has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjecture

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has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjecture

Post by Aromagician »

The investigations carried on the DNA of the royal mummies, published in February 2010, have provided material for a new genealogical tree for the royal family of the late XVIIInth dynasty. After discussing the reliability of this study, a close examination of these results leads to the conclusion that some genetical links escaped to the team of geneticians. The most significant being the fact that Yuya shared with his son-in-law, Amenhotep III, about 1/3 of genetical inheritance. It is consequently proposed that Yuya was an uncle of Amenhotep III, Mutemwiya being his sister. This means that queen Tiyi was in fact an actual cousin of Amenhotep III. Extrapolating to the next generation it is also suggested that Amenhotep IV - Akhenaten equally married his own cousin, Nefertiti, whose parents were related to both Amenhotep III and Yuya. This would explain why the DNA of Amenhotep IV - Akhenaten (mummy KV 55) and that of Nefertiti, identified to mummy KV35 YL, were looking like that of siblings. It is also suggested that Tutankhamun was the seventh child of Amenhotep IV - Akhenaten and Nefertiti in accordance with some reappraised epigraphic evidences, and that Mutemwiya is no other than the mummy KV21A. A new genealogical tree based on DNA and epigraphic data is given in conclusion.
http://www.osirisnet.net/news/n_09_13.htm

The mummy mentioned above is the one Joan Fletcher named as Nefertiti?


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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Very interesting reading and very interesting theory.
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Kevininabydos »

Aromagician wrote: The mummy mentioned above is the one Joan Fletcher named as Nefertiti?
Yes it is.
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Aromagician »

I would love to find the research that this article is referring to. It seems that further revelations have come out since the initial dna testing and doco was done.

Perhaps now that Zahi has gone, the truth is allowed to emerge?

Will they now display the two mummies as Akhenaton and NEfertiti in a museum?

Kiya the mistress will I suppose fade into insignificance as no longer the mother of Tutankhamen?
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by LivinginLuxor »

As the KV55 mummy is basically a skeleton, I would doubt it!
I might agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong!
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Aromagician »

You would doubt what?
Hi Stan Long time since we have chatted. Glad to see you are still around the place.
That it would be displayed somewhere? I was surprised to see the mummys at the Cairo museum derobed and in glass boxes with a sheet over them.
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by LivinginLuxor »

Yes - no way would I visit the mummy room - to me it is just disrespectful to these famous historic figures to see their bodies lying around in glass cabinets. They have been despoiled of all of their jewellery and funerary goods, so I think they should be reunited with their sarcophagi in their tombs,
I might agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong!
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Aromagician »

I agree.
They could at the least dress them and give them a spirit door to use.
So is it now accepted kv35yl is nefertiti or is it just this article?
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by LivinginLuxor »

Conjecture still, I think. I still have a strange feeling that the Western Valley has some secrets still to be discovered, considering the first tomb is that of Amenhotep III, and the last one (Ay) is considered to be the tomb started for Tutankhamen - maybe the rest of the family is there, waiting to be discovered!!
I might agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong!
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Aromagician »

I disagree. I think the bodies at least are accted for. As for the treasure? Long gone i reckon.
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by A-Four »

I do so much want to enter into a discussion here, with regards to this period, and will do so with in a couple of days, and hope a old, well he's not that old, friend of this site, will help me with it, as it is he who first put the idea into my head, and since then, recently even more info has become available.
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Aromagician »

Promises, promises. A4..

So it seems that the proposal is that Mutemwiyas family had a great influence at court. Her brother being Yuya. Making Queen Tiye her niece. And Ay her Nephew. Which would make Nefertiti her great niece if the above post is correct.

To be honest I have never learnt much about Amenhotep IIIS Mother? Lets see, where did she come from?

I found this but it is by no means certain http://suite101.com/a/mutemwiya-and-the ... ii-a346249
Mutemwiya held many titles including God’s Wife, Great King’s Wife – which were only used after her husband’s death, Hereditary Princess, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt, God's Mother and King’s Mother. Cyril Aldred has also suggested that she was a direct descendant of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari – the founding ancestress of the 18th Dynasty who could bestow hereditary titles to her female descendants – who in turn became hereditary princesses. However, this is not certain and it may have simply been a symbolic title.

Others say the whole family came from Akhmin, this site dispels any story she was from Mitanni. See here
http://www.luxor-on-line.com/pharaohs-QMutemiya.html

The question is still unanswerable, but there are some strong suggestions that she was a sister of Yuya and hailed from Akhmin with the rest of this powerful and influential family. If this is so, then she was not of royal birth. It would also mean that as the sister of Yuya, then Yuya and his wife were Amenhotep’s aunt and uncle, and that when he married the future Queen Tiy, she was in fact his first cousin.

Amenhotep III was believed to have been aged about 2 when his father, King Thuthmosis IV died. It has never been clear who took over the reigns of the government until he was old enough to rule in his own right. There is no indication that his Mother, Queen Mutemwiya took over as Regent. It is possible, therefore, that Yuya stepped into the breach, along with others, and ran the country until the young king was old enough to be married to his daughter, the future Queen Tiy.
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Frater0082 »

I think its safe to say it is ;)
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Aromagician »

So wondering why Joan fletcher hasn't got something to say about it in the media
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by newcastle »

All this speculation - for that is what it amounts to - on the genealogy of the 'Amarna Family' risks entering into the domain of the paranormal, pseudo-egyptology etc, etc. Many geneticists dispute the validity of the 2011 DNA study and even more egyptologists dispute the archaeological data. Until further analysis is performed, with greater rigour and with the improved techniques now available it seems rather pointless to even be discussing the family tree. The DNA evidence, taken at face value, raises the problem that the KV55 mummy cannot be the grandfather of (one of) the KV62 foetuses! This in turn casts doubt on the 'assumption' that KV55 is Akhenaton....and so on. Let's wait and see if, with Hawass out of the picture, further, and hopefully more reliable, data can be extracted from these mummies. In answer to the question posed re Nefertiti ..."is this conjecture"....yes it is!!

I have to agree with LIL that it's high time these mummies were allowed to rest in peace !!
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by newcastle »

All this speculation - for that is what it amounts to - on the genealogy of the 'Amarna Family' risks entering into the domain of the paranormal, pseudo-egyptology etc, etc. Many geneticists dispute the validity of the 2011 DNA study and even more egyptologists dispute the archaeological data. Until further analysis is performed, with greater rigour and with the improved techniques now available it seems rather pointless to even be discussing the family tree. The DNA evidence, taken at face value, raises the problem that the KV55 mummy cannot be the grandfather of (one of) the KV62 foetuses! This in turn casts doubt on the 'assumption' that KV55 is Akhenaton....and so on. Let's wait and see if, with Hawass out of the picture, further, and hopefully more reliable, data can be extracted from these mummies. In answer to the question posed re Nefertiti ..."is this conjecture"....yes it is!!

I have to agree with LIL that it's high time these mummies were allowed to rest in peace !!
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Aromagician »

That is exactly it though isnt it? The premise was that they be clearly identified, be put with their funeral goods, have walls where there identity and deeds are recorded, so that they could rest in peace. To now be a nameless mummy bereft or wraps and identification, would that really allow them to rest in peace?
More like wander in the wilderness of the Land of the dead, hoping someone may recognise them and call them by name, lest they forget who they are and get lost like the other souls present.
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Aromagician »

Marianne Luban says this of the French research"
http://thetimetravelerreststop.blogspot.co.nz/

Gabolde's reasoning is that since Amenhotep III and Yuya seem to be related, according to their shared DNA, Yuya is probably the uncle of the king. Since Amenhotep III married his cousin, Tiye, it also follows that his heir, Akhenaten, also married a cousin, Nefertiti. Gabolde believes that the KV35YoungerLady and the KV55 individual are Nefertiti and Akhenaten. Agreed. The rest is all reasonable and the DNA evidence, as put forth in the 2010 JAMA paper upholds some of it.

My counter-argument is that, if Nefertiti was a cousin of Akhenaten--that would be possible but extrememly unlikely from the DNA picture and the identifications of the mummified and skeletal remains. The YoungerLady [assumed to be Nefertiti] has only the alleles of AIII and Tiye at the 8 markers given--and so does the KV55 individual. It can be seen also, which alleles Tiye inherited from her parents, Yuya and Thuya, but there are many numbers that she did not inherit. A sibling inherits about half the DNA from the same parents,[ which is the case with the YoungerLady and KV55.] Therefore, a brother or a sister of Tiye [whichever was the parent of the YL, [according to the theory of Gabolde] would have had to contribute some other numbers that are not seen in the DNA of the YL as it stands. The same applies to any sibling of Amenhotep III, but we don't know the entire DNA profiles of his parents.
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Frater0082 »

Man there was so many inbreeding back then i wouldn't be surprised that those DNA results are showing both sides of the family at once (Mother-daughter, Cousin-sister) you know that kind of mix up. As to the kv55 mummy ?

But I do think its high time that they leave the Thutmosid mummies to rest.
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Re: has Nefertiti been identified at last? Or is this conjec

Post by Aromagician »

Yes well, thats alwys been the case with Royals until recently hasnt it? When they decided they needed to add some good looks to the gene pool so they could keep the populace happy with them remaining :)
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