Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen Shead <srshead+bh AT gmail.com>]

Jim,

Are you suggesting both the articles George cited are inaccurate reporting?
They state that DNA analysis identified BOTH of Tut's parents, including
that Akhenaten was his father and that his parents were full siblings.

I'll provide the relevant quotes. First, the National Geographic article (
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100216-king-tut-malaria-bones-inbred-tutankhamun/
):

"In this way, the team was able to determine that a mummy known until now as
KV55 is the "heretic king" Akhenaten—and that he was King Tut's father."

And from the NY Times article (
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/science/17tut.html?hp):

"In addition, genetic “fingerprinting” of the 11 mummies in the study
established family connections over five generations of Tut’s lineage. [...]
Now, scientists said, the tests have identified the mummies of King Tut’s
father and mother, who appear to be siblings, as well as the mummies of his
grandmother and other probable relatives."

I can't access the full text of the *Journal of the American Medical
Association* article, but unless these reports (and others I have seen)
misrepresent the study's findings, it would now seem very difficult to argue
against Akhenaten being Tut's father.

Stephen Shead
Santiago, Chile

2010/2/17 <b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org>

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
> To: George.Athas AT moore.edu.au, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:00:14 -0500
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Akhenaton (Was: The King's road: Bezer)
>
> George Athas:
>
> The article you cite gives one scenario, but it's not the most likely one.
>  The new news is that it seems to have now been confirmed, as long
> suspected, that Tut's mother was a full-sister of Akhenaten.  Nothing in
> inscriptions suggests that Akhenaten married his full-sister and fathered
> Tut by her.  Tut frequently refers to Amenhotep III as "father", and never
> refers to Akhenaten as "father".  More likely is that Amenhotep III is the
> biological father of Tut, and a daughter of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye is
> Tut's biological mother.  That fits the DNA evidence, and makes much more
> sense historically.  It requires a long co-regency, but that fits the dating
> of the Amarna Letters better than the alternative of there being no
> co-regency.
>
> Akhenaten's known actions make sense only if, like Abraham, Isaac and
> Jacob, Akhenaten was a younger son and early semi-monotheist who had a
> terrible time siring a son by his beloved main wife.
>
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois
>