Comments on: What Killed King Tut? Incest and Malaria, Study Says

By: forex

forex — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:37:04 +0000

Egregious post. I am overlay a at one of these problems.

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 01:01:23 +0000

What do you think about the Discovery Channel leakage of the King being Western European? YouTube and the internet are going crazy with this.

By: shelley

shelley — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:06:10 +0000

“Where’s the support for this, though”
the story of Sawney Bean and his family in Scotland probably is an example. often, those most upset by the details claim this is only a legend, but some researchers have found support for believing it to be fact.

By: Roberta Soyars

Roberta Soyars — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:32:57 +0000

Back in the early ’60′s, there was much conjecture about the parentage of King Tut. Many thought that Queen Tiye might have been his mother, partly because a lock of her hair was found in Tutankamen’s tomb. There were other indications that there was a familial relationship of some kind.

After re-reading the DNA analysis, I must recant, and agree with both Meret and Katherine. The picture becomes clearer. You’re quite right, the DNA indicates that Akhenaten and one of his sisters, were the parents of Tut.

Since a wet nurse and nanny were employed for Tut, and little is known of his biological mother, she may have died in childbirth, or soon after. Tut’s grandmother, Queen Tiye may have stepped up to the plate, to fill in for his mother. This is conjecture, of course, many royal children were breast-fed by women other than their mothers.

We’re promised more info in a year or so. Perhaps then we will learn the identity and ultimate fate of Tut’s Mom.

By: djwycked

djwycked — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:26:40 +0000

They never would have thought about studying people breeding because to them they were gods…im sure they had a huge amount of arrogance which eventually led to their down fall.

By: Meret

Meret — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:05:06 +0000

Tiye made her daughter Sitamun Great Royal wife to try to bring forth children with her husband because she could not. So no, it was not his mother who is the parent of Tut. He had at least four sisters but the obvious candidates are the three who were elevated to Great Royal Wife to their father.

By: Frank Tuma

Frank Tuma — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:03:41 +0000

Not just modern leaders, as the article shows as well as many other studies, it has happened through out time.

By: Dave in Calif

Dave in Calif — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:01:49 +0000

Katherine says; Curiously, I wonder if the high rate of inbreeding and the fact that a great many of the people in power today are related to people who were in power centuries ago have anything to do with the fact that so many modern leaders are deranged. :P

Great point Katherine :-)

By: Katharine

Katharine — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:56:58 +0000

Curiously, I wonder if the high rate of inbreeding and the fact that a great many of the people in power today are related to people who were in power centuries ago have anything to do with the fact that so many modern leaders are deranged. :P

By: Katharine

Katharine — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:55:24 +0000

“In short, no. Imagine a boy and girl who grew up on an island by themselves without any human contact and consequently without any culture. They had 2 children, a boy and girl. Would the children be instinctively disgusted with the idea of mating with each other? No. With their parents? Probably not.”

Where’s the support for this, though?

By: Roberta Soyars

Roberta Soyars — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:34:52 +0000

Fascinating – but not a surprise.

So many theories about King Tut’s parentage have been tossed around, it was high time to get something from DNA testing.

So, Tutankhamen was not the son of a slave/concubine, as has been postulated, last time we looked. The son of Akhenaten and his sister? Try Akhenaten and his Mom, Queen Tiye!

Queen Tiye was Tuthankhamen’s grandmother. After she was widowed, Akhenaten took his own mother as his first consort, as his subjects expected an immediate queen. It’s my belief that they became the parents of Tuthankhamen.

Shocking, to our 20th/21st century sensibilities? Akhenaten eventually “married” and impregnated two of his own daughters. Why not Mom as well?

The idea was to keep the royal power within the family. Royal families of much later European and British families resorted to other means to insure that – notably, horrific murders!

By: HarveyY

HarveyY — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:37:52 +0000

It would be interesting to show the history of inbreeding in the United States and the laws and dates set forth to prevent it. One can see how look it took to eradicate or severely limit the damages in our own country. Possible in Tut’s time it was way more commonplace.

Speaking of Malaria, there was a very interesting article on recent research and approach to fighting this disease and the article was in Discover Magazine. I don’t remember the date as I read it in my doctor’s office and it prompted me to subscribe.

By: Bob Snyder

Bob Snyder — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:50:49 +0000

corry – Following your logic, the Egyptians would have selected the best human mates for themselves. So for the Pharaohs, it would have been the people they were related to as they were also thought of as deities.

Katherine – In short, no. Imagine a boy and girl who grew up on an island by themselves without any human contact and consequently without any culture. They had 2 children, a boy and girl. Would the children be instinctively disgusted with the idea of mating with each other? No. With their parents? Probably not.

By: Katharine

Katharine — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:16:34 +0000

Isn’t incest supposed to be one of those things that instinctively causes revulsion, though?

By: coryy

coryy — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:59:03 +0000

hmmmmm.
Except, you can’t tell me that they didn’t select their animals for the best mating pairs, and breed to (whatever unknown) standard, like breeding for more milk, or bigger animals, more eggs, or animals without defects. Wouldn’t somebody somewhere have looked at ‘people breeding’ in a similar fashion?

By: Cory

Cory — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:46:48 +0000

Ideology and religion is often chosen over good sense, provided they even noticed the change. Realistically, genetics isn’t something on any pre-modern people’s radars.

By: Katharine

Katharine — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:15:13 +0000

Which brings the question: why did the Egyptians not figure out that brother-sister mating would produce more infirmities?