Egyptian Dreams

[Lutz]

I did not read the book, but maybe it is for one or the other here of interest (?) ...

M. Traugott Huber : Who was the Father of Tutankhamun?. - Norderstedt : Books on Demand, 2016. - ISBN : 9783741291616. - 204 p., 63 figs [plans, tables, ills (mostly colour)] :

[Thieuke]

While i think that Smenchkare is the best option as Tut's father i have to disagree with Meritaten as his mother. She may have been his father's Great Royal Wife and married the future monarch after his first wife and sister died. DNA evidence makes it clear that KV35YL is the daughter of KV35EL and the latter has been identified as the Great Royal Wife Tiye. So Smenchkare married at least twice. Once his sister who gave him a son and the second time to his niece who put him closer to the throne after his mother-in-law/sister-in-law and female line relative of his mother.

[Sobek]

Thanks for the book review, Lutz.

From Hawass et al, 2010 the KV21A mummy has a (16) allele at D13S317 and a (10) at D18S51. The KV46 mummies have (9,11,12,13) and (8,12,19,22) at these locations.

If KV21A is Ankhesenamun, KV46 female is Thuya, and KV46 male is Yuya, Nefertiti cannot be a daughter of Ay, son of Yuya and Thuya, and his full sister. Ay and a neice of Thuya is possible, though unlikely.

Barring error or mutation, of course.

[Thieuke]

I don't think Aye was Nefertiti's father and i don't think he was the son of Thuya and Yuya.
Im more inclined to say he was related to them or belonged to their clan but he was not part of the immediate family.
Tire's brother may very well have married his maternal cousin or second cousin and they could have been the birth parents of Nefertiti. That would make the Great Royal Wife and potential Pharaoh a full cousin of her husband. Tire's brother died young and his wife may have had a brother (real, half, step or foster) that was Aye. With Tiye's brother and his wife both dead Aye taking on their children and raising Nefertiti and (some of her) siblings would make him close enough to have an important role at the court of her husband without being closely related by blood to Thuya and Yuya.

[Ikon]

Huber posits that Nefertiti is not the daughter of Ay and Tey, but of Ay and a first wife, who he calls Sawama, who was a daughter of Yuya and an unnamed sister of Thuya. Mutbenret is still, in Huber's hypotheses, a daughter of Ay and Tey, but only half sister to Nefertiti. If Huber is right, I think that makes Nefertiti a third cousin to Akhenaten. I see an analogy between the Akhmin clan with the Japanese Fujiwara clan, in that they were chief suppliers of wifes to the royal family.

[karnsculpture]

In the Huber paper it is proposed that the letters to the Hittites were written after the death of Ay. This is interesting because it is assumed that the pharaoh in the correspondence after the Hittite Prince's death is Ay - but I don't believe that the Pharaoh is named, so it could have been Horemheb.

[Thieuke]

If she is the daughter of Tiye's halfsister and cousin Nefertiti would still be the first cousin of her husband.
I find that a very complex mix and it assumes Yuya married two sister yet he was buried with Thuya only and there was no mentioning of a second wife who also was the sister of Thuya.
That seems odd to me.

[Ikon]

The genealogy chart Huber has made is interesting, and highly contentious. I would like to post it, but for reasons of copyright, no.

However, in bare bones, it shows that in Huber's hypotheses Nefertiti and Akhenaten, on the female line, share a common great grandmother, that being the mother of Thuya, which I believe makes them second cousins. But this cousin thing is a bit complicated, and we don't know the relationship, if any, between Ay and Queen Tiye, which would add further complication and could make Akhenaten and Nefertiti first cousins.

Huber bases him saying that Ay had a first wife who subsequently died, on an amulet found in tomb S102 at Sawama, hence why he has called this unnamed first wife "Sawama", if for convenience if nothing else. He does not suggest that the occupant, missing, of that tomb was the mother of Nefertiti, only that, to him, it points to this putative first wife of Ay being buried at Sawama. To me it all looks a bit flimsy, and to be fair to Huber, he does admit that more evidence is required, and the contentious lines on his chart are dotted, not solid.

[Lutz]

[Ikon]

Okay then, Huber's genealogy chart of the Amarna royals.
So, of course, this is from "Who was the Father of Tutankhamun" by Dr M. Traugott Huber and published by BoD - Books on Demand in 2016

I've already indicated in part how he has arrived at "Sawama" as being the first wife of Ay, and to understand his workings, at least in full, for the rest of the chart, I guess will require buying his book, which, even if not everybody will agree with every contention, and I don't, is fascinating, and even forensic in his analysis.

[Ikon]

Actually, part of that chart needs some clarification as otherwise it will may cause confusion. Where he uses the name Nefertiti he does of course mean she is also Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten. Also, he puts her in KV35. He does not posit that KV35YL is Nefertiti, he believes that mummy is Meritaten, and I agree with this. He posits that Nefertiti as Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten, was entombed originally in KV62, and subsequently removed to make room for Tutankhamun, so no "hidden burial chamber", in his view. In putting Nefertiti in KV35 on the chart, he is in fact referring to the spare arm found in chamber Jd, which he thinks might possibly be hers, though does not nail his flag to the mast on this as he otherwise thinks that her mummy was destroyed at some point. On this, I hope he is wrong

[karnsculpture]

Isn’t it more likely / feasible that Mutemweia and Yuya are related to have the DNA make more sense throughout?
Amenhotep III and Yuya have some shared alleles; they should DNA test Tuthmosis IV from which it may be possible to understand if this is through a common ancestor via that king or Mutemweia.
I’m not sure that KV35 can be Crown Prince Tuthmose without any inscriptional evidence, although it’s an attractive idea.

[Ikon]

There does seem a bizarre situation with DNA testing and results. It makes no sense to me why they did not test Thutmosis IV, which certainly would have added to our understanding of who was related by blood to who in his generation. Then of course the odd situation where they tested the boy, but have never said who he is related to. I still think he is too young to be Crown Prince Thutmosis though.

Let's hope we have some good news from VoK in the next month or two, then we could begin to hope that in a year, or more, we may get some questions answered.

[Thieuke]

There are several issues with Huber's chart.
As already often stated Meritaten as the niece of Smenchkhare does not have the right markers to confuse her DNA with that of a full sister of her father and uncle.
There is also no evidence that Yuya married more than one wife. Had he married two sisters why would they not both have been buried in the same grave with him?

It would certainly be interesting to see more DNA testing on the mummies of the 18th and 19th dynasty.
Royal women claimed their links to the Pharaoh, being his mother, sister, wife, daughter or granddaughter. Men only claimed to be sons. I've so far never read anything about a new pharaoh killing all his brothers and nephews so there must have been other male line descendants of previous pharaohs that were no longer considered members of the royal family. We might find out more about that if more mummies are tested.

The boy in kv35 presents a mystery. He is buried with two women who were mother and daughter so it is likely the boy is also closely related to them but in what manner is unknown. Do we have an age for the boy?

[karnsculpture]

The KV35 boy is approximately 11 years of age according to Smith based on his adult teeth being present - however in stature he looked smaller so the initial age estimate was 8 or 9.