Malaria, Not Murder, Killed King Tut. Akhenaten identified.

[jimmy olsen]

Interesting, I had seen documentaries that were fairly convincing on the murder aspect, but I science marches on.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1964602,00.html

Study: Malaria, Not Murder, Killed King Tut

By  Michael D. Lemonick   Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2010

Carsten Pusch, a medical geneticist with a special interest in ancient diseases, never imagined he'd be called in to help autopsy one of history's oldest and most internationally celebrated corpses. But that's just what happened when Zahi Hawass, the legendary director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, rang him up at his offices in the University of Tübingen in Germany.

Would Pusch be interested, asked Hawass, in doing a DNA analysis on several mummies from the 18th Dynasty — including a king who died before he reached the age of 20, and who went by the name of Tutankhamen? (See pictures of disputed antiquities.)

After swallowing hard — "I never worked with royal mummies before," he says — Pusch agreed. Now, 2½ years later, the results of the inquiries are in, in the form of a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, published on Tuesday.

Among the results: King Tut was probably not murdered, despite some popular theories to the contrary. And he probably didn't suffer from a long list of diseases that experts have speculated about, including, as the report lists them (deep breath), "Marfan syndrome, Wilson-Turner X-linked mental retardation syndrome, Fröhlich syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, androgen insensitivity syndrome, aromatase excess syndrome in conjunction with sagittal craniosynostosis syndrome, or Antley-Bixler syndrome or a variant form." (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)

What probably did Tut in, says Pusch, was an immune system badly compromised by a particularly virulent strain of malaria combined with a degenerative bone disease that had already left him weak. "This is confirmed by images that show him sitting while shooting an arrow, which normally would have been done standing up," says Hawass. "He cannot stand." Indeed, more than 100 canes were found in the tomb when Tut's mummy was found in 1922, some of them showing signs of wear.

"Death [the authors] assert, was not attributable to foul play; rather a sudden fracture of the leg (perhaps resulting from a fall) progressed to a life-threatening condition because of his malarial infection," wrote Howard Markel of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan, in an editorial accompanying the study.

The DNA also showed that feminized artistic depictions of both Tutankhamen and Akhenaten, Tut's father and predecessor, with breasts were only that: there was no evidence of hormonal imbalances that could have resulted in the real thing. The relevant areas of both mummies are missing, which has hitherto made it impossible to settle the question. (Tut's penis, however, which is present though not attached to the body, is "well developed," according to the paper, casting further doubt on the theory of hormone problems).

But that's only the beginning of what Pusch and his colleagues found, working in a state-of-the-art lab funded by The Discovery Channel, which will be presenting a two-part special based on the research starting Sunday.

Researchers' X-rays revealed, for instance, that several chronic disorders evidently plagued Tut and many of his relatives, including clubfoot, cleft palate and curvature of the spine.

Even more important is the fact that the DNA analyses put a name to several of the unidentified mummies in the ancient Egyptian collection. By looking at overlaps in the subjects' genomes, the scientists were able to put together a plausible family tree. For example, they were able to identify a mummy known only as KV55 as probably being Akhenaten, the controversial pharaoh who radically reinvented Egyptian society. "It's really incredible," says Pusch, "that we've given a name to what was an anonymous mummy."

Another mummy, known as KV35YL, was identified as both the sister of Akhenaten and the mother of Tutankhamun, meaning that Tut was the product of a brother-sister coupling. "She cannot be Nefertiti," says Hawass, citing another popular speculation that Nefertiti, Akhenaten's chief consort, was Tut's mother, "but she can be any of the five daughters of Amenhotep [Akhenaten's father]."

There's plenty more, but even though the new study fills 10 journal pages, it barely scratches the surface of what's possible. "The Egyptians have a trove of unidentified royal mummies," says Pusch. "With enough resources, we could work on members of 50 different dynasties." The embalming protocol has preserved DNA beautifully, he says. "The ancient priests had no idea they were being so helpful."

[Caliga]

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/king-tut/1037261/ 

[Siege]

Why do you keep trying to destroy my stereotypes on egyptian violence and murderous behavior?

[The Brain]

Indeed, more than 100 canes were found in the tomb when Tut's mummy was found in 1922, some of them showing signs of wear.

HOTT

[Caliga]

Seige, did you know that there's a theory that Tut's father essentially invented the Jewish religion?  According to this theory, Akhenaten had an advisor named Yayu or something who is the same person as the Biblical Joseph.  Akhenaten advocated the sole worship of the sun god Aten.  I'm not sure he denied the existence of other gods, but he definitely tried to suppress all of their cults.  Anyway, the story goes that the Egyptian people didn't like this new religion very much and when Akhenaten died, Yayu fled with some hardcore devotees to Canaan to continue it, where it evolved into Judaism.

I don't think this theory has much mainstream support, but IIRC Sigmund Freud was a supporter of it.

[Queequeg]

Makes no sense, as Jews and ancient Israelites were Semites, Ancient Egyptians used their own branch of the Afro-Asiatic tree.  Even if they adopted the language and some of the material culture of the surrounding Semitic peoples, there'd still be some kind of linguistic substratum, especially if they somehow maintained monotheism throughout the entire process.

Besides, I've read that there is frankly rather good evidence that Judaism developed fairly naturally within Judea; there's a drop off of pig-bones at Jewish sites around an early period, some evidence of a distinction between Philistines and Israelites, and there is plenty of Linguistic and Cultural evidence that the Jews started off as a more religiously innovative branch of the Mediterranean Semitic tree. 

[Queequeg]

Besides, Monotheism developed more or less independently a bunch of times, from the Aryan tribes with Zoroastrianism to several different schools of Hinduism, and, of course, the Abrahamic faiths. 

[Caliga]

Your knee jerk compulsion to pontificate ruined the setup to a perfectly good Seigey troll.  THANKS.

(The theory I mentioned is really out there, tenuous as it might be, however.)

[Savonarola]

Psalm 104 is suspiciously similar to Akhenaten's Great Hymn to Aten.  Even if the ancient Hebrews didn't adopt their religion entirely from Egypt, they clearly were plagiarists.

[Caliga]

Psalm 104 is suspiciously similar to Akhenaten's Great Hymn to Aten.  Even if the ancient Hebrews didn't adopt their religion entirely from Egypt, they clearly were plagiarists.

[Queequeg]

Psalm 104 is suspiciously similar to Akhenaten's Great Hymn to Aten.  Even if the ancient Hebrews didn't adopt their religion entirely from Egypt, they clearly were plagiarists.

A bunch of Psalms and Songs work better if you replace Jehova and Yahweh with Baal.  This should surprise no one.

[HVC]

Wasn't Judaism not really monotheistic till the expulsion of Babylon? They had a "mother god" thing going on too, didn't they?

[Alexandru H.]

I hate King Tut. Basically the best preserved tomb belongs to the least importat soveraign of a dinasty that conquered large swaths of land, invented new religions etc... But everyone knows his name now and considers him something of an "enigma"... which he wasn't. He was just a moronic kid that took his father's throne, betrayed his name and religious convictions then died as a slave while the hittites were basically tearing his empire apart

[Martinus]

Why do you keep trying to destroy my stereotypes on egyptian violence and murderous behavior?

That's funny, considering ancient Hebrew record.

[Agelastus]

I hate King Tut. Basically the best preserved tomb belongs to the least importat soveraign of a dinasty that conquered large swaths of land, invented new religions etc... But everyone knows his name now and considers him something of an "enigma"... which he wasn't. He was just a moronic kid that took his father's throne, betrayed his name and religious convictions then died as a slave while the hittites were basically tearing his empire apart

Given that his father was the first pharoah to hold said religious convictions, and the apparent age at which he (Tutankhamun) took the throne, the part I have bolded is rather unfair.

The rest I pretty much agree with though.

On a related note, simply for my own sense of completeness, I really hope they one day find enough evidence to definitely answer the question of what became of Ankhesenamun (hoping I've spelt that right from memory.)