Doctors from Japan were
recently thwarted in their request to take a sample of DNA from King Tut's
mummy. The Egyptian government's supreme council of antiquities, after
originally agreeing, reversed its decision.
Japanese researchers had
hoped to compare Tut's DNA to DNA from Amenhotep III (on display at the
Egyptian Museum in Cairo). They wanted to determine if Tut was Amenhotep
III's son (as some believe) or Akhenaten's son. Akhenaten was married to
Nefertiti, with whom he had six daughters. But it is possible that he had
a son or two by one of his secondary wives (Kiya). Could that son have
been Tutankhamun?
No reason was given for the
decision.
