King Tut Pictures: DNA Study Reveals Health Secrets

King Tut's Mummy's Mummy

Photograph by Kenneth Garrett, National Geographic

Using DNA samples taken from the mummies King Tut and nine of his relatives, the scientists were able to create a five-generation family tree for the boy pharaoh.

Tests revealed the mummy above, known as the Younger Lady, to be King Tut's mother—and his aunt. Her identity remains a mystery, but whoever she was, she sired the boy king with her brother, Pharaoh Akhenaten.

Regarding the revelation that King Tut's mother and father were brother and sister, Pusch said, "Inbreeding is not an advantage for biological or genetic fitness. Normally the health and immune system are reduced and malformations increase," he said.

Some Egyptologists have speculated that King Tut's mother was Akhenaten's chief wife, Queen Nefertiti—made famous by an iconic bust (Nefertiti-bust picture). But the new findings seem to challenge this idea, because historical records do not indicate that Nefertiti and Akhenaten were related.

(See "Nefertiti's Real, Wrinkled Face Found in Famous Bust?")

Published February 16, 2010

King Tut With Cane

Photograph by Kenneth Garrett, National Geographic

An ivory box found in King Tut's tomb shows the Tutankhamun leaning on a cane with his wife Ankhsenamun at his side.

The new study revealed previously unknown deformations in the King Tut's left foot, caused by the necrosis, or death, of bone tissue.

The affliction would have been painful and forced King Tut to walk with a cane—many of which were found in his tomb—but it would not have been life threatening.

Malaria, however, would have been a serious danger.

The scientists found DNA from the mosquito-borne parasite that causes malaria in the young pharaoh's body—the oldest known genetic proof of the disease.

(See "King Tut: Unraveling the Mysteries of Tutankhamun"—a 2005 National Geographic magazine report on forensic studies that recreated Tut's face, among other developments.)

Published February 16, 2010

King Tut's Father, Distorted

Photograph by Richard Nowitz, National Geographic Stock

Another speculation apparently laid to rest by the new study is that Akhenaten—newly confirmed as King Tut's father—had a genetic disorder that caused him to develop the feminine features seen in his statues (statue detail above), including wide hips, a potbelly, and the female-like breasts associated with the condition gynecomastia.

(See "Men With Breasts: Benign Condition Creates Emotional Scars.")

When the team analyzed Akenhaten's body using medical scanners, no evidence of such abnormalities were found. Hawass and his team concluded that the feminized features found in the statues of Akenhaten created during his reign were done for religious and political reasons.

In ancient Egypt, Akhenaten was a god, said project leader Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

"The poems said of him, 'You are the man, and you are the woman,'" Hawass said, "so artists put the picture of a man and a woman in his body."

Published February 16, 2010

King Tut's Mummy Revealed

Photograph by Kenneth Garrett, National Geographic Stock

Zahi Hawass, who led the new study, is shown in 2007, during the transfer of King Tut's mummy from its sarcophagus to a climate-controlled glass chamber. (Full story: "King Tut Mummy on Public Display for First Time.")

The DNA study "will open to us a new era," Hawass said. "I'm very happy this is an Egyptian project, and I'm very proud of the work that we did."

The generally good condition of the DNA from the royal mummies of King Tut's family surprised many members of the team, which suspects that the embalming method the ancient Egyptians used to preserve the royal mummies inadvertently protected DNA as well as flesh.

Preserving DNA "was not the aim of the Egyptian priest of course," said geneticist Carsten Pusch. "But the embalming method they used was lucky for us."

Published February 16, 2010