Egypt to DNA-test 2 fetuses from King Tut's tomb

You would have to have fallen off the face of the web to have missed this story. Kat has sent me ten links (for which huge thanks), EEF covered it in a "breaking news" post yesterday, and lots of other people have emailed me with the story. It is one of those odd stories that the media have decided will appeal to a wide readership. I think that the following stories pretty much cover all the main points made in all of the articles available:

International Herald Tribune

Egyptian scientists are carrying out DNA tests on two mummified fetuses found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun to determine whether they are the young pharaoh's offspring, Egyptian antiquity authorities said Wednesday.

The two tiny female fetuses, between five to seven months in gestational age, were found in the King Tut's tomb in Luxor when the tomb was disovered by Howard Carter in 1922.

DNA samples from the fetuses "will be compared to each other, along with those of the mummy of King Tutankhamun," the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said in a statement.

The testing is part of a wider program to test the DNA of hundreds of mummies to determine their identities and their family relations, and Hawass said the program could help determine Tutankhamun's family lineage, which has long been a source of mystery among Egyptologists.

The identity of Tut's parents is not firmly known. Many experts believe he is the son of Akhenaten, the 18th Dynasty pharaoh who tried to introduce monotheism to ancient Egypt, and one of Akhenaten's queens, Kiya. But others have suggested he was the son of a lesser known pharaoh who followed Akhenaten. . . .

The council said that if the tiny mummies are unrelated to Tut, they may have been placed in his tomb to allow him to "live as a newborn in the afterlife."

Ashraf Selim, a radiologist and member of the Egyptian team, said the tests could take several months. So far, the team has carried out CT scans on the two fetuses and taken samples for DNA tests.

"We want to find out the truth and facts relevant to the history of these kings," Selim told The Associated Press.

Since they were found in King Tut's tomb, the mummified fetuses were kept in storage at the Cairo School of Medicine and were never publicly displayed or studied, Selim said.

Associated Press

Hawass has announced ambitious plans for DNA tests on Egyptian mummies, including all royal mummies and the nearly two dozen unidentified ones stored in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. He has said the tests may show that some royal mummies on display are not who archaeologists thought them to be.

There is some secrecy surrounding Egypt's DNA testing of mummies. Hawass has long rejected such testing by foreign experts, and only recently allowed it on condition the tests be done exclusively by Egyptians.

He has never disclosed the full outcome of the examinations of the mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt's most powerful queen and the only female pharaoh. Nor has he submitted the results for a test by second lab, as it is a common practice. This has raised concerns about the validity of the Egyptian results.

Last year, Egypt announced that archaeologists had identified the mummy of Hatshepsut. But scientists later said they were still analyzing DNA from the bald, 3,500-year-old mummy to try to back up the claim.

Egypt Daily Star New

(With photograph)

The fetuses were found in 1922 in the tomb in Luxor and have since been stored at Cairo University. They are widely believed to be King Tut’s stillborn children.

The tests will be carried out in collaboration with Cairo University’s Faculty of Medicine under the leadership of Dr Ashraf Selim, head of Cairo Scan.

Selim together with Dr Yehia Zakaria of the National Research Center have carried out CT scans of the two fetuses and took samples to make the DNA tests.

The council quotes in a statement Egypt’s Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass as saying the test will also try to determine the fetuses’ mother as well as Tutankhamun’s family lineage, a mystery that has baffled Egyptologists for years.

Scholars believe that at the age of 12, Tutankhamun married his half-sister, Ankhesenamun — the third daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten by his wife Nefertiti. He died under mysterious circumstances around the age of 19 and left no children.

Hawass said the tests will also help in identifying the mummy of Queen Nefertiti.

Reuters

The DNA tests and computerised tomography (CT) scans, to be performed at Cairo University, should be finished by December, Hawass said.

Egypt has been trying to check the identity of all its royal mummies using DNA and CT scans. Tutankhamun's was one of the first mummies to be examined with the technology in 2005.

PR-Inside

Abdel-Halim Nour el-Deen, a former head of the council and a leading Egyptologist said DNA testing on mummies thousands of years old is very difficult. «It is doubtful that it could produce a scientific result to determine such important issues such as the linage of pharaohs,» el-Deen told the AP. El-Deen also criticized the Council for not making public the results of the tests already carried out. «We haven't seen any of their results,» he said. «Such announcements are good for publicity ... They sell well in the media.

Truer words!

See the above pages for the full stories.