Sickly - pharaoh boy Tut likely used a cane, latest tests find posted 2/17/2010 6:23:26 PM | 0 kudos what's this?     report abuse tagged: weird, news, history, straddle

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DNA from the mummies of King Tutankhamun and his family showed that his parents were brother and sister.

CAIRO -- Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun suffered from a cleft palate and club foot, likely forcing him to walk with a cane, and he died of complications from a broken leg exacerbated by malaria, according to the most extensive study ever of his more than 3,300-year-old mummy.

The findings were from two years of DNA testing and CT scans on 16 mummies, including those of Tutankhamun and his family, the team that carried out the study said in an article to be published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It also established the clearest yet family tree for Tut, indicating for the first time that he was the child of a brother-sister union.

The study said his father was most likely Akhenaten, the pharaoh who tried to revolutionize ancient Egyptian religion and force his people to worship one god. The mummy shown by DNA to be that of Tut's mother also turned out to be a sister of Akhenaten, though she has not yet been identified. Brother-sister marriages were common among the ancient pharaohs.

Tut, who became pharaoh at the age of 10 in 1333 B.C., ruled for just nine years. While a comparatively minor king, the 1922 discovery of his tomb filled with stunning artifacts, including the famed golden funeral mask, made him known the world over.

Speculation had long swirled over the boy king's early death. A hole in his skull fueled speculation he was murdered, until a 2005 CT scan ruled that out, finding the hole was likely from the mummification process. The scan also uncovered the broken leg.

The newest CAT scans and DNA tests revealed a sickly teen pharaoh, weakened by congenital illnesses, finally done in by complications from the broken leg aggravated by brain malaria.

The team said it isolated DNA of the malaria parasite in several of the family's mummies, including Tut's -- the oldest such discovery.

Like his father, Tutankhamun had a cleft palate. He also had a club foot and suffered from Kohler's disease, in which lack of blood flow was slowly destroying the bones of his left foot -- an often painful condition, the study said. It noted that 130 walking sticks and canes were discovered in Tut's tomb, some of them with traces of wear that suggested they had been used.


By Pauk Schemm
AP
The Columbus Dispatch

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