X-rays of Egyptian mummies by U-M team gives insight into a distant past

The science of genetics is helping to confirm - and in some cases refute - historical records of the ancient civilizations of Egypt.

A team from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry has for more than a decade been x-raying the mummies of Egyptian royalty of the New Kingdom era (about 1570 B.C. to 1080 B.C.) That information, submitted to complex statistical analysis, has yielded information about the lineage, the life styles and the medical ills of the rulers of the ancient Egyptian kingdoms.

The findings of those studies have now been published in a new book, "An X-Ray Atlas of the Royal Mummies," co-edited by Dr. James Harris, geneticist and chairman of the U-M dental school's department of orthodontics, and Edward Wente, an Egyptologist from the University of Chicago. Harris has directed the studies which led to the mummy work since 1965.

THE BOOK concentrates on royalty of the New Kingdom, though the U-M group has studied mummies from the Old and Middle kingdoms as well.

The U-M study is unique, Harris said, because the Egyptian pharaohs are perhaps the only historical group for which there is both written records and the actual remains of the bodies. The x-ray studies provide a chance to check the historical records which in many cases have proven to be inaccurate.

One problem with the records is that, while the pharaohs were mummified and buried in individual tombs at the times of their deaths, the mummies were disinterred and moved to burial sites at Luxor in the Valley of the Kings by Egyptian rulers about 1,000 B.C. Many of the mummies may have been mislabeled at that time, Harris said.

And in the intervening 3,000 years, many of the burial sites were robbed, the mummies opened and their contents scattered about, he said.

THE U-M WORK has helped to establish a chronological list of the pharaohs and to determine the age at death of many of the rulers, Harris said. For example, x-ray study showed that King Tutankhamon, known as the "boy king," was actually in his early 20s at the time of his death Harris said.

In another of the study's interesting findings, the U-M team was able to identify a mummy known only as "The Elder Lady" as possible the grandmother of King Tut.

Using a statistical technique known as "cluster analysis" which identifies significant similarities in the size and shape of individuals' faces and heads, the U-M researchers determined that "The Elderly Lady," whose mummy was taken from the tomb of the pharaoh Amenhotep II, most resembled Tjuya, the mother of Queen Tiye.

The U-M team speculated that the Elderly Lady was in fact Queen Tiye, a theory which was confirmed when hair from the Elderly Lady's mummy was found to be identical with hair taken from a locket in the tomb of King Tut inscribed as belonging to Queen Tiye.

THE STUDY of the Egyptian mummies came about almost by chance.

The U-M team had been working in an area of the Nile River Delta about 400 miles south of Cairo, x-raying the remains of ancient Nubians. The bodies, naturally mummified in the dry heat of the desert, were buried in a series of cemeteries which have since been inundated by the waters of Lake Nasser, backed up by the Aswan Dam.

The U-M team had developed portable x-ray equipment for the Nubian field work and the Egyptian government invited the U-M researchers to use that equipment to study the royal mummies housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Harris noted that the study of the mummies added little to the U-M researchers' understanding of the effects of heredity on the face and teeth; rather, knowledge gathered from other studies including a survey of Ann Arbor school children, was used to understand the Egyptian royalty.

In those other studies, the U-M team had worked out complex statistical formulas which help to describe and predict the effects of genetics on dental development.

THOSE FORMULAS might not have worked for the Egyptian royalty if there had been extensive intermarriage among the ruling families, but the U-M team found marriage among siblings from the same set of parents was rare.

While marriage of a royal prince to a royal princess would enhance chances for inheriting the throne, the Egyptians more often married half sisters and brothers, possible because pharaohs usually had several wives.

And, the pharaohs ruled at a time when Egypt was an imperial power and they often married women from conquered nations, bringing new blood into the royal families.

Thus, the Egyptian rulers escaped many of the genetic defects which can result from intermarriage, though the U-M researchers do suspect that King Ahmose I, credited with expelling the Hyksos invaders from Egypt in 1565 B.C., was a frail man who may have suffered from hemophilia, a disorder which prevents blood from clotting and can cause even a slight wound to be fatal.

THE MOST COMMON problem suffered by the pharaohs and their families was arthritis.

The disease, most often found in the weight-bearing joints of the spine, hips and knees, was worst in those who lived the longest by every body x-rayed showed some sign of the disease.

King Siptah of the 19th Dynasty had a deformed left foot which had previously been labeled a clubfoot but which the U-M team diagnosed as the result of polio.

And, though analysis of soft body tissues was difficult in the mummies, several pharaohs showed evidence of advanced arteriosclerosis, hardening of the arteries which looked very much like the disease which troubles present-day Americans.