First complete ancient Egyptian DNA genome reveals his occupation

Egyptologists have spent centuries analyzing mountains of archeological materials spanning thousands of years’ worth of history. But while experts now know a fair amount about ancient Egyptian life, they still understand very little about the population’s genetic makeup. Researchers have genomically analyzed three specimens to date, but in each case, poor DNA preservation resulted in only partial sequences. A tooth stored in museum archives for over a century has changed that, however. Archeologists initially excavated it (and its owner) around 1902 at Nuwayrat, a village roughly 165 miles south of Cairo. Experts couldn’t immediately glean much from the body, but radiocarbon dating revealed the individual lived between 2855 and 2570 BCE. This placed him between the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods, a time when rulers oversaw the first pyramid construction projects, but before standardized mummification practices. This lack of mummification likely contributed to the DNA’s long-lasting integrity, allowing researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom to finally extract its full genomic information.