The first genome data from ancient Egyptian mummies | Hacker News Reader

The first genome data from ancient Egyptian mummies

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111 pointsvixen9927 comments

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?

You'd expect the Ptolemaic Pharaohs to be Greek/Turkish, I'd have thought. Not that this covers the whole time range examined.

No Turks in the region at that point in history. Turks are related to Mongols.

Most Turks are decended from the original people of Turkey - a bit like Hungary where it is very hard to find any central asian genetic contribution in the modern Hungarian population. Genes != culture.

Are you saying that modern Turks in Turkey are just Greeks that converted to Islam?

Well not Greeks (in the main), but Anatolians I guess. Certainly not Central Asian.

There's a whole Wikipedia article on this, interestingly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Turkish_peo...

Although culturally Turks prefer the middle asia hun and monolian origin narrative, they are genetically mostly descendants of the anatolians who happened to live and breed there already for many millenia. Those people didn't suddenly disappear. This contrast between culture and genetics is confusing to many turks (me included)

That's what I think happened to other countries in the region as well. I'm from Iraq and speak Arabic but I don't think my ancestors are from the "Arabian peninsula", we just adopted the language. It also explains why "dialects" of Arabic can be so different.

Maybe Cretan/Hittite could be, but Greek/Turkish, I doubt.

I think the story is that the Ptolemaic Pharaohs were the descentants of Alexander the Great's generals. They created a Hellenistic (=Greek) kingdom in Egypt and the ruling elite most probably was of Greek origin.

The study found that ancient Egyptians were ... also closely related to Neolithic populations from the Anatolian Peninsula and Europe.

Ptolemaic dynasty came over 1000 years later than the mummies analyzed. 300 - 30 BC... Even then, Turkey was mostly Persia or Greece... Turks didn't exist yet.

Hardly. These mummies are from 1400 BC ... there are no records of royal intermarriage until medieval ages.

"The ancient Egyptian royal families were almost expected to marry within the family, as inbreeding was present in virtually every dynasty. Pharaohs were not only wed to their brothers and sisters, but there were also "double-niece" marriages, where a man married a girl whose parents were his own brother and sister."

http://www.medicalbag.com/grey-matter/impact-of-royal-inbree...

Lastly, most mummies are not royal family members. Rulers were often buried with their servants. The article doesn't specify who exactly they analysed.

wow...unwise, and i wonder how they didn't notice?

Sorry, not clear. Didn't notice what?

Not all mummies were Pharos. All Egyptians regardless of class were mummified. The wealthy and powerful could afford a better job but it happened to everyone. So there is no reason to assume that the mummies being examined were royalty.

You're supposed to develop universal laws from data like that so that it's easier to hit negation over it.

Interesting. The Afroasiatic languages are attested from long enough ago that the date of their divergence can be estimated at ca. 10,000 BCE or earlier, orginating probably somewhere around the Red Sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afroasiatic_languages

Sub-Saharan Africa was marked by the Bantu expansion some time later, with Niger-Congo-speaking peoples expanding out of West Africa between about 3,000 BCE to 500 CE. This at best just takes Bantu speakers to the very peripheries of the Egyptian sphere, the modern slave trade and maritime trade with East Africa are probably likelier causes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_expansion

I think you may allude to some connection between Bantu people and Egypt. It is difficult to interpret ancient Sub-Saharan Africa in our modern terms. Basically there were four broad areas that were populated at that time, the western Africa (Mande/Sao), the Niger basin(Nigeria/Cameroon inhabited since 120,000 years and place of a wonderful civilization: Nok), the Chad area (remnant of a mega lake, also inhabited since the humide Sahara period) and the Nile area (from Middle east up to Ethiopia).

It was possible to travel from the Victoria lake to the Mediterranean sea (and vise versa). At the same time there were hydrological connections between the Chad basin and the great Lakes and between the great lakes and the Congo basin. And from the Chad area to the Niger area.

From the Jos plateau (cradle of Nok culture) it is possible to reach Lake Chad via the Komadugu River.

It is also possible to travel to Cameroon and near Chad Lake, via the Benue River, which is a tributary of the Niger. From the Benue River, it is possible to reach the Logone which flows north towards the lake in Chad.

From Chad Lake it is possible to take the Chari River towards the Congo River. A recent study was published about the Congo basin, describing it as a massive swamp 4,000 years ago.

The rivers of Dja and Kadei are born in Cameroon and head south-east to throw themselves into the Sangha river, which is a tributary of the Congo River.

The Uele River has its source close to the White Nile and Lake Albert.

My points are:

1) That people could move at that time on very large distance via boats.

2) That there were already beautiful civilizations in the Niger basin at that time.

For those who'd not come across the term "Near East" before, it's the same as the "Middle East".

Ref: https://www.britannica.com/demystified/are-the-middle-east-a...

I believe the authors use the term Near East to describe the parts of present-day Turkey, Syria and nearby regions.

Middle-East is too broad to have usefulness in the article.

Yeah, I was surprised to learn that Middle East includes both Turkey and Pakistan. A good chunk of Earth.

Though the geographical region is slightly different, in general if it was prior to the 600AD it is referred to as the Near East, after 600AD (the start of the Muslim or Modern era in the region) it is referred to as the Middle East.

"from the archaeological site of Abusir el-Meleq, along the Nile River in Middle Egypt"

If they are from Lower Egypt that might be "Asiatics" Hyksos dynasty. From the map Abusir el-Meleq seems to be much closer to Lower (i.e. Northern part of) Egypt.

Unlikely. The first sample is from around 1400 BCE. The last king of the Hyksos dynasty was expelled 1550 BCE. Their samples go to 400 CE. They did conclude a continuity of the population for the whole time. If these were really foreigners the must have came in at a steady stream for over 1300 years, with no local intermixing.

I wonder how it would have gone, if they started with the dynasty called Khufu.

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