Who  was Tutankhamun and was he murdered by the Philistines?
Nearly  five years ago I made a posting to the LexiLine group on the History of  Civilization at 
33  LexiLine Newsletter 2005 Who was Tutankhamun - Jonathon Aton - The Me'il  in which I identified the young "
co-regent" Tutankhamun as the son of Akhenaten (Echnaton). Tut was NEVER the  Pharaoh himself. My identification has 
now been  proven correct by 
DNA evidence in a  study conducted by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) under  the leadership of Secretary General Zahi Hawass, a study published in 
Vol.  303 No. 7, February 17, 2010 of the Journal of the American Medical  Association, of which the following is the 
Abstract:
"Ancestry and  Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family  Zahi Hawass, PhD; Yehia Z. Gad, MD; Somaia Ismail,  PhD; Rabab Khairat, MSc; Dina Fathalla, MSc;  Naglaa Hasan, MSc; Amal Ahmed, BPharm; Hisham  Elleithy, MA; Markus Ball, MSc; Fawzi Gaballah, PhD; Sally Wasef, MSc; Mohamed Fateen,  MD; Hany Amer, PhD; Paul Gostner, MD; Ashraf Selim, MD; Albert Zink, PhD; Carsten M.  Pusch, PhD 
 JAMA. 2010;303(7):638-647. 
    Context  The  New Kingdom in ancient Egypt, comprising the 18th, 19th, and  20th dynasties, spanned the mid-16th to the early 11th  centuries BC. The late 18th dynasty, which included the reigns  of pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, was an extraordinary time. The identification of a number of royal mummies from this era, the exact relationships between some members of the royal family, and possible illnesses and causes of death have been matters of debate. 
 Objectives   To introduce a new approach to molecular and medical Egyptology, to determine familial relationships among 11 royal mummies of the New Kingdom, and to search for  pathological features attributable to possible murder,  consanguinity, inherited disorders, and infectious diseases. 
 Design  From  September 2007 to October 2009, royal mummies underwent  detailed anthropological, radiological, and genetic studies  as part of the King Tutankhamun Family Project. Mummies distinct from  Tutankhamun's immediate lineage served as the genetic and  morphological reference. To authenticate DNA results, analytical steps  were repeated and independently replicated in a second ancient DNA laboratory staffed by a separate group of  personnel. Eleven royal mummies dating from circa 1410-1324 BC and suspected of being kindred of Tutankhamun and 5 royal mummies dating  to an earlier period, circa 1550-1479 BC, were examined. 
 Main  Outcome Measures  Microsatellite-based haplotypes in the  mummies, generational segregation of alleles within possible pedigree variants,  and correlation of identified diseases with individual age, archeological evidence, and the written historical record. 
 Results   Genetic fingerprinting allowed the construction of a  5-generation pedigree of Tutankhamun's immediate lineage. The KV55 mummy and KV35YL were identified as the parents of Tutankhamun. No  signs of gynecomastia and craniosynostoses (eg, Antley-Bixler syndrome)  or Marfan syndrome were found, but an accumulation of malformations in Tutankhamun's family was evident. Several pathologies including Köhler disease II were diagnosed in  Tutankhamun; none alone would have caused death. Genetic testing for  STEVOR, AMA1, or MSP1 genes specific for Plasmodium falciparum revealed indications of malaria tropica in 4  mummies, including Tutankhamun’s. These results suggest  avascular bone necrosis in conjunction with the malarial  infection as the most likely cause of death in Tutankhamun.  Walking impairment and malarial disease sustained by  Tutankhamun is supported by the discovery of canes and an  afterlife pharmacy in his tomb. 
 Conclusion   Using a multidisciplinary scientific approach, we showed the  feasibility of gathering data on Pharaonic kinship and  diseases and speculated about individual causes of death."
The results  of the study were released within the last 24 hours (February 16/17,  2010) to the public and have already been summarized in part at the 
Wikipedia:
"Scholars had not reached consensus on the identity of Tutankhamun's parents. An inscription calls him a king's son [emphasis added], but it was not clear which king was meant. An extensive DNA analysis  whose results were publicized in February 2010 confirmed that he was the son of Akhenaten and Akhenaten's sister (also his wife).[8] At one time Tutankhamun had been  thought to be a son of Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Queen Tiye [added insert from us: the hieroglpyh  from which this erroneous idea came actually reads "ancestor" rather  than "father"]. Instead, he has been confirmed as their grandson, child of their son and daughter.[9] Later research claimed that he may have been a son of Amenhotep III, although not by Queen Tiye. She  would have been more than fifty years old at the time of Tutankhamun's  birth.
 DNA results released in  February 2010 confirm Tutankhamun as the biological son of Akhenaten and grandson of Queen Tiye. Tutankhamun's mother has been confirmed as Mummy  KV35YL, a sister of Akhenaten. Her identity as of this date is still  unidentified.[10]
 A common hypothesis held that  Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, and his minor wife Queen Kiya. Queen  Kiya's title was "Greatly Beloved Wife of Akhenaten" so it is possible  that she could have borne him an heir. Supporting this theory, images on the tomb wall in the tomb of Akhenaten show a royal fan bearer standing next to Kiya's death bed, fanning someone who may be a princess.  Researchers also thought the figure was a wet  nurse holding a baby, considered to be the boy king-to-be.
 Professor James Allen [link added: President of  the International Association of Egyptologists] argued that  Tutankhamun was more likely to be a son of the short-lived king Smenkhkare rather than Akhenaten. Allen argued that Akhenaten chose a  female co-regent named Neferneferuaten as his successor, rather  than Tutankhamun. He thought that would have been unlikely if the latter were his son.[11][12] Smenkhkare appears when Akhenaten entered year 14 of his reign. Scholars  believe that during this time Meritaten married Smenkhkare. Smenkhkare,  as the father of Tutankhamun, would have needed at least a three-year  reign to bring Tutankhamun to the right age to have inherited the throne. However, if there had been lengthy co-regency between  Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, Amenhotep could have been Tutankhamun's  father (later disproved by DNA testing).[12][13]
 Recently, Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of  the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced the recovery of a part of a limestone block depicting Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenamen, along  with text. These identify both Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenpaaten as "children of the king's body" or  the biological son and daughter of Akhenaten. This shows the repetition of  marriage between royal siblings."
The  junk that the mainstream media have written about the new - mostly DNA  evidence - is further proof that mainstream academia and mainstream  journalists feed the clueless public with more-or-less pablum nonsense,  concentrating not on important matters of the identity of Pharaohs but  rather on the speculatively sensationalistic question of Tut's cause of  death, whereas the identity question is far more important to Egyptology and the reconstruction of man's ancient history. The mainstream media  and Egyptologists have already announced that the cause of Tut's death  is clear, whereas the actual study says:
"These results suggest avascular bone necrosis in conjunction with the malarial  infection as the most likely cause of death in Tutankhamun."
That "suggestion" is pure IDLE speculation given the fact  that 4 of the 11 mummies examined showed signs of malaria and that Tut's foot malformation must have been of very long standing.
As written  at Why Evolution is True in What killed  King Tut? 
"... Hawass, with his usual penchant for publicity, is going around telling  reporters, with no reservations, that malaria definitely  killed the young king. Well, maybe, but falciparum malaria isn’t  always fatal. Two of of Tut’s great-grandparents had it, and, as the  authors note, they died in their 50s, and the infection might have been  chronic, or suppressed by their immune systems."
Already in the year 1923, as can easily be seen from a photograph of Tut's body,  which is reproduced at page 297 of the 
1996 British  Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (reproduced there courtesy of  the Griffith Institute), it was well known already nearly 87 years ago that Tut had suffered a broken leg in his life and that there was a serious problem with his unequally sized feet - as can be seen  from our cut-out and coloring of the lower half of that image (our added red circles show the leg break and the foot malformation):

The notion that the new DNA and CT study  dispells the possibility that King Tut met a violent death is sadly  mistaken - it proves nothing, merely adding the malaria element to an  already shaky theory.
As written at TourEgypt.net in 
Who Killed  King Tut? by The Government of Egypt and edited by Jimmy Dunn:
"The possibility that Tutankhamen did not die of natural causes was first raised 28 years ago when an X-ray  analysis of his mummy was made by the anatomy department of the  University of Liverpool. It revealed that the king may have died from a  blow to the back of his head.
Early this year, a new X-ray  analysis cast more light on the subject, this time suggesting that  Tutankhamen may have been murdered in his sleep. The examination was  conducted by a trauma specialist at Long Island University, USA, "The  blow was to a protected area at the back of the head which you don't  injure in an accident, someone had to sneak up from behind," said the  specialist.
X-rays also show a thickening of a bone in the  cranium which could occur only after a build-up of blood. This would  indicate that the king might have been left bleeding for a long time  before he actually died. In short, scientists suggest that the king was  most probably hit on the back of his head while asleep and that he  lingered, maybe for as long as two months, before he died....
[O]n the  pedestal of one of Horemhab's statues is a text in which he left a  message to all Egyptians, indicating that he was not the man who  committed the crime. He declared in writing that he was loyal to his  king and carried out all his orders faithfully. He also warned any  Egyptian who may read the text, against 'normalizing' relations with  foreigners and told them never to trust them: "Egyptian brothers, don't  ever forget what foreigners did to our King Tutankhamen", Horemhab  wrote."
Why the mainstream scholars continue to ignore  other evidence and seek to force a speculative interpretation upon the  public is something that we can not understand. But it is typical for  Egyptology.
 To recall our own article, 5 years ago at 
33 LexiLine Newsletter  2005 Who was Tutankhamun - Jonathon Aton - The Me'il:
"I recently received a letter asking  me for an illustration of the robe or Me'il of the Cohen Gadol, the  Hebrew High Priest, and also asking me who in my opinion Tutankhamun  was. The two questions are inter-related.
See the following website for one  interpretative drawing of the Cohen Gadol's priestly garments http://messianic-torat-chayim-sg.org/Torah/kohengadol.html. That is pretty much a fantasy  drawing, but a good attempt.
Actually, the robe of the Cohen Gadol will not have been  substantially different than that worn by the Pharaohs of Egypt, based  on the following example ramsesIII.jpg of the garment of Ramses III  which I have [also] uploaded to our LexiLine files at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/files/Egypt/

You can see there both the top and  bottom robe, the ephod, the belt in layers, as well as the tassels on  the robe, some of which, also on Ramses III, appear to be small bells -  as allegedly also on the robe of the Cohen Gadol in descriptions of the me'il. This picture is a scan from a superb book by Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson  Ltd., London, 1994, available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0500050740/. The book is a must buy for anyone  in this field as the best book of this kind in Egyptology (i.e. it is an understandable overview of all the pharaohs and their reigns according  to the mainstream views). No other book comes even close. I use it all  the time, even though it of course carries forward many mainstream  errors in Egyptology.
Remnants of the Hebrew High Priest's robe were in my opinion found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Such a robe would have been far more  Egyptian in nature than the drawing above and the Cohen Gadol would not  have had a beard - quite the contrary, priests were bald: (quoted from http://snipurl.com/fetq viz.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/dailylife/hairstyles.html.
"Priests were required to keep their  entire bodies cleanly shaved.
They shaved every third day because  they needed to avoid the danger
of lice or any other uncleanness to  conduct rituals. This is the
reason why priests are illustrated  bald-headed with no eyebrows or
lashes."
In addition, both the bearded Asiatics (Assyrians, etc.) and the black peoples were arch enemies of the  clean-shaven Pharaohs, as shown at the Tomb of Tutankhamun on the prow  of a miniature ship. In discussing the origin of the Pharaohs, it is  rather remarkable that such important pieces of evidence are ignored by  Egyptology.
For an extensive review of the items found in the  Tomb of Tutankhamun, see generally
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi80.htm and more specifically
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi25.htm and also
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi600.htm
The identity of Tutankhamun can be  explained as follows:
In my opinion, the evidence is incontrovertible that King Saul =Echnaton (Akhenaten), King David =  Sethos and King Solomon = Ramses II with Shishak = Ramses III.
Accordingly, Tutankhamun can only be ATON, i.e.  JON-ATHON ("young Aton,  young Adonis, "Jaun-(IE)donis"), one of the sons of Saul in the Bible. Saul was Echn-ATON viz.  Akhen-ATEN ("old Aton", old Adonis, "Vec-(IE)Donis"). The other brother was Semenchkare,  Biblical Ish-Boshet, who  served a short time as Pharaoh before being executed. The hieroglyphs which the  Egyptologists read as SE-Mench are actually ISH-Boshet. SE = ISH. The other error occurs because there are two alternative readings  for the small chisel - one is MNCH (Indo-European e.g. latvian MI(N)CHA), MIEC- "to knead,  strike" but the other is  B[.....] which is Indo-European viz. Latvian PASIT (=BOSHET) "to strike at". The  Egyptologists have chosen the wrong alternative of the two for Semenchkare.
Young ATON (Jon-ATHON) saved David's  life and was his best friend, but was killed at an early age - according to the Bible -  battling the Philistines, in a battle in which Saul ("old Aton") also lost his life. According to the Bible, the  latter's body was mutilated by the Philistines and has thus never been found by the  Egyptologists, probably  having been buried somewhere in Canaan.
Tutankhamun never served as Pharaoh  but was heir to the throne. This explains his having a royal cartouche but being excluded from  the ancient lists of the  kings of Egypt. He never manned the throne. His untimely death brought his best  friend David onto the throne, and so Jonathon was buried in regal style by David, who had become  King David = Sethos  (Setoy).
Note in  this regard that the alleged pharaoh Haremhab viz. Horemhab at this time was actually Hiram (also written Huram), King of Tyre, one of King David's best friends. Horemhab never served as  sovereign Pharaoh of  Egypt, contrary to the erred opinion of Egyptology, but was only a vice-regent (see http://www.varchive.org/tac/harcrown.htm) later given a royal status - whence the cartouche - by King  David. Haremhab built  many buildings for David (so the Bible) upon which he also placed his name as the builder  of them - but pharaoh himself he was not, but only King of Tyre. The kingly reign attributed to  him actually belonged to  King David (Sethos viz. Setoy) and this is why in spite of two tombs being attributed to Haremhab by the Egyptologists, his  mummy is not found among the mummies of the kings which have been recovered in the  mummy depots. The Egyptologists incorrectly read "Tyre" on the hieroglyphs as DJOSER whereas Haremhab's cartouched hieroglyph  showing the hand holding an object
is clearly to be read as TUR ("hold") i.e. TYRE and  not DJOSER.
Nearly all of the furniture and treasures in the tomb of Tutankhamun are from a later period. The tomb  was reopened and the holy vessels of the Mishnayot were hidden there, including the Ark of the Covenant (also called the  Ark of the Law, Ark of the Testimony, Ark of God) with the tomb being resealed by the  priests and the entrance being covered by tons of rubble - such tomb only having been found in  our modern era by Howard  Carter as the Tomb of Tutankhamun.
See in this regard
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi80.htm and
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi000.htm
for the hiding of the Ark of the  Covenant and the holy  vessels."
______________
M.S. Reddy wrote:
Dear Andis,
Congratulations  for your excellent prediction Who was Tutankhamunn and the latest DNA analysis. The DNA analysis and the latest developments in this study of Egyptian mummies is revealing the wonders of our ancient civilization. Dedicated souls like you are doing great service to humanity at large and we are grateful for your keen insight and dedication.
______________
Andis Kaulins wrote:
EVIDENCE?
Tut Revisited:
But is the Evidence so Clear that KV55 is  Akhenaten and not Tut's brother Smenkhkare?
http://ow.ly/16BqhR______________
Andis Kaulins wrote:
Evidentiary Archaeology: Akhenaten Identified by CT and DNA
Tutankhamun  and "Where the Great Akhenaten Lies" : Asharq Alawsat Newspaper  (English)
Zahi Hawass reports on the great discovery made  regarding the identification of Akhenaten among the mummies of Egypt,  where it appears quite clearly from the Hawass statements that Akhenaten  has been convincingly identified, writing inter alia:
"At a press  conference for international media figures held by the Supreme Council  of Antiquities last Wednesday at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, I  announced that important [archaeological] discoveries had been made that  shed more light on the dynasty of the golden pharaoh Tutankhamen. These  discoveries marked the beginning of a new chapter in using modern  techniques and advanced technology in the field of archeological  discoveries."
Read the  rest here.
As  regards those remarks, Mark Rose, the executive editor at Archaeology  Magazine in Tut:  Disease and DNA News had previously - and typically for Egyptology -  raised the question of whether the DNA and CT Akhenaten identification  was accurate, since mainstream Egyptology had previously alleged that  the mummy KV55 in question was only ca. 25 years of age, which would be  much too young for Akhenaten [who I equate with King Saul]. The CT,  however showed the age to be 45 to 55 years. How mainstream  archaeologists could be that far off on the age of KV55 up to now is  remarkable, but to be expected from Egyptology, where unproven  hypotheses based on little evidence are rampant. It is equally puzzling,  by the way, that the report which contains the most necessary  information on the CT and DNA studies that we have been able to find  online up to know comes from distant China, where a Xinhua article - Egypt  reveals Tutankhamun's lineage, cause of death - writes (editor  yan):
"According  to the CT scan, Tutankhamun's [who I equate with  Saul's son, Jonathan, "Young ATON"] father Akhenaten died at the  age between 45 and 55, not at the age between 20 and 25 as previously  thought."
To see the  sometimes appalling historical handling of the "evidence" relating to  KV55 prior to now by the Egyptological community - "evidence" is  something the Egyptologists are not trained for in their studies, and  their work shows it - read KV55 in the  Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor by Mark Andrews at  TourEgypt.net.
Thankfully, as Hawass correctly observes,  Egyptology will now be much corrected over time through modern means,  i.e. via genetics and more modern means of assessing artefacts.
I  wrote about this new "evidentiary  archaeology" some time ago.