LONDON: The remains of two fetuses found in the tomb of ancient Egypt s boy king Tutankhamun may have been twins and were very likely his children, an expert said Monday.
Professor Robert Connolly, who first studied the king s mummified remains in the 1960s and is currently working with the Egyptian authorities to analyze them, said new research suggested the two fetuses were likely twins and fathered by the king.
He said the findings, which he was due to present to a conference at the University of Manchester on Tuesday, offered a very exciting insight into the life of the legendary pharaoh, who died around 3,300 years ago at the age of 19.
The two fetuses in the tomb of Tutankhamun could be twins despite their very different size and thus fit better as a single pregnancy for his young wife. This increases the likelihood of them being Tutankhamun s children, Connolly said.
Tutankhamun s tomb containing the mummified bodies of the children as well as the pharaoh was discovered in 1922 near the ancient Nile city of Luxor by British explorer Howard Carter. The children s bodies have since been stored at Cairo University.
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 1969 blood grouping of Tutankhamun. The results confirmed that this larger fetus could indeed be the daughter of Tutankhamun, Connolly said.
Now we believe that they are twins and they were both his children. Connolly, professor in physical anthropology from the University of Liverpool s Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, said it was a very exciting finding that painted a more detailed picture of Tutankhamun s life, death and lineage.
Tutankhamun was made pharaoh at the age of nine and ruled for 10 years before dying in mysterious circumstances.
Egypt s Supreme Council of Antiquities said last month that DNA tests would be carried out on the remains of the babies to establish if they were the offspring of Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenpamon, daughter of renowned beauty Nefertiti. -AFP
