(From front to back) The mummies of King Tut’s mother, King Tut’s grandmother Queen Tiye and King Tut’s father Pharaoh Akhenaten are displayed during a news conference by the head of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities to announce DNA results meant to reveal the parentage of Egypt’s famed King Tutankhamun at the Egyptian museum in Cairo February 17, 2010. Two years of DNA testing and CT scans on King Tutankhamun’s 3,300-year-old mummy and 15 others have provided the cause of death and the firmest family tree yet for Tut – pointing to Pharaoh Akhenaten as Tut’s father, Akhenaten’s sister as Tut’s mother, and Queen Tiye as Tut’s grandmother. REUTERS/Discovery Magazine/Handout
DNA reveals some mystery on King Tut, raises questions…
There’s much attention these days of the DNA tests done on Pharaoh Tutankhamun and the revealing facts about his ailments and physical impediments but more fascinating to me is the confirmation that Pharaoh Akhenaten has been found. The DNA tests prove that the mystery mummy in question and Pharaoh Tutankhamun are very close relatives either father-son or brothers. It is being reported that the mummy is older perhaps in his late thirties to early forties and thus older than a possible brother and thus must be Pharaoh Akhenaton.
Pharaoh Akhenaten has fascinated me since watching the 1950′s film “The Egyptian” as a kid and later reading about his reign and the first leader of Ancient times to embrace monotheism “One God” in this case Aten the Sun God. His legacy was persecuted by later Pharaohs who believed strongly in polytheism and the multiple deities of ancient Egypt. His city built by him and shares his name was abandoned and all hieroglyphics or texts mentioning his name were striken out and replaced. Structures he had built were dismantled and used on other structures his legacy has almost been wiped away except for finding by modern archeologists who have been able to piece back together his reign. His tomb where he was to rest for eternity found empty and his mummies whereabouts were unknown and possibly lost forever. Now new evidence of DNA and an unknown mummy appear to have solved the mystery what happened to Pharaoh Akhenaten.
Head of Akhenaten
Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family adoring the Aten, second from the left is Tutankhamun who was the son of Akhenaten.
