Egypt

Akhenaten appearence may have been due to genetic mutation

Fox News

Many thanks to Rhio Barnhart for the link to the above story.

Akhenaten wasn't the most manly pharaoh, even though he fathered at least a half-dozen children. In fact, his form was quite feminine. And he was a bit of an egghead.

So concludes a Yale University physician who analyzed images of Akhenaten for an annual conference Friday at the University of Maryland School of Medicine on the deaths of historic figures.

The female form was due to a genetic mutation that caused the pharaoh's body to convert more male hormones to female hormones than needed, Dr. Irwin Braverman believes. And Akhenaten's head was misshapen because of a separate condition in which skull bones fuse at an early age.

The pharaoh had "an androgynous appearance. He had a female physique with wide hips and breasts, but he was male and he was fertile and he had six daughters," Braverman said. "But nevertheless, he looked like he had a female physique."

See the above page for the full story.

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- Royal Diagnosis
Yale Alumni Magazine (Bruce Fellman) Thanks very much to Carole Bass for sending me this link. As far as I can tell Braverman hasn't added anything that he hasn't already said in previous papers but I haven't read the paper that ths report...

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- Yet More Re Akhenaten's Possible Androgyny
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Egypt