DNA and the Armania Dynasty -- The MB of Ian Alex Blease

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Date Posted: 04:54:43 03/29/10 Mon
Author: Ian
Author Host/IP: cpc1-darl6-0-0-cust743.midd.cable.ntl.com / 82.1.142.232
Subject:

DNA and the Armania Dynasty

Posted on the Dylan Bickerstaffe site....for your information and discussion !

"
HAVE THE DNA TESTS PROVED AKHENATEN WAS TUTANKHAMUN�S FATHER? Or have they told us something else?
Posted March 26th, 2010 by Dylan and filed in News
2 Comments

GOLDEN BULLET SOLVES AMARNA ROYAL FAMILY MYSTERIES AT A STROKE�or does it?

A lot of questions have been raised by the recent announcement by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) of the results of DNA tests on certain of the royal mummies in the collection of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Here I outline both developments leading up to the publication of the results, and the discussions that followed. Those wishing to read more detailed discussions of the background evidence on the royal mummies may do so in my book Identifying the Royal Mummies, references to which are provided in the notes.

The Egyptian SCA had always resisted calls for the DNA testing of mummies,1 until it could be performed in Egypt, and in June 2007 a DNA laboratory was attached to the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. As a second laboratory was required to validate the results, another was constructed nearby at Cairo University, opening in June 2009.

The construction of the second lab was partly prompted by the scepticism over the value of DNA tests conducted at the time that one of two female mummies from tomb KV60 was identified as Hatshepsut. The two KV60 females were found laid-out with the left hand on the chest and the right arm straight down by the side � a pose sometimes believed to be associated with queens � and the association with Hatshepsut was made because one of the mummies lay in a coffin base bearing the title and name, �Great Royal Nurse, In�, who might be the same In-Sitre, a wet-nurse of Hatshepsut, known from a statue discovered at Deir el Bahari. This association had previously led Elizabeth Thomas to make the suggestion, with the �utmost temerity� that one of the KV60 mummies might, in fact, be Hatshepsut herself.2 The SCA arranged for the skulls of the mummies of Thutmose II, Thutmose III, and the unidentified man [CCG 61065] sometimes thought to be Thutmose I, to be CAT-scanned to produce a composite, generic, �Thutmoside� profile, which turned out to most closely match the KV60 mummy without a coffin (KV60A). The identification of this mummy with Hatshepsut was thought then to have been proven when a CAT scan of a jewel-box labelled for Hatshepsut (found in the Royal Cache tomb TT320) showed that it contained part of a tooth which appeared to fit with the part-root still remaining in the KV60A mummy. The identification is unlikely to be correct because, as was shown in a letter from a dentist to KMT,3 the tooth in the box was from the wrong jaw, but it scarcely needs pointing out that neither the tooth nor the liver found in the jewel-box need have anything to do with the person named on it. The identification of either KV60 mummy with Hatshepsut remains widely doubted.4

DNA tests carried out subsequently included both KV60 females, the supposed Thutmose I mummy (unknown man 61065), and Queen Ahmose Nefertari � who was probably an ancestor of both Hatshepsut�s father, Thutmose I, and mother, Queen Ahmose � but, curiously, not Hatshepsut�s half brother and husband, Thutmose II.

The difficulties involved in obtaining DNA from ancient remains, particularly mummies, have been widely reported, and even when DNA samples are obtained from a mummy, they are only of any use if they can be related to samples from another, securely identified, individual. Although most of the mummies of ancient Egyptian royalty which we possess are probably accurately identified, they had often been rewrapped and reburied following the wholesale plunder of their tombs, and the most securely identified royal mummies are those from the relatively intact burials of Yuya and Thuya, and Tutankhamun.5 Apart from the glamour of the grave goods from these tombs, and the impact of the name Tutankhamun in any press-release, these mummies frame the ever popular Amarna period, with such enigmatic and attractive figures as King Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye; King Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti; King Smenkhkare and Queen Meritaten; and Tutankhamun�s wife, Ankhesenamun. The identity of the mummy from tomb KV55 has been widely disputed as either Akhenaten or Smenkhkare, the age-at-death in the early to mid 20s generally ascribed to the bones perhaps tending to militate against Akhenaten;6 but there has also been a temptation to �find� Amarna royalty in otherwise unidentified mummies. A particular instance of this is the denuded group of two women and one boy found in side-room �C� of tomb KV35, the tomb of Amenhotep II � which was also found to contain not only that king in his sarcophagus, and an anonymous mummy on a boat, but also a further nine royal mummies in another side-room �B�. Indeed, one of the mummies from side-room �C� had been previously identified as Queen Tiye through comparison of her hair with a lock from a coffinette bearing Tiye�s name found in Tutankhamun�s tomb; though the techniques employed in the comparison had subsequently been questioned.7 The stage was therefore set for exciting discoveries to be made.

The rumoured results of DNA tests conducted to elucidate membership of the Amarna royal family were, in fact, widely circulated prior to March 2009, before the second DNA lab was commissioned. By late 2009 it became clear that an announcement of results was imminent, and a general sense of anticipation was mixed with some trepidation. Exciting discoveries would undoubtedly be fed to the general press, but would the results stand up to scientific scrutiny?

By commissioning a second, independent, laboratory the SCA had answered some of the requirements of scientific legitimacy (though corroboration by a completely independent, foreign lab would have been preferable), but had the tests been designed with sufficient rigour to be completely impartial? Had a suitable number of mummies been included in the tests as �controls�? Ideally these Controls should have included royal mummies from other eras, and non-royal mummies from various periods (e.g. Ptolemaic, Middle Kingdom, pre-dynastic eras). The tests on the samples should also have been conducted �blind� so that the operators did not know the supposed identity of the mummies they were comparing until the apparent relationships between them had been established � and only then should the code have been broken, and their identities revealed. These are standard precautions built-in to scientific tests to try to remove operator bias and ensure that any flaws in the experimental design or equipment are picked up. Thus if Tutankhamun turns out to be descended from a Ptolemaic mummy, you know you have a problem!

Finally, on February 17th 2010, the results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA),8 and announced to the press. The fact that the study appeared in a credible journal was a definite plus, and it was clear from the content that a great deal of trouble had been taken to rule out contamination, and ensure the validity of results from each individual in the study through the taking of samples from multiple sites on the body.

The initial press reports were encouraging, suggesting that some mummies had indeed been employed as controls in the study:

�In addition to Tutankhamun, 10 mummies (circa 1410-1324 B.C.) possibly or definitely closely related in some way to Tutankhamun were chosen; of these, the identities were certain for only three. In addition to these 11 mummies, five other royal individuals dating to the early New Kingdom (circa 1550-1479 B.C.) were selected that were distinct from the supposed members of the Tutankhamun lineage � a sort of mummy control group.�9

It was both surprising and impressive to discover at this point that two of the mummies in the study were the body remnants recovered by Donald Ryan from KV21, since these should have been reasonable �controls�. A quick glance at Table 1 in the JAMA report quickly revealed otherwise, however. There the mummies are grouped as follows:

- Tutankhamun

Putative Members of the Tutankhamun Lineage (�Amarna Group�)

- Thuya

- Yuya

- KV55 male

- Amenhotep III

- KV35 Younger Lady

- KV35 Elder Lady

- Foetus 1 from KV62

- Foetus 2 from KV62

- KV21 female A

- KV21 female B

Morphological and Genetic Control Group of 18th-Dynasty Mummies

- CCG61065 the so-called �Thutmose I�

- Thutmose II (CAT scanned but not DNA tested)

- Ahmose Nefertari (not CAT scanned)

- Hatshepsut (KV60A)

- Sitre-In (KV60B)

It may immediately be seen that the KV21 mummies were not in the Control Group but were, for some unspecified reason, considered as putative members of the Amarna Group. The two female mummies from Tomb KV21 had been laid-out, as were the two females from KV60, with the left arm across the chest, and the right arm straight down by the side: a pose sometimes equated with female royalty, as mentioned above. The probability is that all these women were senior courtiers (perhaps wet nurses) of Thutmose IV and Hatshepsut, whose tombs stood nearby. It seems most probable that the KV21 mummies were included in the study in the hope that they would provide more missing queens, and the fact that they were listed in the Amarna Group suggests that the tests were not conducted �blind�.

It should further be noted that the Control Group comprised simply those mummies previously examined in the exercise aimed at identifying the mortal remains of Hatshepsut, and that because the mummy of Hatshepsut�s half-brother, Thutmose II, was curiously never DNA tested, the Control Group for the DNA tests comprised just four mummies.

Having noted that mummy CCG61065 (the so-called Thutmose I) differed from some of those in the Amarna group,10 the report went on to tabulate the complete DNA data sets across 8 loci obtained for Yuya and Thuya from KV46; the Elder Lady and Younger Lady from KV35 (KV35EL and KV35YL respectively); Amenhotep III; the KV55 mummy; and Tutankhamun. Some of these results were replicated in the second DNA laboratory.11 Partial data sets only, were obtained for the two female mummies from KV21 (KV21A and KV21B); and Foetus 1 and Foetus 2 from KV62. From this data the transmission of alleles across the generations could be traced as shown in Figure 1 of the JAMA report:

��the most plausible 5-generation pedigree was constructed. We identified Yuya and Thuya as great-grandparents of Tutankhamun, Amenhotep III and KV35EL as his grandparents, and the KV55 male and KV35YL as his sibling parents.�12

From this it seems clear that the KV35 Elder Lady is indeed Queen Tiye, because she shows consistent transmission of markers from both Yuya and Thuya. The KV55 mummy appears to carry markers of Amenhotep III, and Yuya and Thuya as transmitted by KV35EL, showing that he is most likely a son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. This means, of course, that he could be Akhenaten, and the study supported this identity with new estimates of age-at-death of 35-45 from CAT scan observations.13 Similarly, the KV35 Younger Lady also carries markers of Amenhotep III, Yuya, and Thuya consistent with transmission via KV35EL/Tiye, suggesting that she was a daughter of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, and sister to the KV55 mummy.14 Tutankhamun appears to be the son of this pair, and cannot be the child of either Amenhotep III or Queen Tiye. It is, of course, possible that the KV55 mummy is a son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, and father of Tutankhamun, but is not Akhenaten. If this man died only in his early 20s and was the enigmatic Smenkhkare, as many believe, then the chronology becomes rather more tricky, requiring marriages and children to have occurred ore-accession, co-regencies etc.

Tutankhamun does appear likely to be the father of the foetuses from KV62, but the DNA data on them is incomplete. A more surprising suggestion is that mummy KV21A might be the mother of the foetuses, and thus, perhaps Ankhesenamun. It now becomes clear why the KV21 mummies were included in the Amarna Group, but seems uncannily fortuitous that they were ever included in the study at all!

The apparently lucky circumstance of potentially discovering Ankhesenamun buried in a tomb one would have expected to have housed early-mid Eighteenth dynasty courtiers, has to be balanced against some rather surprising omissions from the mummies selected for testing. Firstly, it seems almost perverse to have examined both the Elder Lady and Younger Lady from Side Room C in KV35 but not to have tested the boy who was found there with them.15 Since the two females in this group have proved to be probably Tiye, and potentially a daughter she had borne of Amenhotep III, then the boy might be Prince Thutmose.16Also, the mummy of Amenhotep III was included in the study but no chance taken to rule out the possibility of ancient mix-ups between the two Nebmaatres, by also testing Ramesses VI. Further, since it was hoped to establish a lineage, why was Thutmose IV not included? Indeed, Thutmose IV�s father, Amenhotep II, would also have proved a useful check against the possibility that the trio from Side Room C in his tomb, KV35, were in fact, members of his family. It is strange that Thutmose II was not included in the rather limited Control Group, and whilst Ahmose Nefertari, who was included, is not likely to have been a particularly close relation of either Hatshepsut or Thutmose I, Thutmose II should have been so in both cases. Indeed, the further inclusion of Thutmose III would have allowed the potential construction of another lineage.17

The results of the tests that were made are not necessarily as clear cut as the JAMA report and subsequent press releases might suggest, however. In particular a study posted on the web by Kate Phizackerley draws attention to certain problems raised by the 5-generation pedigree in the JAMA report.18 Firstly, she notes that KV35YL is being put forward as a previously unknown sister/wife of Akhenaten: a rather curious state of affairs if she was a daughter of Amenhotep III and Tiye, and mother of the future king, Tutankhamun. Secondly she points out that if the mother of the foetuses found in Tutankhamun�s tomb (KV62) was, as seems likely, Akhenaten�s daughter, Ankhesenamun, then the KV55 mummy cannot be Akhenaten:

�If the KV55 mummy is Akhenaten then as well as being the paternal grandfather of the foetuses (via Tutankhamun), then he must also be the maternal grandfather (via Ankhesenamun). However, this contradicts the genetic data.�19

In short, the JAMA pedigree requires that either the foetuses had different mothers, or that the mother of both was not a daughter of Akhenaten. Thus the above two points show that the current interpretation of the DNA evidence requires unknown wives for both Akhenaten and Tutankhamun.

The problem is most readily resolved by assuming that the KV55 mummy, rather than Akhenaten, is another son of Amenhotep III and Tiye. This mummy would be a younger brother of Akhenaten, and if he ruled briefly as Smenkhkare, would have been a valid father of the successor, Tutankhamun. This reinterpretation has the benefit of going some way toward removing the need for a high age at death for the KV55 mummy. At the same time it also emphasized that two key figures were missing from the DNA sequence, Akhenaten and Nefertiti; and it was quite possible that KV35YL had inherited her characteristics from these two, rather than from Amenhotep III and Tiye. Thus the parents of Tutankhamun could have been Smenkhkare and Meritaten.

Another problem with the interpretation of the DNA evidence in the JAMA report, noted by Kate Phizackerley, is that in some loci certain alleles (characteristics) appear to �jump�, skipping generations, from Thuya or Amenhotep III to the KV62 foetuses or the KV21A mummy.20 Since these rare alleles are unlikely to have appeared spontaneously from the general population, this implies a secondary line of descent which might be explained if Nefertiti was a granddaughter of Thuya, perhaps via Ay.

There remains the troubling coincidence that the KV21 mummies seem to fit into the DNA of the Amarna royal family. Of course the DNA data on these two mummies is particularly incomplete, but they do seem to show some characteristics of Thuya and Amenhotep III. How might this be explained? Probably the most likely answer is that those two royal figures themselves share a common source. It has long been speculated that the royal family in the later Eighteenth dynasty intermarried with an Akhmim family with a rather characteristic set of names: Yey, Yuya, Ay, Thuya, Tiye, Tey etc.21 In this regard it is interesting that Amenhotep II�s wife Tiaa was the mother of Thutmose IV, whose wife, Mutemwia, the mother of Amenhotep III, was of obscure origins. Both of these women may have derived from the same Akhmim family, and it is perhaps not unlikely that wet-nurses in KV21 (and perhaps KV60) are from this same background. Indeed, Ay�s wife, Tey, is known to have been Nefertiti�s wet-nurse, and one wonders if the SCA hoped for a similar pairing from KV21 as they thought had been found with Sitre-In and Hatshepsut in KV60. Thus when two obscure females from KV21 were entered in the DNA study as �Putative Relatives of Tutankhamun�, the prize that was sought was Nefertiti herself!

It must be noted that the DNA tables for the Control Group of mummies remains unpublished and so we are unable to comment as to whether any of those mummies seems to have a close link to the Amarna royal family or not. It would be rather embarrassing if the so-called Hatshepsut (KV60A) turned out to be as closely linked as the KV21 mummies, but nothing can be said without the publication of data.

The larger part of the JAMA report relates to the morphological findings as produced by CAT scans, showing that the Amarna males did not suffer from any condition that would have led to their features having feminine characteristics as seen on sculpture etc.; though it should be commented that overeating and lack of exercise may well have produced appropriately rounded thighs, and �man-boobs�! Unlike Figure 1 in the JAMA report (comparison of DNA profiles), Table 3 � Anomalies and Diseases in This Collection of 18th-Dynasty Mummies, looks at both the Amarna and Control groups, and one has to say what a bunch of old crocks they were! It appears that club feet were the order of the day, and you were no-one without scoliosis�and that is just the malformations. Many of the conditions are perhaps not surprising in people of quite advanced age (as we now understand many of the royal mummies to be), but the prevalence of incisional hernia raises suspicions that some observed details may in fact be artifacts of the mummification process. Evidence of trauma in some mummies, e.g. KV35 Younger Lady, may indeed be related to tomb robbery and thus not �fatal�, as stated there. The discovery of malaria in a few of the mummies comes as a surprise so early in Egyptian history.

Tutankhamun wins the prize, however, with cleft palate, scoliosis, foot necrosis, club foot, a broken leg, and malaria. One is tempted to devise a scenario in which all of these played a part in his death�probably he drowned!

Overall then, the study is a start, and raises some interesting points for future discussion. Perhaps we now have some more certain identifications amongst the royal mummies, the most convincing of which is undoubtedly Queen Tiye.

NOTES

1. Some work of this kind was, however, conducted by an American team around 2000.

2. E. Thomas, The Royal Necropoleis of Thebes (Princeton 1966).

3. Dr. J. L. Thimes, �Readers� Forum�, KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt 19.3 (Fall 2008), 6-7. My point that matches made using x-rays or CAT scans are not strong evidence is borne out here.

4. The evidence for the KV60 mummies is discussed in Dylan Bickerstaffe, Identifying the Royal Mummies, Part 4 of Refugees for Eternity: The Royal Mummies of Thebes (Canopus Press 2009), 92-6. I point out in talks that if you knock out one of my teeth and throw it in a box named �Hitler�, that does not make me Hitler!

5. The methods by which identifications are made, and the relative strength of these in relation to each case, are discussed in detail in Identifying the Royal Mummies.

6. Estimates of age-at-death generally underestimate ages, however, and can never fully accommodate the wide inter-subject variability, see Identifying the Royal Mummies, 65-70.

7. See the discussion of the mummies from Side Room �C� in KV35 in Identifying the Royal Mummies, 105-112.

8. Hawass et al., �Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun�s Family�, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Vol. 303, No. 7 (February 17, 2010), 638-647.

9. www.LiveScience.com Tue Feb 16, 12.10pm ET.

10. Specifically: Amenhotep III, KV55, and Tutankhamun. It seems that this mummy alone was used to show differences to the Amarna group!

11. Hawass et al.,JAMA 303.7, 641. Which results on which mummies is not stated.

12. Hawass et al., JAMA 303.7, 641.

13. Hawass et al., JAMA 303.7, 640. This figure was raised to 45-55 in press releases, apparently at the insistence of the CAT scan team. On the question of age-at-death see Identifying the Royal Mummies 65-71, & 98-99.

14. She is perhaps unlikely to be Sitamun, or Iset (C), who were married to Amenhotep III. Other daughters include Nebetiah, Henutaneb A, and Beketaten, see Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton, The Complete Families of Ancient Egypt (Cairo 2004), 146.

15. The KV35 boy is CCG 61071. I have been informed that Dr. Hawass informed the editor of Archaeology magazine (USA) that the boy has been tested. It is not known whether the testing was performed in response to criticisms on the web, or if a decision had been taken not to use results in the study obtained earlier. A mummy was present in a box in Side Room C of KV35 when I visited in March 2010, and I assume this to be the boy.

16. Forbes, End Paper, KMT 2.2 (1991), 72; proposed that the trio might have comprised Tiye, Sitamun, and Prince Thutmose � all three deriving from Amenhotep III�s tomb, WV22.

17. The mummies of �Thutmose I� and Thutmose II may, in fact, be reversed. See Identifying the Royal Mummies, 91-92. A line of descent possibly from the so-called Thutmose I (CCG 61065), through Thutmose II, Thutmose III, Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV, and Amenhotep III could be tested.

18. See Kate Phizackerley, �DNA Shows that KV55 Mummy Probably Not Akhenaten�, www.kv64.info. All of the data referred to here is from this source, though she has discussed her conclusions with me at length.

19. See Kate Phizackerley, www.kv64.info.The evidence in locus D7S820 shows Foetus 1 with alleles 10 & 13, and Foetus 2 with 6 & 15. Since Tutankhamun had 10 & 15, the mother must have provided 6 & 13. As the mother, Ankhesenamun would thus have inherited either 6 or 13 from Akhenaten, but the KV55 mummy has 15 & 15 in D7S820, and so cannot be the maternal grandfather.

20. Thus in locus D7S820 allele 13 jumps from Thuya to Foetus 1, and allele 6 jumps from Amenhotep III to Foetus 2 (although 6 appears in KV35YL she did not pass this to Tutankhamun and so this must have come from the mother); in D21S11 allele 35 appears to jump from Thuya to the KV21A mummy; and allele 16 jumps from Amenhotep III to KV21A in the D13S317 locus.

21. A theory first advanced by Cyril Aldred. Other characteristic names seem to be Nefertiti and Nefertari.
"

Ian

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