Tutankhamen was really a Daddy

Two still-born babies found in the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen are the “Boy king’s” twin daughters, anatomists have claimed.
A team from Liverpool University in Britain, led by Professor Robert Connolly, has based its conclusion on preliminary tests carried out on the mummified remains of the two fetuses in Egypt.

“The two fetuses in the tomb of Tutankhamen could be twins, despite their very different size and thus fit better as a single pregnancy for his young wife (Ankhesenamun).This increases the likelihood of them being his children.

“I studied one of the mummies, the larger one, back in 1979, determined the blood group data from this baby mummy and compared it with my 1939 blood grouping of Tutankhamen.

The results confirmed that this larger fetus could indeed be the daughter of Tutankhamen. Now we believe they are twins and they were both his children, “Connolly was quoted by the Times as saying.

The fetus have been stored at the Faculty of Medicine in Cairo University since the archeologists Howard Carter discovered them in the teenage kings tomb on the west bank of Luxor in 1922.

Egyptologists have long debated whether they were his children of if they were placed in the tomb with the symbolic purpose of allowing the famous Pharaoh to live on as newborns in the afterlife.

The answer to this hereditary puzzle is closer because the tow fetuses are to undergo CT scan and DNA testing to determine possible diseases and their relation to Tutankhamen. The smaller fetus is about five months in gestational age and the larger fetus is estimated to be between seven and nine months. The results of the remaining tests are due in December.

It is a very exciting finding which will not only paint a more detailed picture of this famous young king’s life and death, it will also tell us more about his lineage”, Connolly said.

According to Rosalie David, of the University of Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences, Tutankhamen is such an important figure in Egyptology. He was a fascinating character whose tomb and indeed body has given us so much information about life in Ancient Egypt, and it seems that he will continue to do so for some time yet.