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German scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Tuebingen partially reconstructed the genomes of 90 Egyptian mummies aged from 3,500 to 1,500 years.
Research
I analyzed it. And they came to the conclusion: the ancient Egyptians were not Africans. Some were Turks, others were from southern Europe and from places that are now Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Georgia and Abkhazia
One of the mummies whose genome the Germans analyzed.
At the University of Tuebingen they search for a site for DNA extraction: in the hands of a researcher, the jaw of an ancient Egyptian man.
The nations that shaped the civilization of ancient Egypt.
Comparison with today’s civilization
Previously, similar studies were carried out by biologists from the genealogical center iGENEA in Zurich. They analyzed genetic material obtained from only one mummy.
But then the pharaoh Tutankhamun himself. His DNA was extracted from bone tissue – specifically from the left shoulder and left leg.
IGENEA specialists compared the genome of the boy-pharaoh and modern Europeans. And they found: many of them are related to Tutankhamun. On average, half of Europeans are “Tutankhamun”. And in some countries their share is 60–70 percent – for example in the United Kingdom, Spain and France.
The DNA was compared according to so-called haplogroups – characteristic sets of DNA fragments that are passed down from generation to generation and remain almost unchanged. The pharaoh’s relatives were “betrayed” by a common haplogroup called R1b1a2.
Scientists emphasize: Tutankhamun’s R1b1a2, which is so common among European men, is very rare among modern Egyptians. The share of its carriers among them does not exceed one percent.
Tutankhamun is a genetic European
“It’s not very surprising that Tutankhamun is a genetic European,” said Roman Scholz, director of the iGENEA center.
The genetic studies of the Swiss and Germans again confirmed that modern Egyptians are generally not the degraded descendants of the pharaohs. They simply have nothing in common with them – their ancient rulers. Which in a way explains the peculiarities of Egyptian society.
The pharaohs themselves are not local.
“I believe that the common ancestor of the Egyptian kings and Europeans lived in the Caucasus about 9,500 years ago,” Scholz said. – About 7,000 years ago his direct descendants settled in Europe. And some came to Egypt and became the pharaohs.
When the time comes, they will come back to life
Johannes Krause, a paleogeneticist at the University of Tuebingen, stated in the journal Nature Communications that the genome of three of the 151 mummies with which the German scientists worked was completely reconstructed. Their DNA is well preserved. The scientist survived to this day. It survived despite the hot Egyptian climate, the high humidity at the burial sites and the chemicals used for embalming.
The reconstruction of the genome promises – even if in the distant future – the restoration of its owner. By cloning. That would have been quite satisfying for the ancient Egyptians, who hoped that somehow and sometime they would rise from the dead. That’s what turned them into mummies. It was as if they anticipated that the remains of flesh and bone would come in handy.
It’s all really enchanting. The dead, however horribly that sounds, are the key to the study of our human history. Without the past there would be no future. By the way, Tutankhamun is perfectly preserved, so nothing prevents him from returning from the kingdom of the dead, as intended.
