Was Queen Nefertiti King Tut’s mother ?

Posted on Thursday, 14 February, 2013 | Comment icon

19 comments | News tip by: Still Waters

Image credit: Jon Bodsworth

A DNA analysis by French archaeologist Marc Gabolde suggests a new link between Nefertiti and King Tut.

CT scans and genetic analyses revealed as far back as 2005 that Tutankhamun was likely to be the offspring of Akhenaten and his unnamed sister. King Tut's congenital malformations such as a clubbed foot and curved spine further added weight to his incestuous origins. Archaeologist Marc Gabolde however has a different idea - he believes that Tutankhamun's mother might have actually been his father's first cousin, Queen Nefertiti.

"The DNA of the third generation between cousins looks like the DNA between a brother and sister," he said. "I believe that Tutankhamun is the son of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, but that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were cousins."

A genetic investigation by French archaeologist Marc Gabolde is threatening to rewrite the history books on two of ancient Egypt's most iconic figures.

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Source: io9.com

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#10 Posted by glorybebe on 14 February, 2013, 19:19

Ah! Gotcha!

#11 Posted by cormac mac airt on 14 February, 2013, 19:31

And just to throw this out there, there have been two possibilities presented for Nefertiti in the original JAMA report. One is KV35 YL and the other, KV35 EL. In neither case do the microsatellites match sufficiently for either lady to be a full sister of Akhenaten. Which means that if either lady really was Nefertiti then she definitely wasn't Tutankhamun's mother. ng to the Tutankhamun Kindred.gif] cormac

#12 Posted by Everdred on 14 February, 2013, 20:39

What makes you say that? Looks like a perfect match to me. Both KV55 and KV35YL have alleles from their putative parents (KV35EL and Amenhotep III) at every locus.

#13 Posted by Atentutankh-pasheri on 14 February, 2013, 20:43

You could well have been reading about this since 1925 let alone 1995. What has breathed new life into this ancient and contentious nonsense is the DNA testing done in 2010.

#14 Posted by cormac mac airt on 14 February, 2013, 21:54

Your right. Got a bit ahead of myself with two different trains of thought. The whole "first cousin/full sister" bit threw me off. What I should have said was that if KV35 Elder Lady was Nefertiti, then there is no way she was Tutankhamun's mother*. And there is no extant information from Ancient Egypt on Nefertiti's parentage**, to make her a biological sister of Akhenaten, so Gabolde is attempting to pidgeon-hole her into the genetic lineage based on nothing. So it's basically wishful thinking on his part. * Although KV35 EL may have been Queen Tiye. ** Although so... [More]

#15 Posted by kmt_sesh on 17 February, 2013, 5:01

I agree with cormac. It's too bad this discussion has already grown quiet and I regret not having had the time to weigh in until tonight, but [background=rgb(245, 249, 253)]Marc Gabolde's conclusions are a bit of a stretch, to say the least. As cormac noted, nothing certain is known of Nefertiti's parentage, so suddenly placing her as a first cousin of Akhenaten seems decidedly odd to me. In the first place there is not much evidence for how cousins came into play in the royal families at any point in dynastic history, aside possibly from some muddled periods when there was royal i... [More]

#16 Posted by teetay08 on 1 March, 2013, 16:33

thats just alot of incest

#17 Posted by Atentutankh-pasheri on 1 March, 2013, 16:57

Disturbing actually, and I wonder if any, or how many, AE royalty had a brother who was also their father. It's always possible that some DNA results are not released because they are just too shocking.... Anyway, having six fingers on each hand makes for really fast typing

#18 Posted by kmt_sesh on 2 March, 2013, 3:29

Pity the ancient royals had no typewriters, then. Listen to me—"typewriters." Now I'm dating myself. Let's change that to computer keyboards. But as far as that goes, at least the old-fashioned typewriters didn't require electricity, so the ancient royals with their dozen fingers are screwed on all counts. What DNA results would be too shocking? Thanks to DNA analysis we know now Tut's parents were a brother and sister, and the "icky" factor doesn't get much worse than that. Besides which, most modern folk love to hear about all of the ickines... [More]

#19 Posted by Atentutankh-pasheri on 2 March, 2013, 9:20

Ah, about shocking, I was thinking about a well know Americanism that is slightly worse than brother/sister

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