One of the great remaining mysteries of ancient Egypt, the lineage of the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, may soon be solved, the country’s antiquities supremo hinted on Sunday.
Zahi Hawass told AFP he has scheduled a news conference for February 17 in the Cairo Museum to unveil the findings from DNA samples taken from the world’s most famous pharaoh.
In August 2008, Egypt’s antiquities authorities said they had taken DNA samples from Tutankhamun’s mummy and from two foetuses found in his tomb to determine whether the still-born children had been fathered by the boy king.
Hawass said then the DNA tests also would determine Tutankhamun’s lineage, and whether the foetuses were the offspring of Tutankhamun and Ankhesenpamon, the daughter of Nefertiti who is renowned as one of history’s great beauties.
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