Professor Schadlich and Dr. Hussein concluded an interim agreement for the DNA analysis of the New Kingdom royal collection. Detailed protocols would be drawn up but Omar and his technicians started work as soon as he returned to Cairo. Hussein was convinced this technology would allow him to create a more accurate genealogy of the royal families and provide a clearer identification of the bodies recovered from the Theban cemetery caches. The survey might also unravel the relationships of the Twenty-First Dynasty bodies found in DB320. He had one definite key, one of the few to be identified beyond doubt. Tutankhamen’s somewhat mangled body was still in situ in his tomb (KV62). Apart from this one irrefutable piece of evidence, he also sought to untangle one consequence of the damage caused by robbers, over enthusiastic excavators and non-professional scientific examination. There were several body parts he hoped could be identified and re-united with their hosts.
Dr. Hussein’s weapon of choice, DNA analysis, was the most precise tool available to forensic science. The task was formidable, as the royal collection comprised sixty four mummies, a number he could augment with remains from the Valley of the Queens and the other Theban cemeteries relevant to the dynasties under evaluation.
After concluding meetings with her colleagues about the assignment, Marie-Therese deciding she was entitled to a break from the rigours of the Parisian winter and free to accept Dr. Hussein’s invitation to fly to Egypt to conclude the protocol and view the mummies where they lay. She also gave rein to her feelings about Omar and came to the conclusion he excited her. A vacation would also forestall a final confrontation with her husband over his long standing affair, a confrontation Marie-Therese believed would finish their marriage. On the short flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Cairo, she assembled her thoughts about how the Institute’s technology could best be utilised in this very novel application.
Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is the basic molecular structure of organic life. All living creatures are composed of immense assemblies of microscopic cells, which combine to create totally unique individual forms of animate life. Each cell has a nucleus within which are sets of chromosomes and, as cells form an organism’s fundamental anatomy, replicas of it’s unique DNA will be found throughout the specific life form. A chromosome is a long, thread like molecule presenting the familiar double helix pattern, with two strands wound firmly around each other. Each strand consists of four bases: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T).
What makes DNA the definitive tool for relationship identification is that it is inherited from the moment of conception with elements of both parent’s DNA transmitted to their off-spring.
Hence DNA analysis has become the most important tool in a wide range of scientific activities. The technology is employed to examine the transmission of inherited diseases, evolution of species, how an organism functions, how genes can be modified to overcome genetic defects or impart new properties to an organism. It is used to verify the identity of parties involved in crimes, to test paternity, to identify victims of disasters such as aircraft crashes, fires and acts of genocide where visual identification was no longer possible. An analysis would establish bloodlines within royal families, determine relationships between members of groups and throw some light on the diseases that might have been an inherited factor within such groups and transmitted through subsequent generations.
Both Marie-Therese and Omar were aware of the constraints and accepted that DNA analysis could never provide all the answers. Samples from mummies and body parts would, hopefully, reveal unique genetic sequences expressed as chains of ATGC. A specific sequence could then be compared to the sequences from other bodies or body parts. This was a relatively easy exercise as the sequences are screened and the researcher looks for similarities or differences.
Dr. Hussein ultimately planned to establish a national register of preserved remains from the early dynastic period until the practice of mummification ceased at the latter part of the Roman occupation of Egypt. The register would include both human and animal bodies and would ultimately extend to mummies held overseas. He had no shortage of material to work with as Ancient Egypt had twenty-six royal necropolises and over one hundred and fifteen other burial grounds. To his way of thinking, whilst archaeologists sifted through thousands of artefacts to build up a picture of the culture, it was just as important to create a biological profile of the people who lived within, and build, the civilisation.
But first, he wanted to sort out the New Kingdom collection and prove the value of the DNA technique. Too much earlier identification of mummies was based on educated guesswork. If DNA profiling demonstrated its worth, conjecture would be eliminated and replaced by irrefutable results.
Recently, he had read a report in which the bold statement was made that the unidentified body in KV55 had to be the elusive Pharaoh Smenkhkare, the elder brother of Tutankhamen and son of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti. The claim was based on a thorough but traditional examination of bones found in the tomb. Whilst he did not automatically dispute the findings, he knew well the folly of making adamant statements based on conventional forensic tests. He would feel more comfortable with the initial finding, if they were verified by a DNA analysis. As a blood relative was available in the undisputed remains of Tutankhamen, his DNA profile could be compared to a parallel analysis on the remains claimed to be King Smenkhkare. The outcome would be definitive. The expressions so widely strewn across Egyptology, ‘had to be’, ‘must be’, ‘probably is’ and the like, would largely disappear from journal and books.
The motivation and sequence of events leading to the desecration of royal and non- royal mummies and their final move to KV35 and DB320, and probably other caches, was poorly understood but no less horrendous. Reflecting on this grotesque saga, Dr. Hussein thought just how incredibly sad it was that these rulers, some of the greatest in Ancient Egypt, had ended up in grisly collections, stripped of all their finery, all evidence of their previous power and prestige lost in a confusion of torn and tangled linen, desiccated flesh, dried bones and battered coffins. He was determined to give these corpses the dignity of correct identification, so those who gazed upon their wizened bodies might attain a sense of the grandeur that once attended these rulers and their families.
After months of intense research, he had produced a set of New Kingdom genealogical tables to assist Marie-Therese’s team in establishing the mosaic of familial relationships. For the initial DNA trials, he would not include the mummies from the queen’s valleys and other necropolises. If required, the laboratory could extract test material from those remains and add it to the overall analysis. Several mummies of possible significance were held in museums outside Egypt and he would contact these organisations if additional specimens were required to fill gaps in the final profile.
Given enough time, money and the rapid advances in genetic analysis, Omar knew more of the puzzle would be unravelled although no complete picture could ever emerge. So much ancient evidence had already vanished through deliberate destruction and the loss of thousands of mummies to private collectors, pharmacists making potions and even those who had used mummies as furnace fuel.
Negligence and accidents had also played their part. In the late Nineteenth Century, two visiting Englishwomen obtained a mummy and finding themselves dismayed by its smell, they threw it into the Nile. Fable has it that it was the remains of Ramesses I, though a mummy bearing his provenance had recently surfaced in Canada. The bombing of London in 1941 saw the tragic loss of Ranefer, one of the oldest mummies known. Bodies have been misplaced whilst still in the hands of professional archaeologists. The mummy of Pinudjem I, found in DB320, was photographed in the 1880’s and then disappeared as did bones discovered in the newly opened tomb of Horemheb and, so Hussein thought, the sorry story unfolds.
Professor Schadlich’s visit proved illuminating in more ways than one. Omar Hussein, a not unattractive man, found himself flirting with her first at the protocol meetings and then over the dinner table. To his surprise and pleasure, she was responsive. On a field trip to show her the tombs at Luxor, the flirtation had become serious and led to an encounter he would never have with a corpse! At Cairo Airport, before boarding the Paris flight, she had asked him if he could arrange to come to Paris for further discussions on anatomy. The caress of her hand on his cheek had him searching his budget for travelling expenses as soon as he returned to his desk. Paris in the Spring was a tempting proposition.
Once the technical protocols were signed, Dr. Hussein’s colleagues removed each mummy from its storage area or display case and had it delivered to the laboratory. Its provenance was documented and photographs taken before, during and after the extraction of selected whole teeth and bone sections. To secure uncontaminated specimens from mummies, technicians need to secure extracts not contaminated by natron salts, resins, chemicals in palm wine and DNA residues from embalmers, priests and other acts of human intervention. This meant taking samples from bone marrow or dental pulp, as the processes of mummification did not necessarily destroy DNA in deep seated parts of bodies. Specimens were placed in stainless steel containers, purged with nitrogen gas and hermetically sealed. The collection, which had taken over a year to process, was delivered to Cairo Airport for shipment to Paris. The local media had a field day, Dr. Hussein and his key staff were feted at a dinner hosted by the CEA Chairman and Egyptologists universally hailed the project as a ground-breaking advance.
The French Government, accepting the honour bestowed on its scientific community, felt the material from Cairo to be so momentous, a police escort guarded the consignment from Charles de Gaulle Airport to the Institute, an incident that gave the project worldwide notoriety. Marie-Therese and Omar managed to escape the scrutiny of the Paris Press long enough to enjoy a weekend in the Swiss Alps where DNA was transferred in ways not normally associated with laboratories.
Back in Cairo, Dr. Hussein returned to the routine of managing his department, knowing it would be some time before he received any meaningful results from the Institute. Whilst he waited, there was a related investigation into the vast Memphite necropolis to keep him busy with further detective work. No longer regretting his career move, he enthused about future projects which, he conceded, were infinitely more interesting than dissecting bodies fished out of the Nile. That the research involved Marie-Therese in no way influenced his decision making, or so he liked to believe. They did, however, spend a lot of time plotting justifications for personal attendance at ‘essential scientific discussions’ in both Paris and Cairo.