Explaining his grandfather’s vision of the sphinx telling him he would be pharoah…his father’s vision of the new Sun god Aton, Tut’s conversion back to the old religion, his wider-than-normal hip structure, his early death, and leg fracture…and his body type, and early death: all these are, according to a new Smithsonian production, and a doctor familiar with genetic problems, indicative of this disorder, which without treatment can present this constellation of evidence. The disorder is inherited, affects hormonal shifts including the body shape, causes hallucinations particularly responsive to religion, can cause falls, etc. His parents (they analysed DNA) were as close as brother and sister [his father was Ankhenaton] and this gave him a double dose of the family genetics.
Fascinating program: Tutankhamun: The Truth Uncovered. Catch it when you get a chance. I’ve seen a lot of theories come down the pike, but I find this one fairly well convincing.
Okay, I’m going back about 44 years to my very first World History 101 class…If I remember correctly, Dr. Daley told us that it was NOT uncommon for the pharaohs to marry their sisters. The reasoning he gave was that the pharaoh was considered a living god by the people, and there was nobody eligible to marry in the kingdom of Egypt that was at the same level as the pharaoh, except a sister. So, it did happen, and of course, any recessive traits that might have been in common were kicked out into the open.
I won’t repeat what Dr. Daley called Cleopatra during his lectures..but according to him, she was a Ptolemy, which means she was Greek. Egypt had been a subject country of Greece during the “Golden Age”.
There’s been debate as to whether the ‘marriage’ was a consolidation of power (and assuring no rivalry, such as supporters lining up behind a sister to take over) more than a sexual connection, and therefore ceremonial in nature, but given a marriage, it’s certain that someone over a multi-thousand year history would take it literally even if in concept it often wasn’t. I have trouble believing that dynasties could carry on as long as some dynasties did without running into a genetic bullet if they were doing that on a preferential basis. Horses, dogs, and cats are often inbred as a means of reinforcing a trait, but not generation after generation after generation.
It MAY have been a way of granting a particularly powerful or senior female sib an important priestess-ship (too many esses) and bennies in the afterlife: the Great Royal Wife often was Priestess of Isis, which was a big deal.
But in Tut’s case, we have at least a posterchild for why not to do this.
This is reminding me of a recent conversation I had with someone about the Habsburg Jaw and hemophilia etc in certain bloodlines. Maybe that explains some of the (cough) terrible decisions throughout history. Of course we have world leaders now who make terrible decisions without various ailments. Politician-itis or Foot-in-Mouth disease probably doesn’t count.
Queen Victoria introduced haemophilia into some of the rotal houses of Europe, notably Spain. If one examines her pedigree carefully, the only explanation is that she had a spontaneous mutation.
For a really engrossing book about Egypt read “The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt” by Kara Cooney. The book touches on familial marriage, Egyptian politics, the religious reasons for marriage and priesthood and is based on solid research leavened with professional conjecture (conjectures pointed out to the reader). This book also gives one a fascinating glimpse into the life of a woman who became Pharoah (usually the precinct of men). Hatshepsut was largely erased from history when her monuments were defaced only decades after her death.
The book sometimes becomes pedantic, but by and large the subject matter and author’s voice lift the book into the realm of actually interesting for those of us who know little about ancient Egypt. It would have been so easy for a lesser researcher to focus on the possible love relationship between Hatshepsut and her steward, but Ms. Cooney resisted the urge to sensationalize and instead presents the actual known facts.
Ooh, I shall have to pick this book up. Not only am I quite interested in Hatshepsut, my students in both Art History and the more focused course I teach which I call “Ancient Egypt: Then and Now” and the college boringly calls “Pespectives on Ancient Egypt” are completely fascinated by her.
A favorite youth fiction book I read as a young teen and continue to adore today is called “Mara, Daughter of the Nile,” by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. It features Hatshepsut as the baddie and her half brother, Thutmosis III, as the goodie trying to throw off her rule and claim his rightful place on the throne – it is incredibly evocative of “you are there,” a terrific romance and, I now realize, very 1950’s unsympathetic to a ruling woman albeit Mara herself makes a very spunky heroine. Funny how you don’t spot the underlying sexism in a book when you are a kid and also (when I read it first) your own society took that sexism for granted too. But, my, how the book makes you feel like you are in Ancient Egypt!!
I’ve always been more impressed by the design of Hatshepsut’s Temple than the Pyramids or Rameses collossi/temple at Abu Simbel.
A number of dynasties married within the family to ensure the lineage. The alii, rulers of ancient Hawaii, were regarded as gods, and it was not uncommon for brothers to marry sisters or other close relatives to wed, for the same reasons that the Pharaohs did. OTOH, the Hawaiians also frequently fostered out children who then married into other royal families from other islands in the chain. There is a strong tradition of adopting out (‘hanai‘) children who might be in danger from a relative wanting to claim their birthright; Kamehameha I was sent to distant relatives on the far side of the Big Island for protection as a child.
I seem to recall, the last time I’d seen a (video) documentary on King Tut, they had some brief bit about unusual body shape, possible hormonal anomalies, or the idea Tut might have been, in today’s terms, somewhat effeminate or gay, as a description of some of the issues surrounding his life and reign. — However, I also thought that other documentaries portrayed him as likely a fairly typical Egyptian boy of the time, and that he was older than 12 (14 or so?) when he’d died, of some illness or injury.
The things I’ve seen about him have always been interesting. Some of Egypt’s rulers were apparently pretty on the ball, though in a time when other things (their own beliefs, for instance) often got in the way of any real progress.
I’ll look for the documentary. It makes you wonder what he would’ve been like, if he’d grown up and led Egypt.
Really too bad that many royal dynasties (culture-wide) get so hung up on “keeping it in the in group” that they intermarry so much that harmful traits cause such serious harm to people who could otherwise have been better rulers, and ruled longer than their power-hungry successors. Though that doesn’t mean that things don’t turn up anyway, in more free-wheeling (and generally common-folk) families.
Things like this make me wish I knew more about the ancient / classical world up through medieval history too. I got a cursory exposure to that from high school, very little in college (my history and literature classes were more modern, post-Roman-Empire). It’s fascinating that they were in some cases very advanced, considering what they had to work with.
I’ll check for the documentary. Interesting stuff.
I heard the statues of Akhenaton were placed high, so the distortions were to compensate for the point of view.
Most of those Pharoah + Chief Consort marriages were between half brother and half sister, which diluted the genes just as if you were marrying your cousin. Cousin marriage is one of the world’s most popular forms of marriage (and likely has been for many thousands of years since agriculture: it’s a useful form of marriage to keep landed property within the lineage). The Egyptian dynasties changed pretty frequently too. I need to go back and relearn my dynasty lists I knew as a kid but I believe that most bring in an entirely new ruling male pharoah (don’t know if they sometimes picked a consort from the prior dynasty or not).
In the US, we have a cultural horror of “inbreeding” that we currently justify as being “genetically risky,” but that dislike predates our scientific knowledge of genetics. Cousin marriages in England used to be very popular: Darwin, the Dad of Natural Selection, married his first cousin, which he and all thought an especially good match.
P.s. I think Tut died at 18 or 19. Archaeologically, by no means are all Egyptologists convinced that Tut is a direct son of Akhenaten. Mostly, who succeeded Akhenaten, when and why with what relationship is quite a muddle. Sounds as if the documentary has the DNA analysis, which I would be most interested in, though.
IIRC, when I was in college genetics class it was said marriages of first cousins in most cases multiplied the probability of manifesting a deleterious gene by 11, but 11 times a very small number, because most deleterious genes are very rare in the population at large, is still a very small number. Once isn’t generally a big deal.
My father’s grandmothers were 2nd cousins or first cousins once removed, something like that.
My parents were second cousins – that’s probably how they ended up meeting as adults. (They’d met when they were kids, too. My father always claimed the first time he saw my mother, she was chasing her (two-years-younger) brother with a baseball bat.) Not the only cousin marriage on my tree – there are at least two others – but the most inbred people, as far as I can tell, are in the cousins in Canada, some of whom have the same couple showing up three or four times.
I have, somewhere, a set of charts that lays out several Egyptian dynasties, with titles as well as relationships, as understood in the mid-80s.
That was a really fine documentary.
I notice they didn’t say if they also analyzed the “Elder Lady” and the “Boy” found with the “Younger Lady.” I’d think they would be relatives, rather than servants.
And…yet another example where civilization means that someone with physical difficulties is supported and flourishes.
Also, all that fine Egyptian artwork and design. Still classic and beautiful, and distinctive, after thousands of years. Really remarkable.
Tut, as a successor to the ‘heretic’ Ankhenaton, who had trashed the Egyptian power structure and squandered modern-day billions building a totally new capital (which was then abandoned), not to mention the mayhem he made in civil order—Tut put the traditional priests and their networks back in power and changed the religion back before the whole country fell apart. Though a ‘minor’ king in terms of what the world knows of him, he —perhaps as a figurehead, perhaps as an active player—seems to have been immensely important in BEING that figure around which Egypt could reorganize and regain what it had.
Hatshepsut’s reign was characterized by her expeditions —to Punt, aka Somalia, which she thought represented the land of their origins, and may have been, for the Theban dynasties; and to the remoter isles of the Mediterranean. She was less about wars, through which male pharoahs traditionally made their reputations, than about exploration and mapping resources.
William James was writing a century ago, but this attitude is even more prevalent today. I find this superficial at best. It provides a glib way to discount such experiences without explaining them. It’s reductionism.
CJ, it looks like my comment got caught in the spam filter again…
Usually it’s links that do it. Can’t figure unless it didn’t like the box….???
I wrote what ended up being an essay in reply to GreenWyvern’s post.
I think the spam filter also takes into account the reply length or the amount of time spent on the reply. (Though as far as I know, the time between page load and reply isn’t counted at all.)
Anyway, I made an attempt at the old physical versus metaphysical, body and mind and spirit conundrum.
It might be half-baked, but it’s there in the spam filter. My apologies. I think I need to save such essayist efforts and post occasionally at my own blog. LOL!
But I love reading and joining the conversation and debate here.
Seriously Off Topic and Amazingly Depressing
aka You need not read this.
The power went out at about 5:30 AM on Thanksgiving. The oven would not light, so we did the duck in a dutch oven. For the next two and a half days we only managed to get the house up to 51F once. The rest of the time it was under 50F, even with the fireplace and all the burners on the stove going full blast, and that was in the warmest rooms.
My spousal unit’s father has had an accident and surgery which has required him to be in Kansas from the 8th of November. He is coming home on the 1st of January. I will be leaving on the 31st of December to take over the family duties, as his mother has severe memory issues.
My eldest daughter, a woman of some 35 years, has a solid, ping-pong ball sized tumor in her tennis ball sized breast. Her surgery is on the 22nd of December.
It seems like I should be counting my blessings instead of complaining, but I feel the weight of all of this almost physically, and am at the edge of tears a third of the time.
(((Hugs)))
O ye four hundred thousand gods and goddesses! That’s an awful burden. Good wishes are being directed your way.
Tommie — It is so hard when life throws so much at us. I’m still recovering from my bout with being a caregiver and my own stuff. The holidays only heighten the emotional acuity of it, when we have problems going on in life.
I always enjoy your contributions here. You’re a neat person. Please know you have my best wishes, and I hope things are more bearable and will improve for all concerned, in whatever ways they can.
I have been through similar no-win situations. It is hard to deal with it inside and outside. You’ll get through it and there are people who care, as impossible as life seems sometimes.
:bighug:
I hardly consider what you’re doing to be complaining. It seems to me, as well as everyone else here, that you are asking for moral support, and we have that in plenty to give you. I cannot imagine what you are going through, but I sincerely hope that things get better. Much support for your daughter, too! Make sure that in all of this mess, you give yourself time to take care of yourself, too.
Also seriously OT, but more impersonal (condolances Tommie), this interesting article connects Gamma Ray Bursts to the Fermi Paradox.
Ahem, the LINK dummy!
http://news.yahoo.com/did-deadly-gamma-ray-burst-cause-mass-extinction-132803314.html
Oh, Tommie! So sorry to hear this. Give yourself permission to take care of yourself amid it all. Hoping it all comes out ok. Keep us posted. You’ve got friends here who do care, if that can make the load lighter.
Remember how I was saying earlier that your stories seemed true to life? Thank you for your comfort, folks. It sustains me.
Tommie,
The stress and anxiety that you are feeling is intense and we, as fellow human beings, understand even if we are not ourselves perched on the edge of what feels like impending doom.
I can’t remember if you have a pet at home, but if you do, take time to snuggle and pat it. It can help calm the anxiety. Pets can also understand and accept a good cry.
Many people do not own pets. They can be large, clumsy, and dirty, as well as needing constant care. They do not bathe themselves or clean themselves properly after toileting. They need special and often times disgusting diets. They can easily hurt you purely by accident, and some of them are not to be trusted with your youngsters.
In spite of this, I am quite fond of mine. She is warm and comforting when I can get her to sleep with me. Her young have never hurt or endangered my young. Although she doesn’t always appreciate the things I try to do for her, I am convinced that she loves me. For all her flaws, I am glad I have her.
O Tetsu Neko
(The Iron Cat), Tommie’s Owner