Genealogy of New Kingdom Pharaohs and QueensEgyptologists have struggled with the genealogy of New Kingdom (1570-1070 B.C.) pharaohs for more than a century. Many royal mummies from this period have been identified, either by modern scholars or 20th Dynasty priests who rescued some of them from the depredations of tomb robbers. But we cannot always trust these identifications. The incomplete historical record is exacerbated by the fact that royal brothers and sisters, and even fathers and daughters, intermarried. Uncertainty abounds: How was a particular pharaoh related to his successor? Which of a pharaoh's wives was the mother of his heir? There are also many unidentified mummies. Could one of them be Hatshepsut or Akhenaten? Were the two fetuses found in Tutankhamun's tomb carried by his wife Ankhensenpaaten? Since 1993 microbiologist Scott Woodward has been analyzing DNA from the mummified remains of these pharaohs and queens, in cooperation with Nasry Iskander, chief curator of the royal mummies at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
by Scott Woodward
September 1996
Kinda like he was his own grandfather.