DNA Testing on mummy King Tut and his Fetuses
July 6, 2009 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Health
DNA testing on the deceased is hard enough, but on 3,000 year-old mummies?!
Burial mask of mummy King Tutankhamun. Image: Newscom
But that’s exactly what Egypt hopes to do with its most famous mummy King Tutankhamun and the two fetuses found in his tomb. After ten years of refusal, Egypt’s chief of antiquities Zahi Hawass finally allowed DNA tests to discover the lineage of King Tut. King Tut only lived for 19 years in ancient Egypt and reigned for nine years, but he became famous for the mysteries surrounding his life and abrupt death. His discovery in 1922 was a magnificent surprise. His secret tomb remained untouched by thieves, and with him were buried more treasures than any royal tomb ever found. The identity of his parents were never known. He supposedly married the daughter of Egypt’s most beautiful queen but they had no surviving children. But buried with the Egyptian Boy King were two stillborn fetuses!
Two female fetuses were buried with the famous pharaoh and Dr. Hawass and his team want to find out if they are genetically related to Tut, or if they were placed in his tomb to allow him to “live as a newborn in the afterlife.”
So how does one conduct DNA testing on King Tut and his kids? Mummy DNA is especially tricky to study because the embalming process that preserves a mummy’s appearance destroys its genetic material. But the process already had some breakthrough when the identity of Pharaoh Hatshephut, ancient Egypt’s most famous queen ruler, was verified through DNA using a tooth that was found in her tomb. It’s expected that King Tut will go through the same process. In a controlled environment, the tooth enamel will be thoroughly cleaned to remove contamination. Then the tooth is grilled to get to the inner pulp, which would have “clean DNA”. The DNA will then be compared to the genetic material of other mummies related to Tut.
Hawass and other experts say it may take up to four months to even get partial results from the DNA tests. But I think the public interest won’t wane by that time. King Tutankhamun is on display at the de Young Museum in San Francisco from now until March 28, 2010 and hopefully we find out the mystery behind this Boy King.
Want to know what King Tut looks like behind that burial mask? Check out this National Geographic cover of King Tutankhamun. It’s really cool!
Image: Newscom
