DNA From Ancient Egyptian Mummies Reveals Their Ancestry (washingtonpost.com)

HanzoSpam quotes a report from Washington Post: Ancient Egyptians were an archaeologist's dream. They left behind intricate coffins, massive pyramids and gorgeous hieroglyphs, the pictorial writing code cracked in 1799. But there was one persistent hole in ancient Egyptian identity: their chromosomes. A study led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Tubingen in Germany managed to plug some of those genetic gaps. Researchers wrung genetic material from 151 Egyptian mummies, radiocarbon dated between Egypt's New Kingdom (the oldest at 1388 B.C.) to the Roman Period (the youngest at 426 A.D.), as reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Johannes Krause, a University of Tubingen paleogeneticist and an author of the study, said the major finding was that "for 1,300 years, we see complete genetic continuity." Despite repeated conquests of Egypt, by Alexander the Great, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Assyrians -- the list goes on -- ancient Egyptians showed little genetic change. "The other big surprise," Krause said, "was we didn't find much sub-Saharan African ancestry."

Comments

"we didn't find much sub-Saharan African ancestry"

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, Sherlock.

Ancient Egyptians were always known to be Caucasian. Anyone saying anything else was engaging in bullshit and/or wishful thinking.

This is going to a upend a lot of fiction.

[Holammer]

But the memes will live on.

Re:This is going to a upend a lot of fiction.

[aliquis]

Yeah, poor black people trying to claim they were Egyptians.

Why is it so bad to be whom they actually are?

Re:This is going to a upend a lot of fiction.

[Carewolf]

Why is it so bad to be whom they actually are?

Ethiopia and the other old African civilizations don't have the same level of public recognition that Egypt does.

I'm not even sure what the other old African civilizations are, before I did a quick recheck to see what Ethiopia had been up to for the last 2000 years, all I could easily remember was that they were once respected trade partners with Egypt and Rome.

Well, all the classic ones were North African and thus more mediterrainian or near east than sub-saharan black.

Of the great black kingdoms, I can think of Mali and Songhai in West Africa (I think there was a couple more, these were the great black kingdoms capturing all the slaves Europeans bought and took to the new world). In the east there was Ethiopia and the rich merchant city of Zanzibar, and a large continous culture of Swahili speakers in between, though I don't think those were united.

Caste System

[Anonymous Coward]

The article claims ancient Egyptians are more similar to people of Near East. "The study found that modern Egyptians share more ancestry with Sub-Saharan Africans than ancient Egyptians did, whereas ancient Egyptians were found to be most closely related to ancient people from the Near East"

However, there is not enough sample data to make a universal assertion. What if Egyptian Pharos were a bit like European royalties, where the Austrian princess would marry the ruler of France or German royalty would marry the Russian Tzar. And these mummified people were prince or princes from Near East empires marrying into Egyptian royalty to forge political bonds? Perhaps the slave / worker / minstrel caste were Sub-Saharan Africans.

Re:Caste System

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the slave / worker / minstrel caste were Sub-Saharan Africans.

So the Pharaohs had black maids and yard workers. I guess not much has changed over the centuries.

A written history of inbreeding.

[jellomizer]

I am not too surprised. As the Ancient Egyptians had a culture of inbreeding royalty(who would more likely be mummified) Outside of genetic test, there were many deformities from elongated heads and clubbed feet, that often happen from this. So I wouldn't be too surprised to see a lack of genetic diversity, in those who were mummified. I would be far more interested in the genetics of the average person vs. a dynastic rulers.

Re:A written history of inbreeding.

[alvinrod]

The average people are probably about what they are today. Conquering foreign nations and rules come and go, but the common people tend to remain fairly fixed. There might be some influxes of other groups from time to time across history, but not on a massive population level where it's going to radically change the genetics of such a large ethnic group. It was just too prohibitively expensive to move large groups of people around and to do so in a timely fashion. Moses allegedly led the Jews out of Egypt and spent 40 years just getting to Israel. So unless your nomadic tribe outright kills a bunch of the other people living in the area and replaces them, there isn't going to be much of a change.

Re:A written history of inbreeding.

[ChrisMaple]

The direct genetic chain was broken at least once; Ramesses I (approx 1292 BC) was of non-royal birth.

Re:A written history of inbreeding.

[meta-monkey]

Never happened.

Also, would have been pretty amazing if the US Army had come to comprehend and weaponize germ theory decades before it was developed and accepted.

Representative sample?

[ardmhacha]

I suspect that those Egyptians who were mummified and placed in pyramids or other expensive tombs would come from a very narrow sliver of Egyptian society.

Re:Representative sample?

[Zocalo]

For the primary resident of each given tomb, certainly, but beside various treasures, there's also a lot of evidence that many pharoahs were accompanied to the afterlife with mumified servants and livestock (there are *many* examples of mummified cats in particular). As long as you are able to take DNA samples from a decent cross section of the available mummies in a given tomb, then you're going likely to get a much more representative sample of the population of a whole than just the Ancient Egyptian equivalent of the 1%. While that's not going to be a perfect cross section of the society, it should at least include a decent number of representatives from both the indigneous and immigrant labour pools.

Re:"we didn't find much sub-Saharan African ancest

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the Sphinx have an African face?

Because you want it to be African.

That doesn't make Egyptian Pharaohs anything but Caucasian.

Re:"we didn't find much sub-Saharan African ancest

[cayenne8]

"for 1,300 years, we see complete genetic continuity." Despite repeated conquests of Egypt, by Alexander the Great, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Assyrians -- the list goes on -- ancient Egyptians showed little genetic change. "The other big surprise," Krause said, "was we didn't find much sub-Saharan African ancestry."

Hmm...with no diversity, I guess by todays SJW standards, they'd be branded a racist, xenophobic, close minded civilization.....

How dare they...!! No civilization can accomplish much with this type of closed minded thinking, I mean look at how little the Egyptians accomplish......ed.

Errr.....ok, wait a minute.

Ok, I guess they somehow overcame this....

DNA studies confirm

[tommeke100]

the mummies are dead.

Re: "we didn't find much sub-Saharan African ances

[will_die]

TIL that Alexander the Great had cannons. ;)
The story is with Napoleon, however there are drawings of the great sphinx that predate napoleon by years that are missing the nose.