Posted on 05/02/2008 10:57:44 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan
BALTIMORE - Akhenaten wasn't the most manly pharaoh, even though he fathered at least a half-dozen children. In fact, his form was quite feminine. And he was a bit of an egghead.
So concludes a Yale University physician who analyzed images of Akhenaten for an annual conference Friday at the University of Maryland School of Medicine on the deaths of historic figures.
The female form was due to a genetic mutation that caused the pharaoh's body to convert more male hormones to female hormones than needed, Dr. Irwin Braverman believes. And Akhenaten's head was misshapen because of a condition in which skull bones fuse at an early age.
The pharaoh had "an androgynous appearance. He had a female physique with wide hips and breasts, but he was male and he was fertile and he had six daughters," Braverman said. "But nevertheless, he looked like he had a female physique."
Braverman, who sizes up the health of individuals based on portraits, teaches a class at Yale's medical school that uses paintings from the university's Center for British Art to teach observation skills to first-year students. For his study of Akhenaten, he used statues and carvings.
Akhenaten (ah-keh-NAH-ten), best known for introducing a revolutionary form of monotheism to ancient Egypt, reigned in the mid-1300s B.C. He was married to Nefertiti, and Tutankhamun, also known as King Tut, may have been his son or half brother.
Egyptologist and archaeologist Donald B. Redford said he supports Braverman's belief that Akhenaten had Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder marked by lengthened features, including fingers and the face.
Visiting clinics that treat those with the condition has strengthened that conviction, "but this is very subjective, I must admit," said Redford, a professor of classic and ancient Mediterranean studies at Penn State University.
Others have theorized Akhenaten and his lineage had Froehlich's Syndrome, which causes feminine fat distribution but also sterility. That doesn't fit Akhenaten, who had at least six daughters, Braverman said.
Klinefelter Syndrome, a genetic condition that can also cause gynecomastia, or male breast enlargement, has also been suggested, but Braverman said he suspects familial gynecomastia, a hereditary condition that leads to the overproduction of estrogen.
The Yale doctor said determining whether he is right can easily be done if Egyptologists can confirm which mummy is Akhenaten's and if Egyptian government officials agree to DNA analysis.
Braverman hopes his theory will lead them to do just that.
"I'm hoping that after we have this conference and I bring this up, maybe the Egyptologists who work on these things all the time, maybe they will be stimulated to look," he said.
Previous conferences have examined the deaths of Edgar Allan Poe, Alexander the Great, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Florence Nightingale and others.
I can never remember those terms - had to look them up.
OMG Dead and Monk check out ping 17 LOLOL!
Well, that’s what happens when 1000 years of monarch generations marry their sisters...
"Prince can ball!" - Charlie Murphy
This condition is a mystery to me. Testicular feminization syndrome (aka: androgen insensitivity syndrome) works for all aspects of this, except it results in sterility for the adult. Early (perinatal) excess estrogen results in permanent masculinization, not feminization. Alcoholism could lead to adult onset of feminizaion and gynecomastia via excess, adult, estrogen.
In short, those endocrine conditions that are due to estrogen and which feminize are limited to only adult onset, and I'm going to have to do more literature search to find out what this extremely rare condition might be.
That what I thinking of Chappelle reset LOL!
LOL I was actually thinking the same thing!
susie
According to Will Durant’s “The History of Civilization,” Volume I; Amenhotep III came to power in the year 1380 B.C. (pg 206) and his son Amenhotep IV was the pharoah that changed his name to Ikhnaton (pg 205) shortly after taking power. Upon changing his name, Ikhnaton went into revolt against the religion of Amon and practices of Amon’s priests (pg 206) and introduced monotheism to Egypt. Iknhaton also married Nofretete and had seven daughters (pg 211). And Tutenkhamon was a son-in-law of Amenhotep IV (pg 213).
On page 206, Durant writes: “In the great temple at Karnak there was now a large harem, supposedly the concubines of Amon, but in reality serving to amuse the clergy. The young emperor, whose private life was a model of fidelity, did not approve of this sacred harlotry, the blood of the ram slaughtered in sacrifice to Amon stank in his nostrils; and the traffic of priests in magic and charms, and their corruption disgusted him to the point of violent protest ... With a poet’s audacity he threw compromise to the winds, and announced bravely that all these gods and ceremonies were a vulgar idolatry, that there was but one god — Aton.”
Durant’s work is worth reading ...
I actually think I saw something on Discovery Channel or NG Channel or Science, or someplace that suggested that Neferititi was actually Akhenaten, and that’s why his features look so feminine. Probably feminist claptrap, but it was interesting (the way reading about alien abductions is interesting).
susie
Immanuel Velikovsky’s “Oedipus and Akhnaton” is an interesting read even if heretical.
I have feeling Queen Christina of Sweden was something like that she had manly charactisics
Or his BIG Brother.
LOL!!!
Well, That settles it then!
I believe that this is the main competing theory about the appearance of the Pharaoh's family, competing with the theory in this article.
bump
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