Have archaeologists performed tests to see if mummies are related to current egyptians?

Question

Like comparing DNA samples and such.

Answer 1

The Egyptians did a test of some of the pyramid builders, and claimed a DNA match, but didn't release any more information than this.

"After comparing DNA samples taken from the workers’ bones with samples taken from modern Egyptians, Dr Moamina Kamal of Cairo University Medical School has suggested that Khufu’s pyramid was a truly nationwide project, with workers drawn to Giza from all over Egypt. She has discovered no trace of any alien race; human or intergalactic, as suggested in some of the more imaginative ‘pyramid theories’.

Effectively, it seems, the pyramid served both as a gigantic training project and - deliberately or not - as a source of ‘Egyptianisation’. The workers who left their communities of maybe 50 or 100 people, to live in a town of 15,000 or more strangers, returned to the provinces with new skills, a wider outlook and a renewed sense of national unity that balanced the loss of loyalty to local traditions. The use of shifts of workers spread the burden and brought about a thorough redistribution of pharaoh’s wealth in the form of rations.

Almost every family in Egypt was either directly or indirectly involved in pyramid building. The pyramid labourers were clearly not slaves. They may well have been the unwilling victims of the corvée or compulsory labour system, the system that allowed the pharaoh to compel his people to work for three or four month shifts on state projects. If this is the case, we may imagine that they were selected at random from local registers.

But, in a complete reversal of the story of oppression told by Herodotus, Lehner and Hawass have suggested that the labourers may have been volunteers. Zahi Hawass believes that the symbolism of the pyramid was already strong enough to encourage people to volunteer for the supreme national project. Mark Lehner has gone further, comparing pyramid building to American Amish barn raising, which is done on a volunteer basis. He might equally well have compared it to the staffing of archaeological digs, which tend to be manned by enthusiastic, unpaid volunteers supervised by a few paid professionals.

BTW, the answerer above me< huh? The colours meant no such thing. See here...

http://www.egyptianmyths.net/colors.htm

Answer 2

YES...

They are related to most of them!

Answer 3

what would be the relevance of that ? it's far more interesting to understand their architectural achievements and embalming techniques

Answer 4

Wheres  the proof not?

Answer 5

Archaeologists usually do not perform such tests.  They submit samples for testing.

In the past, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass has refused to have any mummy tested.  Recently, Egypt has acquired a DNA laboratory (funded by The Discovery Channel) and testing on mummies has begun.  The results have not been published.

Comparisons to modern Egyptians is only a matter of time.

Answer 6

Hey, here are some links.

This one talks about health conditions found in ancient  mummies of Nubian and Egyptian descent.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=mumm...

Here is another page talking about mtdna tests/nuclear dna tests performed on mummies.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...

http://www.livescience.com/history/08052...

I think if you want accurate information on mummies, please enroll in a good college, take an informative class on Egypt, and make sure to study research from people all over the world who study ancient Egyptians.  Most  people's knowledge of Egypt on this site comes from the Cleopatra movie, starring Liz Taylor. It's an ok movie, but is about as factual as The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss.

College degrees are 1,000 times worth their weight in gold.

[edit]

And Marsha, you mentioned East Asians.

I know plenty about East Asian people. I have some East Asian friends who are Chinese and half  white Scottish. And they have "traditional" features too and single eye lids,  but they have dark brown hair instead of black. Everything on their face looks Chinese, and the skin is yellowish-beige.

It really boils down to genetics.  I am not sure what genes a person would need to have to look East Asian. Every East Asian person I've ever seen has always had yellow undertones in their skin, regardless if they are straight out of East Asia,  mixed with Africans, Europeans and Arabs.

Some ethnic groups just have very dominant features. Maybe "traditional  East Asian features" are autosomal dominant.  As long as there is some East Asian nuclear dna from one person, as much as 30 generations will pass and the person will  still look East Asian.

Answer 7

Yes, but they won't let on the actual y chromosome and Mt DNA types, as they dont' want some nuts claiming to be the new pharaoh.

Apparently blood typing matched them best with the Copts in Egypt, a population who use a version of demotic in their scriptures, and speak a variuant of old Egyptian in their formal prayers. The rest of Egypt came pretty close though.

All the skull, hair and teeth studies as well as limb length match the modern population.

I have about 100 plus good lifelike images of ancient Egyptians (statues, paintings and mummies) on my blog gallery..

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

EDIT.

"Reddish brown symbolized Ethiopian and Semitic

Black pharaoh symbolized Sudanese people (from the Dinka tribe)

Dark Brown symbolized Somali and East African Hamitic

White symbolized a ruler (male or female) with vitiligo.

Yellow symbolized Hamitic South Arabian. "

What an utter pile of  horse c**p Marsha, those colours meant nothing of the sort in Egyptian art.

Red brown was the standard colour for painting ALL Egyptian men, natural colouring or appearance regardless.

Yellow was the standard colour for all Egyptian women and Gods were frequently painted white, blue, black and green.

See here  http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/...

Only about 10% of the remains from Egypt show up as N3groid, the bulk of the hair is wavy to curly Caucasian hair. I've spent several days looking at mummies, and mostly, they just weren't black, they were the same as modern Egyptians.

Answer 8

I'm sure they have. Egyptian Dynasties changed depending on who was ruling. There were alot of Nubian (Sudanese, Horn African) pharaohs and leaders, in Egypt. So I'm sure alot of Horn African populations---not necessarily modern day Egyptians can trace their ancestry back to the oldest Egyptian Pharaohs. There were Semite pharaohs and queens also from Ethiopia and modern day Somalia too. That was around the time the Sphinx was built. As far as modern day Egyptians go, they can trace more recent pharaohs and queens to populations  to  Hamitic South Arabian populations, but nothing really too far away from Africa.  

I  have alot of research on all kinds of archaelogical  studies. I will post them sometime.

Growing up in Holland, we learned in great detail so much about Egypt.  Person who asked this question, when looking at the way Pharaohs are drawn or portrayed in art,  that is how they really looked.

Reddish brown symbolized Ethiopian and Semitic

Black pharaoh symbolized Sudanese people (from the Dinka tribe)

Dark Brown symbolized Somali and East African Hamitic

White symbolized a ruler (male or female) with vitiligo.

Yellow symbolized Hamitic South Arabian.

Blue symbolized the occasional very deep complected Dravidian ruler. Or it could symbolize a pharaoh whose parents were siblings, and the practice of intermarriage within the same royal family was repeated for over 3 generations.

This may sound like new stuff. But it's really kind of standard knowledge we have in Holland. I have at least 4 research books with these details. I think this answers the question. I hope this is clear, my English is a little scruffy.

[edit]

I am currently scanning and uploading some of  archaeological and genetic research books.  I have articles to post from Amenian,  Russian and German scholars. Can any of you speak  Russian, German, Dutch,  Surzhyk, and Turkish .  There's no way I can translate 18 articles in one day, in  2-3 weeks I'll  have finished and can post links back to this questions.

Post back if any one can. So they can be read.

In the mean time, can any one answer this.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

It's about people of East Asian ancestry. My friend is 1/4 East Asian and she is having kids with a European-Canadian man. (She's married to him.) And she said that  a person only needs  1 East Asian person in their ancestry, it does not matter how many generations back, to look full blood  Chinese, Japanese, etc... Is she right?  She said it with pride, and she would know about her own ethnic group, wouldn't she? Afterall she is Japanese. She is Canadian-Japanese.  She has  what most  East Asians would call, "traditional Japanese features."

Answer 9

I know they have been tested, to see, if they are related to each other.  It seems that it would, then, be used on current day people, so I would say, yes.

Answer 10

Yes.