Earliest Evidence Ever of Malaria in Humans
Results of a recent ground-breaking study of the DNA of Egypt’s mummies has revealed that King Tut (Tutankhamun), the famous boy king, most likely died from malaria and complications from an infection caused by a broken leg. The two-year long study, which included DNA testing and CT scans of the 3,300 year old mummy, provides the earliest evidence ever found of a malarial infection in a human.
A ccording to Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, and a co-author of an article published in February 2010 in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the use of molecular biology is revealing new secrets about the life and death of Egypt’s pharaons.
Tut became pharaoh at the age of ten, in 1333 B.C. and died just nine years later. His parental lineage had long been one of the many unanswered questions about King Tut. The DNA testing performed on his mummy and 15 other royal Egyptian mummies has also revealed that the Pharaoh Akhenaten and one of Akhenaton’s sisters were most likely his parents. Brother-sister marriages were common among Egypt’s pharaohs.
Egypt and Zahi Hawass had long resisted the testing of Egyptian mummies outside of the country. “I never thought that we would reach a great important discovery,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. As a result of the reluctance to testing outside of Egypt, the study was performed at two laboratories specially built in Egypt by the government to meet international protocols for genetic testing. The team said it isolated DNA of the malaria parasite in several of the family's mummies, including Tut’s, the oldest such discovery.
It had originally been though that a hole in the skull of King Tut’s mummy had indicated that he may have been murdered. The test results now indicate that the hole in his skull was likely caused by the mummification process and that malaria played a major role in his death.
