Tutankhamun tomb foetuses to be tested
Thursday, 07 Aug 2008 11:26
The foetuses were found in Tutankhamun's tomb
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Foetuses found in the tomb of Tutankhamun are to be tested in an attempt to determine who their parents were.
Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement that DNA samples will be compared to each other, along with those of the mummy of King Tutankhamun.
The two foetuses were found in Tutankhamun's tomb in Luxor by Harold Carter in 1922.
Archaeologists have been unable to determine Tutankhamun's parentage.
Some believe he is the son of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten and that he married his half sister - a girl named Ankhesenamun who was the daughter of Akhenaten by his wife Nefertiti.
But there is no evidence the couple had any surviving children.
"For the first time we will be able to identify the family of King Tut," Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities, told the Reuters news agency.
"This should allow us for the first time to discover the mummy of Nefertiti."
The DNA testing is part of a wider programme to identify Egyptian mummies, including royal mummies.