| Alistair 2005-12-13, 6:55 pm |
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Howard Brazee wrote:
> On 11 Dec 2005 08:42:42 -0800, "Alistair"
> <alistair@ld50macca.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> Not as many as generally perceived. Incest is mainly advantage to
> societies - Egyptian royalty didn't seem to have genetic di vantages
> from it.
Not true. Inbreeding in the Egyptian royalty resulted in the carriage
of certain family traits (feebleness and physiological forms such as
long chins) and also in the high mortality rate found with some
Pharoahs children - see Akhenaten . From wikipedia:
"Artistic representations of Akhenaten give him a strikingly bizarre
appearance, with slender limbs, a protruding belly and wide hips,
giving rise to controversial theories such as that he may have actually
been a woman masquerading as a man, or that he was a hermaphrodite or
had some other intersex condition. The fact that Akhenaten had several
children argues against these suggestions.
However, it is also suggested by Bob Brier, in his book "The Murder of
Tutankhamen", that the family suffered from Marfan's syndrome, a
dominant autosomal mutation of Chromosome 15, which is known to cause
elongated features, a long thin face, arachnodactyly (spider like
fingers), a sunken chest and an enlarged aorta, with a proneness for
heart problems. Conic shaped eyes also gives a distinctive slit eyed
appearance, and may be associated with short-sightedness. Brier
speculates that this may explain Akhenaten's appearance, and perhaps
his fascination with the sun - since Marfan's sufferers often feel cold
easily. [2]
Marfan's Syndrome tends to be passed on to the children, usually
appearing after 10 years of Age. Artists tended to show Akenaten's
children as suffering the same physical character as their father. If
the family did suffer from Marfan's syndrome it could help explain the
high mortality rate within the family. Akhenaten, three of his
daughters, and his co-regent Smenkhkare all died within a brief period
of 5 years at the end of his reign. Against the Marfan's diagnosis is
the fact that his successor, Tutankhamen, does not appear to have
suffered from the condition. An alternative source of the elevated
mortality of the Royal Family of the Amarna period is the fact that a
known pandemic was sweeping the region (see below).
It is possible that the history of the royal family inbreeding could
have finally taken a physical toll. This claim is countered by the fact
that Akhenaten's mother Tiy was not from within the royal family,
probably being the sister of Ay (Pharaoh after Tutankhamen), and High
Priest Anen."
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