11. King Tut Had a Cleft Palate and Elongated Skull
Consanguinity didn’t begin in Europe. It could be seen as far back as ancient Egypt, when the goddess Isis married her brother, Osiris, in order to maintain a pure bloodline. Many pharaohs followed this tradition, including the parents of the legendary King Tutankhamen. While he is often viewed in pop culture as a boy king, one who would need an incredible amount of self-assuredness and physical strength, he was probably a frail, sickly child. Scans of his mummy show that he had a cleft palate, club foot, and elongated skull, along with persistent malaria. Rather than speeding down Egyptian roads in a chariot, he probably had to walk with a cane.
The first-ever DNA study that was conducted on an Egyptian mummy was done on King Tut, and it revealed that he was, in fact, the product of a high level of incest. In fact, his mother was probably not Nefertiti, as was previously assumed, but rather a sister of King Akhenaten. Because of the compromised immunity brought about by inbreeding, the boy pharaoh was probably not murdered but died due to his body’s inability to cope with the necrosis in his foot coupled with persistent malaria and other infections.
Despite his feebleness, King Tut made the same mistake as his father and married his sister. Their children did not survive.