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Royal diagnosis
May/June 2009
by Bruce Fellman
Akhenaten,
who ruled Egypt from around 1353 BCE to 1336 BCE, was married to the legendary
beauty Nefertiti. But Akhenaten himself "was definitely a funny-looking
pharaoh," says Irwin M. Braverman, a Yale dermatologist whose avocation is
applying medical analysis to art history. In every known portrait, "he's
depicted as having breasts, a lantern jaw, and an oddly elongated head."
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"The members of the 18th Dynasty might share a variant gene."
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Some
Egyptologists have theorized that Akhenaten's unusually androgynous features
are metaphorical, symbolizing his belief that he embodied the creator deity.
But in general, Egyptian art was more naturalistic in Akhenaten's time than at
other periods. And the more Braverman studied images of the pharaoh, his son
and daughters, and earlier members of the 18th Dynasty, the more he became convinced
they were accurate portraits of people who shared an obscure genetic abnormality.
In
the April 21 Annals of Internal Medicine, Braverman and his colleagues argue that the unusual
breast and hip development in these 18th Dynasty men and young girls is best
explained by aromatase excess syndrome -- a genetic abnormality that results in
too much estrogen in the body. (It could also account for the pharaoh's voice,
described as beautiful and feminine.) Braverman attributes the elongation of
Akhenaten's and his relatives' heads to a second genetic defect. "In fact, the
members of the 18th Dynasty might share a single variant gene that caused all
their problems," says Braverman. "All we need to prove our diagnosis is some
DNA."
Akhenaten's
mummy has never been found. Braverman hopes, one day, to test the five known
royal mummies in the pharaoh's line. 
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