Yet more re Akhenaten's possible androgyny

This story seems to have caught the imagination of many of the online world. Here are two thankfully coherent summaries of the main details (see the pages for more details):

Suite 101 (Stan Parchin)

As reported by the Associated Press on May 2, 2008, a Yale University physician who explores the unsatisfactorily explained deaths of historical figures has concluded that the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 B.C.) suffered from familial gynecomastia, a condition that left the ruler with a female physique. Dr. Irwin Braverman presented his findings at the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Historical Clinicopathological Conference after having studied numerous statues, relief sculptures and carvings of the enigmatic New Kingdom pharaoh, including those in the current traveling exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.

examiner.com (Melissa Sorger)

While many other pharaohs and members of his family have been preserved, no mummy of Akhenaten has been found.

Without a body, it makes it difficult for researchers to prove their theories on what diseases caused Akhenaten to have such feminine features along with an elongated head.

Dr. Irwin M. Braverman, a professor of dermatology at Yale University School of Medicine, raised the possibility of using eight mummies of Akhenaten’s relatives, which are available for genetic analysis, to test for diseases.

“DNA from the mummy’s bone marrow could be analyzed to look for the gene defect,” Braverman said.

After ruling out numerous syndromes past researchers have suggested, Braverman believes Akhenaten might have had an inherited syndrome called Aromatase Excess Syndrome.

Also on National Geographic.