from the Delta, but whose kings would later marry royal women from, again, Upper Egypt/Sudan to establish the legitimacy of a military coup...
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1. Jim Harris’ interest in the mummies was because of their teeth, specifically, the question of whether, and to what extent, “malocclusion” was inherited down through the generations. From your site:
“Jim Harris' involvement with the royal mummies in the Cairo Museum was an outgrowth of extensive research conducted by Michigan-Alexandria on the craniofacial morphology of both the ancient and modern populations in Nubia before the completion of the High Dam. As a geneticist and physical anthropologist, his interest was in the hereditary factors affecting malocclusion, and in the years following the creation of Lake Nasser he has frequently returned to continue his research on the Nubian population that was resettled at Kom Ombo, north of Assuan.”
To repeat: “his interest was in the hereditary factors affecting malocclusion”.
we find out the following useful information about “cephalometric x-rays” and what types of things they are used to check out.
“Cephalometric x-rays are special x-rays of the face which allow two dimentional measurement of the bone and soft tissues.”
One item (among many) that cephalometric x-rays help study is: “A small mandible (lower jaw bone) or maxilla (upper jaw bone) with or without an abnormal ‘bite’ occlusion”
Of course, Jim Harris is not looking exclusively at the mummies’ teeth, narrowly defined, but he is looking at that part of the mummies’ bodies that include the teeth and all the various bones that are in and around the jaw. Jim Harris is looking at the mummies’ “chewing mechanism”: their teeth, their jaw, and everything in that part of the mummies’ faces.
3. Your site continues, as always focusing on teeth and related issues:
“To Jim, researching the etiology of malocclusion and the inheritance of craniofacial characteristics, the mummies of the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were a potential gold mine, because here one should be able to discern changes in facial features from father to son over many generations, something that would be almost impossible to do elsewhere unless one were to exhume deceased members of European royal families. An investigation into the royal mummies had also a practical aim - a better understanding of craniofacial growth and development that could benefit orthodontists in treating patients.”
Of course, “orthodontists” straighten out crooked teeth, and correct “malocclusion”.
In a word, Harris was looking at the teeth, jaws, and all the related bones in that part of the faces of the mummies.
4. Supercar, let me now cite a typical Egyptologist’s reference to Jim Harris’s work, which is a fairly positive reference, but which refers to “dentition”, that is, a study of teeth.
“In recent years, …[c]laims [have been made] that the dentition [of the mummy in KV55] suggests an age in the middle 30s….” The footnote reference to this sentence says “Hussien and Harris, 1988”. Barbara Watterson, “Amarna” (1999), at p. 120.
5. So Egyptologists are well aware that the study by Jim Harris of the mummies’ teeth, jaw and related facial bones suggested that the KV55 mummy may have lived to about age 35.
Yet as I mentioned, most of the other scientific studies show the KV55 mummy to have been a male who died between ages 20 – 26.
6. Jim Harris’ examination of the KV55 mummy focused on the mummy’s teeth, jaw, and related facial bones. Most other examinations have focused on other aspects of the KV55 mummy’s anatomy. Those other examinations came up with different, and much lower, estimates of the mummy’s age.
7. There’s nothing wrong with looking at the teeth of the KV55 mummy, and reporting one’s findings. I very much enjoyed reading that article. In fact, I am a little surprised that Egyptologists have not paid more attention to it than they have. But in fact there are many other, different, equally scientific studies that have been done to other parts of the anatomy of the KV55 mummy, which suggest an age of 20 – 26 at death.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Stinehart: Supercar:
1. Jim Harris’ interest in the mummies was because of their teeth, specifically, the question of whether, and to what extent, “malocclusion” was inherited down through the generations. From your site:
“Jim Harris' involvement with the royal mummies in the Cairo Museum was an outgrowth of extensive research conducted by Michigan-Alexandria on the craniofacial morphology of both the ancient and modern populations in Nubia before the completion of the High Dam. As a geneticist and physical anthropologist, his interest was in the hereditary factors affecting malocclusion, and in the years following the creation of Lake Nasser he has frequently returned to continue his research on the Nubian population that was resettled at Kom Ombo, north of Assuan.”
Wrong answer. Try again, very hard, not to dodge the questions that were actually asked, only then to reply to some imaginary question(s)!
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Why do you keep asking me questions about an article that you cited? You're the one who's interested in the KV 55 mummy's teeth, not me.
I myself am excited to talk about Smenkhkare being lame. That's how we can figure out what happened at Amarna.
I'll let you be the expert on the KV 55 mummy's teeth. Why on earth do you, or anyone else, care what Jim Stinehart thinks about the KV 55 mummy's teeth?
1. Egyptologists are well aware of Jim Harris' work.
2. Egyptologists have not found Jim Harris' study very convincing as to the question of the age of the KV 55 mummy, given the raft of other scientific studies which have come up with lower ages for the KV 55 mummy.
3. Who the heck cares if Jim Stinehart has "misunderstood" what that Jim Harris article says? I ain't no dentist, that's for sure.
So if you want to insist that Jim Stinehart has "misunderstood" the Jim Harris article, that's fine. It doesn't change anything. The Jim Harris article has failed to convince Egyptologists. That's what counts.
Nobody wants to hear what Jim Stinehart has to say about the KV 55 mummy's teeth, because I have no dental expertise. But I can look at all those Amarna images of a lame, young, male pharaoh. That's what I'm interested in.
If you don't mind, I am not going to post further about the KV 55 mummy's teeth. If I have "misunderstood" that Jim Harris article you cite, then fine. It doesn't make any difference anyway, since the entire Egyptology profession is well aware of Jim Harris' study of the mummies' teeth, and the majority view of professional Egyptologists remains that the KV 55 mummy is Smenkhkare, a male pharaoh who lived to age 20 -26.
I myself go with the majority view of Egyptologists on this particular issue, and it matters not whether I have "misunderstood" your Jim Harris article or not, or whether you think I have "dodged" whatever questions you may be asking about that article.
Smenkhkare was a lame, male pharaoh who died in his early 20s. We know that from all those images I have cited. That is one of the key facts about Amarna, regardless of who the KV 55 mummy may be.
Smenkhkare's lameness is what is the important issue concerning Amarna, in my humble opinion, not anything about the teeth of the KV 55 mummy.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Stinehart: Supercar:
Why do you keep asking me questions about an article that you cited? You're the one who's interested in the KV 55 mummy's teeth, not me.
...because that is "THE" article to which you attributed "your" claim, which I had questioned and still questions, but no answers from you to date. I know it is very difficult to do, but try very hard in your next irrelevant rant, not to dodge my earlier questions to you. Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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If I remember correctly, Harris and Wente studied craniofacial morphology in its entirety; not just the teeth.
quote:Jim Stinehart posted: Of course, “orthodontists” straighten out crooked teeth, and correct “malocclusion”.
LOL Of course "malocclusion" or more commonly "buckteeth" is the label placed on the feature of Tut and many other 18th dynasty members as their 'distinguishing attribute'. Then again, such a trait is pretty common to many East Africans where it is called alveolar prognathism.
quote:I myself am excited to talk about Smenkhkare being lame. That's how we can figure out what happened at Amarna.
LOL Well however exhilerating it is for you, we are not moved at all by anything other than actual studies done to best determine familiar relations within the dynasty.
Frankly your comments about Super focusing on 'teeth' sounds, well... lame.
Posts: 26286 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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1. What specific questions does Supercar want me to answer?
2. Why does Supercar keep on asking me questions about an article that he cited? I have never claimed, or implied, that I had any particular knowledge about the article that Supercar cited. I have said several times that I liked the article that Supercar cited.
3. What questions am I "dodging"? I can't even figure out what questions I am accused of dodging.
4. I am well aware that the Jim Harris study that Supercar cited involves not only the mummies' teeth, narrowly defined, but also all bones in the face in the vicinity of the teeth, including in particular the jaw, and whether, and to what extent, there is an overbite. Is Supercar upset because he thinks I implied otherwise?
5. I have no expertise in this area, I have never claimed to have any expertise in this area, and I cannot for the life of me understand why Supercar keeps on asking me questions about an article that he cited, and as to which I have said many times I have no expertise.
Perhaps you and Supercar can talk about the mummies' teeth and jaws, and leave me out of it. You seem to have some knowldege of this subject. I don't. On the other hand, if anyone wants to talk about the implications of Smenkhkare being lame, that's were the pulsating excitement of Amarna comes in, from my point of view.
I am normally accused of (1) posting too much and (2) being dead wrong. Whenever anyone asks me a question about Amarna or the Patriarchal narratives, I always try to answer it. This is the first time I have ever been repeatedly accused of "dodging" questions.
1. What specific questions does Supercar want me to answer?
So, you are now ready to actually answer the questions, rather than dodging them? If so, then you are in good company...by addressing the following, posted for days now:
Jim makes a rather bizzare claim that:
Your site is interesting in focusing on the mummy’s teeth,
...which according to him, had led the author in the link I had provided, to make a determination that the mummy from KV 55, was that of an individual who had died at about the age of 35 years old.
This of course raised a red flag, for I had found nowhere in the link, that the age was determined according to Jim's assessment. This prompted me to ask Jim the following question, for which a specific and coherent answer is still pending:
Whoever or whatever gave you that idea?
I asked the question above with the understanding, as I had provided earlier on, that the following was specifically stated about the mummy from KV 55:
From the link:
...comparison of the cephalograms and cluster analysis revealed that the mummy supposed to be that of Thutmose IV bore the closest resemblance in craniofacial morphology to the remains of Tutankhamun and the skeleton from KV 55, often considered to be Smenkhkare. In 1984 the nearly complete skeleton from KV 55 was reconstructed, and the jaw was remounted in its correct position. As a result of further examination, the age at death of this individual has been estimated to be about 35 years, and the facial skeleton is even more similar to Tutankhamun's than had previously been thought.
Jim doesn't tell us wherein the above, it is stated that the age of the specimen was determined from "focusing" on its "teeth". Moreover, I probed Jim further, and you guessed it...still no answer from him, other than the usual strawmen:
Ed Wente relies on James Harris, a bio-anthropologist/geneticist. Are these "Egyptologists" you talk about, bio-anthropologists?
Before relying on logical fallacies under the pretext of "most Egyptologists have not been convinced by that analysis", concerning the age attributed to this skeleton from KV 55, these questions have to be addressed by Jim and not dodged; these would put to test the credibility of his intepretations of what is stated in the link. Fabricating arguments and attributing them to me, is something that doesn't interest me at this point; they are mere diversions that will surely not get him anywhere. The answers to these questions, will allow us to logically pursue the conclusion to the issue he raised, and as I have highlighted herein again.
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1. Jim Harris' study was of the teeth, jaws, and facial bones of the 18th Dynasty mummies.
2. Other studies, but not Jim Harris' study, have examined other aspects of the anatomy of the mummies.
3. Jim Harris was hoping to find out how overbites are passed down genetically over several generations. Jim Harris was hoping to find practical knowledge to help 21st century AD dentists/orthodontists in the West. Jim Harris' focus was malocclusion, namely, overbite.
4. If you're not interested in the subject of the overbites of the 18th Dynasty mummies, then there's nothing in that article you cited that will be of great interest. Yes, there is one sentence that states, correctly, that the full skeleton of the KV 55 mummy has been reconstructed, but that very same sentence says that such reconstruction was important because it allowed a proper analysis of the mummy's jaw, i.e., a proper analysis of the mummy's overbite. There is also one sentence that estimates the age of the KV 55 mummy as being age 35, but that was not the focus of Jim Harris' study, and the article cites nothing to back up that assertion, an assertion which is inconsistent with the other scientific studies that have been done of the mummies.
The article you cited focuses on overbites of the 18th Dynasty mummies.
To the best of my knowledge, I am not "dodging" any questions. I myself know precious little about overbites of 18th Dynasty people (a subject of which Djehuti may have some independent knowledge), but I do know that that was precisely the focus of Jim Harris' study.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Stinehart: [QB] Supercar:
1. Jim Harris' study was of the teeth, jaws, and facial bones of the 18th Dynasty mummies.
2. Other studies, but not Jim Harris' study, have examined other aspects of the anatomy of the mummies...
For all the effort you put into this response, not one single bit of it has yet addressed the specific questions I presented to you. Try again, and better luck this time around. Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Supercar, how about giving Jim a little "help" in understanding what you mean and to what questions you addressed.
Posts: 26286 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Supercar, how about giving Jim a little "help" in understanding what you mean and to what questions you addressed.
Already, you're right that this drilling has gone long enough unanswered. Hence, I'll cut to the chase; as I had presented earlier:
Jim makes a rather claim that:
quote:Posted by Jim:
Your site is interesting in focusing on the mummy’s teeth,
...which according to him, had led the author in the link I had provided, to make a determination that the mummy from KV 55, was that of an individual who had died at about the age of 35 years old.
This of course raised a red flag, for I had found nowhere in the link, that the age was determined according to Jim's assessment. This prompted me to ask Jim the following question, for which a specific and coherent answer is still pending:
Whoever or whatever gave you that idea?
I asked the question above with the understanding, as I had provided earlier on, that the following was specifically stated about the mummy from KV 55:
From the link:
...comparison of the cephalograms and cluster analysis revealed that the mummy supposed to be that of Thutmose IV bore the closest resemblance in craniofacial morphology to the remains of Tutankhamun and the skeleton from KV 55, often considered to be Smenkhkare. In 1984 the nearly complete skeleton from KV 55 was reconstructed, and the jaw was remounted in its correct position. As a result of further examination, the age at death of this individual has been estimated to be about 35 years, and the facial skeleton is even more similar to Tutankhamun's than had previously been thought.
Jim doesn't tell us wherein the above, it is stated that the age of the specimen was determined from "focusing" on its "teeth". Moreover, I probed Jim further, and you guessed it...still no answer from him, other than the usual strawmen:
Ed Wente relies on James Harris, a bio-anthropologist/geneticist. Are these "Egyptologists" you talk about, bio-anthropologists?
The Deal:
Jim tells us that the article I cited was focusing on the KV 55 mummy's teeth, so as to reach the conclusion that the remain is estimated to be that of an individual who died at an age of about 35 years. I followed Jim's comment with some questions, as demonstrated above, because as I said, as far as the KV 55 mummy is concerned, it is mentioned nowhere in the cited link, that the age of this mummy was specifically determined from 'focusing' on its 'teeth', or which parts of the remain had been analyzed for that matter, so as to come to that conclusion. Nor does it even state therein the citation, that this was determined by James Harris.
Now, even if Jim's claims were true, his notion that the age mentioned in the link for the KV 55 mummy couldn't be valid, simply on the account that "many" Egyptologists supposedly "disagree" with it, doesn't hold water. This prompted me to bring to attention, Ed Wente's partnership with bio-anthropologist/geneticist James Harris. If the so-called "many Egyptologists" disagree with the age of 35, the question becomes, how many of these "Egyptologists" are bio-anthropologists, and have actually conducted tests on these mummies. Even then, how does their methods become any more valid than the analysis which determined the KV 55 mummy to be that of a 35 year old individual. These are questions that Jim needs to bear in mind. However, Jim was too busy arguing that this mummy must have been that of Smenkhkare vs. presumably, Akhenaten, such that my actual questions caught deff ears, just to make the point that this mummy would have been younger, and therefore, has to be that of Smenkhkare. He was so caught up in making in this case, that he even tried to artificially pull me into his argument about the KV 55 mummy being Smenkhkare vs. Akhenaten, by attributing claims to me, which I had not made. The link I cited, provided a set of scientific possibilities based on examinations of crania of several royal mummies, not a single possibility. It also underlies uncertainties that have followed as a result of years of tempering with mummies throughout history, whereby even the labels of some mummies appear to have been misplaced. Hope this helps.
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Yes, it seems Jim is caught up in and miseled by his so-called theories that he cannot see the big picture, let alone questions which validate whether his notions are true.
1. You wrote: “I had found nowhere in the link, that the age was determined according to Jim's assessment. This prompted me to ask Jim the following question, for which a specific and coherent answer is still pending:
Whoever or whatever gave you that idea?”
Jim Harris studied the teeth, jaws, and related facial bones of 18th Dynasty mummies. Jim Harris has no expertise outside of that narrow area. Jim Harris is interested in, and knowledgeable about: modern Western dentistry, modern Western orthodontists, malocclusion, overbites, and closely related topics.
Jim Harris has no expertise in determining a skeleton’s age other than by examining the skeleton’s teeth, jaw, and facial bones.
2. This can be seen from examining the sentences you have posted repeatedly from the article you cited:
(a) “...comparison of the cephalograms….
Cephalograms are used by dentists to look at a person’s teeth, jaw, and overbite.
(b) “and cluster analysis revealed that the mummy supposed to be that of Thutmose IV bore the closest resemblance in craniofacial morphology to the remains of Tutankhamun and the skeleton from KV 55, often considered to be Smenkhkare.”
The teeth, jaw and overbite of Tut’s mummy are similar to the teeth, jaw and overbite of the KV 55 mummy.
Everyone agrees with that. No one disputes that. There is no controversy in that regard. That sentence is like kissing your sister: there’s nothing wrong with it, but it has zero excitement.
(c) “ In 1984 the nearly complete skeleton from KV 55 was reconstructed, and the jaw was remounted in its correct position.”
This is the sentence you have misinterpreted. This sentence does not say that Jim Harris examined the entire skeleton. No, the reconstruction of the KV 55 mummy skeleton simply allowed Jim Harris to examine the jaw of that mummy in its correct position.
Jim Harris is only interested in overbite issues, broadly construed, nothing else. To examine the overbite of the KV 55 mummy, it was important that “the jaw was remounted in its correct position.”
(d) “As a result of further examination, the age at death of this individual has been estimated to be about 35 years….”
There is no statement there that Jim Harris examined other parts of the skeleton except the jaw and related areas of the mummy’s face. Jim Harris has no expertise in determining a person’s age based on factors unrelated to the person’s teeth, jaw, and facial bones.
(e) “and the facial skeleton is even more similar to Tutankhamun's than had previously been thought.’
Everyone agrees that the facial skeleton of Tut’s mummy is very similar to the facial skeleton of the KV 55 mummy. Maybe Jim Harris advanced things a little bit by showing that it was “even more similar…than had previously been thought”. But none of this is new news. Everyone interested in Amarna has known this for many years. No one disputes it. There are oodles and oodles of disputed issues regarding Amarna. One of the very few issues that is not disputed is that the KV 55 mummy closely resembles Tut’s mummy.
There is nothing wrong in repeating this received wisdom, but all the Amarna buffs already knew it.
3. You wrote: “Ed Wente relies on James Harris, a bio-anthropologist/geneticist. Are these "Egyptologists" you talk about, bio-anthropologists?”
I cited the raft of scientific studies mentioned by Frederick Giles.
4. I am not “dodging” your questions. Jim Harris studied the overbites of the 18th Dynasty mummies.
Egyptologists have looked at the bevy of scientific studies that have been done concerning the age of the KV 55 mummy. Most such studies, unlike Jim Harris’ study, have shown an age at death of 20 – 26.
Not a single Egyptologist has chosen to rely solely, or even mainly, on Jim Harris’ study of overbites. Egyptologists look at all the scientific tests that have been done.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Stinehart: Supercar:
1. You wrote: “I had found nowhere in the link, that the age was determined according to Jim's assessment. This prompted me to ask Jim the following question, for which a specific and coherent answer is still pending:
Whoever or whatever gave you that idea?”
Jim Harris studied the teeth, jaws, and related facial bones of 18th Dynasty mummies. Jim Harris has no expertise outside of that narrow area. Jim Harris is interested in, and knowledgeable about: modern Western dentistry, modern Western orthodontists, malocclusion, overbites, and closely related topics.
See Djehuti; this is the reason I did not even bother to further clarify my questions. The guy has no clue about what he's talking about, much less do the simple thing as answering the questions that were asked. See for yourself, whether this answers the question Jim purports to be answering.
quote:Jim Stinehart:
Jim Harris has no expertise in determining a skeleton’s age other than by examining the skeleton’s teeth, jaw, and facial bones.
The least you can do, is to stay consistent with your earlier comment in claiming that James Harris determined the age of the mummy, presumably by "focusing" on its "teeth". Another example of your not knowing what you're talking about.
Do you know what a "geneticist" means? I am not sure you do, because if you did, you'd know that your remark is well,...a load of you know what... comes from a person's behind.
quote: 2. This can be seen from examining the sentences you have posted repeatedly from the article you cited:
(a) “...comparison of the cephalograms….
Cephalograms are used by dentists to look at a person’s teeth, jaw, and overbite.
(b) “and cluster analysis revealed that the mummy supposed to be that of Thutmose IV bore the closest resemblance in craniofacial morphology to the remains of Tutankhamun and the skeleton from KV 55, often considered to be Smenkhkare.”
Jim, calm down with the nonsense; the article clearly talks about "cranial" analysis, to gauge the relatedness of the royal mummies in question, and how they fit in the puzzle of who is who, and how they relate to one another. This has no bearings on what was said about the age of KV 55 mummy, which even after showing countless times, you still cannot figure out that you are misreading the article. Plus, as a piece of advice, you might want to be able to distinguish the term "Crania" from its member parts, like teeth, alveolar, etc.
quote:Jim Stinehart:
The teeth, jaw and overbite of Tut’s mummy are similar to the teeth, jaw and overbite of the KV 55 mummy.
Everyone agrees with that. No one disputes that. There is no controversy in that regard. That sentence is like kissing your sister: there’s nothing wrong with it, but it has zero excitement.
One term for the above: red herring [as with much of you replies].
quote:Jim Stinehart:
(c) “ In 1984 the nearly complete skeleton from KV 55 was reconstructed, and the jaw was remounted in its correct position.”
This is the sentence you have misinterpreted. This sentence does not say that Jim Harris examined the entire skeleton. No, the reconstruction of the KV 55 mummy skeleton simply allowed Jim Harris to examine the jaw of that mummy in its correct position.
You are one funny character, you know that don't you? You are essentially parroting here what I had accused you of; but just be sure, please refer to my comments that you were supposed to be replying to but still not addressing. Then, tell me what it charges you with, and what it says about both the KV 55 mummy and James Harris' involvement; only then, you'll realize just how ridiculous you're appearing at this very momment.
quote:Jim Stinehart:
Jim Harris is only interested in overbite issues, broadly construed, nothing else. To examine the overbite of the KV 55 mummy, it was important that “the jaw was remounted in its correct position.”
You are now misinterpreting the entire purpose of article presented in the link I had cited; it can only be either willful illiteracy, or you are just incapable of reading the article. I believe it is a mixture of both.
quote:Jim Stinehar:
(d) “As a result of further examination, the age at death of this individual has been estimated to be about 35 years….”
There is no statement there that Jim Harris examined other parts of the skeleton except the jaw and related areas of the mummy’s face.
I am glad that after futile efforts my part, you have made 'a' step towards seeing that "James Harris" is not mentioned in the statement, which tells us that the rest of your statement is well,...lacking any semblance of rationality.
quote:Jim Stinehart:
Jim Harris has no expertise in determining a person’s age based on factors unrelated to the person’s teeth, jaw, and facial bones.
See my earlier post about this intellectually bankrupt claim of that you keep mindlessly repeating, i.e. if you can spot it above.
quote:Jim Stinehart:
Everyone agrees that the facial skeleton of Tut’s mummy is very similar to the facial skeleton of the KV 55 mummy. Maybe Jim Harris advanced things a little bit by showing that it was “even more similar…than had previously been thought”. But none of this is new news. Everyone interested in Amarna has known this for many years. No one disputes it. There are oodles and oodles of disputed issues regarding Amarna. One of the very few issues that is not disputed is that the KV 55 mummy closely resembles Tut’s mummy.
I'll give you one thing: you are very talented in producing hot air and/ red herrings; but now, how about not dodging my real questions/concerns?
quote:Jim Stinehart:
3. You wrote: “Ed Wente relies on James Harris, a bio-anthropologist/geneticist. Are these "Egyptologists" you talk about, bio-anthropologists?”
I cited the raft of scientific studies mentioned by Frederick Giles.
Is this fellow a bio-anthropologist? If so, if we were to assume your claims about the validity of the age [35 years] attributed to the mummy from KV 55 is reasonable, how does the methods conducted by the said individual, become any more valid than the method utilized to determined the aforementioned age for the KV 55 mummy? Gives us the details on this, because once again, we are not provided those details in the citation [from the link] I had provided, which as I have continued to demonstrate, you are still incapable of reading.
quote:Jim Stinehart:
4. I am not “dodging” your questions.
Of course you are. You haven't directly or relevantly answered any of my questions, as I have just demonstrated.
quote: Jim Stinehart:
Jim Harris studied the overbites of the 18th Dynasty mummies.
Egyptologists have looked at the bevy of scientific studies that have been done concerning the age of the KV 55 mummy. Most such studies, unlike Jim Harris’ study, have shown an age at death of 20 – 26.
Not a single Egyptologist has chosen to rely solely, or even mainly, on Jim Harris’ study of overbites. Egyptologists look at all the scientific tests that have been done.
Jim Stinehart
Tell us when you are ready to get over red herrings, and addressing the real issues at hand.
-------------------- Truth - a liar penetrating device! Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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You can't argue with someone who refuses to address certain questions properly.
Posts: 26286 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Yes, it seems Jim is caught up in and miseled by his so-called theories that he cannot see the big picture, let alone questions which validate whether his notions are true.
Djehuti, Will you please quit doing that? Using my fantasy gallery page made for readers of my NOVEL about Prince Tut. The site is about a Novel, not a scholarly tract. A Novel! that means 'Fiction'! I see you also borrowed a picture from my pages to post on this forum.
You should know that I have spent 40 years researching this novel. But, as I do not have any degree in Egyptology or archaeology, I cannot and do not claim to be an authority.
I do agree with Most of what Jim Stinehart has to say about Tut's parentage, the major exception: the death in childbirth of Sitamen.
She did go by another name during the time Akhenaten outlawed the use of 'Amen'.
I recognize the arguments he has used and the references, and feel he has answered most of your silly questions, and feel he has come to the same conclusions on his own. Others share this opinion, believe it or not.
So, you see he does not use MY theory about what happened over 3,300 years ago in Ancient Egypt, nor has he used any reference or link to my site that I have so far seen.
I do not appreciate your disparagement. Other real Egyptologists do not share your low opinions of My theory, or of Jim's.
René O'Deay
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^^I'm sorry Rene, but the problem is most Egyptologists don't even about many things in Egyptology in general, let alone the lineages of most royals.
Right now Hawass and others say that Tut's father was Akhenaton and his mother was Kiya.
If you have a problem with that, take it up with them.
Posts: 26286 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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The objective evidence is strongly against the ever-popular view that Akhenaten was Tut's father and Kiya was Tut's mother.
1. If Akhenaten had a son by a fine harem wife in good standing, then why would Akhenaten have chosen as his junior co-regent, successor, and husband of his beloved daughter Meritaten, a guy like Smenkhkare who was lame? Does that make sense? Smenkhkare cannot stand unaided on his own two feet, but Akhenaten prefers him to Akhenaten's own son? That does not make sense. Smenkhkare is too old to be Akhenaten's son. The evidence is very strong that Akhenaten never sired a son who lived. Tut was not Akhenaten's son.
2. Why are Kiya's images desecrated more consistently than any other figure from Amarna? It must have been Akhenaten himself who gouged out Kiya's eyes in almost all of her images. Yet Tut is always very close to Akhenaten, insisting on being buried wearing Akhenaten's skullcap. Why would Tut like Akhenaten, if Akhenaten had disgraced Tut's birth mother Kiya? That does not make any sense. Kiya was not Tut's birth mother.
3. If we look at the objective evidence, and focus on the fact that Smenkhkare was lame, the answer to this longstanding puzzle becomes clear. Smenkhkare must have had an impeccable bloodline claim to the throne, better than Tut's, or else there's no way that that lame guy would have been picked to marry Meritaten and succeed Akhenaten. Smenkhkare is too old to be Akhenaten's son, so the closest to Akhenaten he can be is full-brother. Tut cannot be Akhenaten's full-brother, because Akhenaten's mother, Queen Tiye, was too old to bear Tut. So Tut is Akhenaten's half-brother on Tut's paternal side, while being Akhenaten's nephew on Tut's maternal side, as Tut's birth mother is Sitamen, the daughter of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. All the ages match perfectly, and all the bloodlines match perfectly, only on that scenario.
4. If people would focus on the key fact that Smenkhkare was a lame male who died at about age 23, and use common sense, the answer to Tut's lineage would become clear.
5. Tut's overbite and facial bones are very, very similar to Smenkhkare's because they were virtually full-brothers, having the same father, and Tut's mother was the daughter of Smenkhkare's mother. On the minority view that the KV 55 is 35-year-old Akhenaten, rather than being 23-year-old Smenkhkare, the same analysis would still apply, as Akhenaten and Smenkhkare were full-brothers, so Akhenaten bears the same close relationship to Tut as does Smenkhkare.
6. Everyone agrees that the KV 55 mummy bears a very close resemblance to Tut's mummy, both as to blood, and as to overbite and facial bones. The majority view is that the KV 55 mummy is 23-year-old Smenkhkare, whereas the minority view is that the KV 55 mummy is 35-year-old Akhenaten, but much less is riding on that dispute than is often thought. No one disputes the very close relationship between the KV 55 mummy and Tut's mummy. The key to the puzzle, rather, is to focus on the fact that Smenkhkare was lame, yet Akhenaten picked lame Smenkhkare over handsome young Tut.
7. So Zahi Hawass can voice the popular view that Tut's parents were Akhenaten and Kiya, as he did recently on T.V., but the evidence is strongly against it.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Stinehart: 6. Everyone agrees that the KV 55 mummy bears a very close resemblance to Tut's mummy, both as to blood, and as to overbite and facial bones. The majority view is that the KV 55 mummy is 23-year-old Smenkhkare, whereas the minority view is that the KV 55 mummy is 35-year-old Akhenaten, but much less is riding on that dispute than is often thought...
Interesting appeal to logical fallacy, but now let us talk about the 'validity' of the methods utilized to produce those age estimates; how about 'invalidating' the methodology used to come up with the latter age [i.e. 35 years old], vs. the one used to determine the former [i.e. 23 years old]?
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1. "James E. Harris [is] Chairman of the Department of Orthodontics at the University of Michigan". That means that he knowledgeable about teeth, including jaws and related facial bones.
2. Jim Harris is also "a geneticist and physical anthropologist", but note that his expertise in those disciplines is related primarily to teeth, overbite, jaws, and related facial bones: "As a geneticist and physical anthropologist, his interest was in the hereditary factors affecting malocclusion…." That is, Jim Harris is an expert on overbites, and is interested in studying to what extent overbites are hereditary.
3. "Jim's methodology depends upon obtaining precise lateral cephalometric x-rays…" Those are high-quality versions of the x-rays your dentist takes. They are more precise than regular dental x-rays, but they are limited to the same part of the body: the mouth.
4. Jim Harris examined "the bones of the craniofacial complex". That is, Jim Harris examined the mummies' heads, especially their mouths.
5. Jim Harris was interested in "researching the etiology of malocclusion [overbites] and the inheritance of craniofacial characteristics".
6. For such a study of overbites and related facial bones, "the mummies of the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were a potential gold mine, because here one should be able to discern changes in facial features from father to son over many generations". Note that, as always, Jim Harris is looking at the mummies' mouths and related facial bones. As we find out at the end of the article, however, either (1) almost all of the 18th Dynasty mummies have been wrongly identified, or (2) Jim Harris' theories of how overbites should have been inherited in the New Kingdom are wrong. There is absolutely no way to square Jim Harris' unproven theories about how overbites should have been inherited without shuffling the identities of virtually every one of the 18th Dynasty mummies. No wonder Jim Harris' study failed to make much of an impression on Egyptologists.
7. Jim Harris hoped that his study would benefit Western dentists, especially orthodontists: "a better understanding of craniofacial growth and development…could benefit orthodontists in treating patients."
8. Jim Harris had no particular expertise regarding determining a mummy's age, nor was this a primary interest of Jim Harris in conducting his studies. "[T]he age factor was not the principal objective of Jim's research". Note that Jim Harris did not do his study in order to find out the mummies' ages. Rather, Jim Harris was trying to back up his unproven theory as to how overbites should have been inherited in the New Kingdom.
Analyzing the x-rays of the mummies' mouths in order to try to determine each mummy's age fell to other people, not Jim Harris: "the doyen of physical anthropology in America, Professor Wilton Krogman [and] Professor Melvyn Baer of the University of Michigan…estimated the ages at which members of the royal families had died, using the full x-ray documentation." These two professors are later referred to collectively as "the biologists".
So Jim Harris did careful x-rays of the mummies' mouths. Then other people at the University of Michigan, not Jim Harris, took a shot at estimating each mummy's age based on these detailed x-rays of the mummies' mouths.
Please note that there is not a single word in the entire article explaining on what basis the mummies' ages were determined. Yes, it had to do with their teeth, jaws, and facial bones, but what were the particulars? In a long article like that, wouldn't we expect at least one sentence hinting at what the "biologists" were using to estimate the ages? Why such a big secret?
It appears that the U. of Michigan professors were comparing the mummies' facial x-rays to Americans in Michigan in the 1970s A.D., and modern people from south of the Nile River's 2nd cataract, whom the article refers to as "Nubians". If that's the comparison, look out for some crazy numbers.
9. The results of the biologists' review of Jim Harris' facial x-rays of the New Kingdom mummies were surprising. The biologists often came up with ages far younger than suggested by all historical sources, while coming up with an age far older than previously determined for the KV 55 mummy.
"A comparison of our results in "An X-Ray Atlas of the Royal Mummies", published by the University of Chicago Press in 1980, reveals that the pharaohs' ages at death as determined by the biologists are generally younger than what the written sources suggested. Part of this disparity may be attributed to a somewhat slower maturation in antiquity – as it is among modern Nubians, who reach puberty two to three years later than modern Americans."
I shudder to think what may be concluded by these guys in their comparison of the mouths of New Kingdom mummies to the mouths of Americans in Michigan in the 1970s. Is this science? How on earth would we know that mouths developed 3,500 years ago, in Egypt, in exactly all the same ways that mouths develop in modern America?
10. One example of a mummy's age way out of whack was Thutmose I: "The mummy believed to be that of Thutmose I was determined to be twenty-two years old at death, far too young for a king who had campaigned vigorously in Nubia and Asia."
Because the ages for virtually all of the mummies were not making any historical sense, the scientists decided that the mummies must have been wrongly identified.
Remember now, these scientists have no proven track record of success. No, they are comparing New Kingdom mummies against modern Americans and modern Nubians, and coming out with ages that do not make sense.
11. So now we get the musical chairs as these scientists shuffle all the mummy identifications to try to make them fit both their ages and their theories as to how craniofacial morphology should be inherited from generation to generation. The article is quite clear about all this:
"[T]he end result of this part of our inquiry was to suggest that the Thutmose II mummy really belonged to Thutmose I and the Seti II mummy to Thutmose II, while Thutmose III has possibly been correctly identified."
So when the number don't come out right, just shuffle the identities of the mummies until the numbers come out a little better. This is "science"?
12. Although the "identification of Amenhotep II had always seemed fairly certain", that did not stop these guys from concluding that Amenhotep II's mummy was not Amenhotep II: "Jim [Harris]'s conclusion was that his craniofacial morphology does not suit his being the son of Thutmose III and father of Thutmose IV, both of which Amenhotep III should be on the basis of textual evidence."
Of course, if one is quite willing to throw out all the "textual evidence", then "scientists" can have a field day in rearranging the mummies' identities to fit their fancy. There's nothing to check anything against, once we have cavalierly thrown out all the despicable "textual evidence", so the scientists are off to the races, with nothing at all to slow down their wildest fantasies.
13. In the entire article, there is only one phrase, about half of one sentence, that deals with the issue of the age of the KV 55 mummy. Here is that one, lonely, half-sentence: "As a result of further examination, the age at death of this individual [the KV 55 mummy] has been estimated to be about 35 years…." Note the odd passive voice there. Who estimated the age as being 35 years? Jim Harris? The "biologists"? Why doesn't the article tell us who made that estimation?
14. And why is the article so very, very careful never to give us even the slightest hint of the scientific basis on which the mummies' ages are being estimated? There's not even one word about that, believe it or not.
For example, many other investigators have pointed out that the molars of the KV 55 mummy had not erupted, which would seem to cap the age at 26 or so. Yet this article, though claiming super-detailed examination of the mouth, says absolutely nothing about that particular topic. Indeed, this article never says one word about how the ages of the mummies were determined, other than telling us over and over again how very carefully the mummies' mouths were x-rayed.
15. The rest of the article then focuses on "shuffling of the mummies" to try to make their facial features match up, according to the scientists' unproven theories/dreams of how overbites and related facial features should have been inherited from father to son in the New Kingdom.
16. Even with this wholesale shuffling of all the mummies' identities, note that the mummies' ages still do not come out right! Rather, all that is accomplished by this intellectual game is that the age discrepancies become somewhat "less extreme". In plain English, the mummies' ages still don't make any sense, but they are not quite as ridiculous as before, if one engages in wholesale shuffling of the mummies' identities. Or to quote the article's scientific lingo: "the discrepancies in their estimated ages at death between the biologist and the historian become less extreme."
17. Note that article itself admits that the attempt to learn how overbites are inherited, by studying New Kingdom mummies, did not work out well. "On the negative side, since the royal mummies are not as firmly identified as some have believed, their value to the biologist researching the inheritance of craniofacial characteristics over several generations is less than initially hoped for."
Conclusion
I used to wonder why Egyptologists have paid so little attention to Jim Harris' study of the 18th Dynasty mummies. Having reviewed that article again, the answer is obvious. Neither the craniofacial morphology, nor the ages of the mummies, made sense in Jim Harris' study. That necessitated a wholesale "shuffling of the mummies". I am sure that was good fun, but at the end of the day, even with all that wholesale shuffling of the mummies' identities, the ages still did not make sense, but rather "the discrepancies in their estimated ages at death between the biologist and the historian become less extreme."
There is absolutely no way to base a theory of Amarna on the basis of Jim Harris' study. Shuffling the identities of all the 18th Dynasty mummies, in order to make them conform to one's preconceived ideas of how overbites should be inherited in the New Kingdom, is not "science". That's fantasy, not science.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^^I'm sorry Rene, but the problem is most Egyptologists don't even about many things in Egyptology in general, let alone the lineages of most royals.
Right now Hawass and others say that Tut's father was Akhenaton and his mother was Kiya.
If you have a problem with that, take it up with them.
I presume you mean they don't agree.
but you, you are being a good little boy and totally agreeing with the one in power, right?
Don't even think about exploring other options.
so, why would "Kia's" altered canopic jars be used in the burial of a disgraced Royal, obviously reburied by Tutankhamen himself? Disgraced? you exclaim. Where do you get that?
Why just look at the coffin! Use your eyes.
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Akhenaten
Amenhotep III
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