King Tut Paternity

Paternity suits are often settled by DNA testing — but can you still do that when the people involved have been dead for three thousand years?

We are talking about King Tut, who was an Egyptian pharaoh at the age of 9 and died at 19 around 33-hundred years ago. Turns out, much to scientists' surprise, the embalming method used in mummification also protected his DNA, allowing them to analyze not only how King Tut died but who his parents were.

Scientists took DNA samples not only from King Tut's bones but also from ten other royal mummies. Only three of the mummies' identities were already known.

Using the Y male chromosome, which is passed from father to son, they constructed a five generation family tree.

They learned that one of the mummies was King Tut's father, the Pharaoh Akhenaton. Akhenaton was an important king who moved the religion of Egypt toward the worship of a single God.

Another mummy turned out to be King Tut's grandfather, the Pharaoh Amenhotep the third.

On King Tut's mother's side, the tests identified an unknown mummy as Queen Tiye, King Tut's grandmother. Though scientists could not identify his mother, they did discover she was the daughter of Queen Tiye and Amenhotep the third.

This meant King Tut's parents were brother and sister, which was then common among Egyptian nobility. This dispels the widely held belief that King Tut's mother was Queen Nefertiti.

But what about King Tut himself? Far from the vigorous, handsome king long pictured, his left foot was deformed and he suffered from malaria, which weakened his immune system.

Scientists believe that his impaired immune system may have led to his death. King Tut had suffered a broken leg, and scientists theorize a lethal infection followed.

How exciting to have DNA reveal history this way.