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A different take on Tut
Alvin Powell ^ | February 11, 2013 | Harvard

Posted on 02/16/2014 2:27:10 PM PST by SunkenCiv

In recent years, DNA analysis has shed light on the parents of Egypt’s most famous pharaoh, the boy king Tutankhamun, known to the world as King Tut. Genetic investigation identified his father as Akhenaten and his mother as Akhenaten’s sister, whose name was unknown.

French Egyptologist Marc Gabolde offered a different interpretation of the DNA evidence on Thursday. Speaking at Harvard’s Science Center, Gabolde said he’s convinced that Tut’s mother was not his father’s sister, but rather his father’s first cousin, Nefertiti.

Nefertiti was already known to be Akhenaten’s wife and in fact the two had six daughters. Gabolde believes they also had a son, Tutankhamun, and that the apparent genetic closeness revealed in the DNA tests was not a result of a single brother-to-sister mating, but rather due to three successive generations of marriage between first cousins.

“The consequence of that is that the DNA of the third generation between cousins looks like the DNA between a brother and sister,” said Gabolde, the director of the archaeological expedition of Université Paul Valery-Montpellier III in the Royal Necropolis at el-Amarna. “I believe that Tutankhamun is the son of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, but that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were cousins.”

(Excerpt) Read more at news.harvard.edu ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: 18thdynasty; akhenaten; amarna; blackathena; blackpharaoh; blackpharaohs; blacksparkwhitefire; catastrophism; egypt; godsgravesglyphs; haplogroupr1b1a2; helixmakemineadouble; kv21; kv35; kv55; marcgabolde; nefertiti; niallofthe9hostages; smenkhkhare; tutankhamun
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Photos by Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer -- Genetic investigation continues to uncover more about King Tut, Egypt’s most famous pharaoh. Marc Gabolde, the director of the archaeological expedition of Universite Paul Valery-Montpellier III, told his Harvard audience that he is convinced that Tut’s mother was his father’s first cousin, Nefertiti.

Photos by Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer -- Genetic investigation continues to uncover more about King Tut, Egypt’s most famous pharaoh. Marc Gabolde, the director of the archaeological expedition of Universite Paul Valery-Montpellier III, told his Harvard audience that he is convinced that Tut’s mother was his father’s first cousin, Nefertiti.

1 posted on 02/16/2014 2:27:10 PM PST by SunkenCiv
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To: 75thOVI; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; ...
One of *those* topics.

2 posted on 02/16/2014 2:28:30 PM PST by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; decimon; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; ...

3 posted on 02/16/2014 2:28:38 PM PST by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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4 posted on 02/16/2014 2:33:12 PM PST by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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To: SunkenCiv

King Tut (King Tut)
Now when he was a young man,
He never thought he'd see
People stand in line to see the boy king.

5 posted on 02/16/2014 2:39:47 PM PST by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: SunkenCiv

I liked the DNA evaluation that TUT was Irish! A later article said he was related to half of the men in Europe. That kinda took the fun out of it.


6 posted on 02/16/2014 2:44:59 PM PST by mountainlion
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To: SunkenCiv

If three generations of first-cousin marriages look like a brother-sister marriage, I wonder what that says about maybe 20 generations of first-cousin marriages among most Muslims?


7 posted on 02/16/2014 2:47:29 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: SunkenCiv

Quiet ! Not the camel. Tut was before the invention of Islam.


8 posted on 02/16/2014 2:53:32 PM PST by faithhopecharity
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To: SunkenCiv

Why is he considered the most famous pharaoh,he left behind the most fabulous stuff?


9 posted on 02/16/2014 3:02:09 PM PST by Ditter
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To: Cicero

” I wonder what that says about maybe 20 generations of first-cousin marriages among most Muslims?”

It says, massive amounts of birth defects, and a preponderance of idiots!


10 posted on 02/16/2014 3:05:47 PM PST by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
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To: mountainlion
I liked the DNA evaluation that TUT was Irish! A later article said he was related to half of the men in Europe. That kinda took the fun out of it.

Yep, this Reuters article says:

The results showed that King Tut belonged to a genetic profile group, known as haplogroup R1b1a2, to which more than 50 percent of all men in Western Europe belong, indicating that they share a common ancestor. Among modern-day Egyptians this haplogroup contingent is below 1 percent, according to iGENEA.
I'm going to guess that Egypt, with its fertile land, was invaded early on by some Celtic tribe coming from the north along the eastern Mediterranean coast, who became the new ruling class.

Much like the British nobility is descended from Vikings. (The Normans (North-men) who invaded England in 1066 were descended from Vikings who had earlier settled in northern France).

11 posted on 02/16/2014 3:06:15 PM PST by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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To: Pollster1
Funny. Ya beat me to the punch.

However, I was one of those who stood in line at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to see the display back in the day. It really was mind blowing.

12 posted on 02/16/2014 3:10:19 PM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts ("The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." - George Orwell)
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To: faithhopecharity

True,true, true...


13 posted on 02/16/2014 3:18:46 PM PST by Bogie
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To: SunkenCiv

He’s my favorite honky.


14 posted on 02/16/2014 3:20:01 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: SunkenCiv

Bonnie Grey Jumping "King Tut" over auto, cheyenne frontier day 1925,

15 posted on 02/16/2014 3:22:39 PM PST by Daffynition ("If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." ~ Henry Ford)
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16 posted on 02/16/2014 3:24:42 PM PST by RedMDer (Happy with this, America? Make your voices heard. 2014 is just around the corner. ~ Sarah Palin)
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To: PapaBear3625

I already knew that Ramses the Great had red wavy hair. That would go along with them being related to modern Europeans.


17 posted on 02/16/2014 3:30:30 PM PST by yarddog (Romans 8: verses 38 and 39. "For I am persuaded".)
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To: Ditter

His tomb survived because he wasn’t one of the famous pharaohs. The tombs of the really famous pharaohs had long since been robbed. Basically his was overlooked.


18 posted on 02/16/2014 3:34:26 PM PST by quilterdebbie (We will endeavor to persevere!)
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To: Ditter

Wikipedia says:

Tutankhamun seems to have faded from public consciousness in Ancient Egypt within a short time after his death, and remained virtually unknown until the 1920s. His tomb was robbed at least twice in antiquity, but based on the items taken (including perishable oils and perfumes) and the evidence of restoration of the tomb after the intrusions, it seems clear that these robberies took place within several months at most of the initial burial. Eventually the location of the tomb was lost because it had come to be buried by stone chips from subsequent tombs, either dumped there or washed there by floods. In the years that followed, some huts for workers were built over the tomb entrance, clearly not knowing what lay beneath. When at the end of the 20th Dynasty the Valley of the Kings burials were systematically dismantled, the burial of Tutankhamun was overlooked, presumably because knowledge of it had been lost and his name may have been forgotten.


19 posted on 02/16/2014 3:41:35 PM PST by quilterdebbie (We will endeavor to persevere!)
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To: quilterdebbie

It was the “most famous” reference that I was asking about. I have watched the History channel every time King Tut has been featured. He died so young it must be the amount of artifacts that makes him famous, not something he did.


20 posted on 02/16/2014 3:51:25 PM PST by Ditter
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