DNA from a 4,000-Year-Old Egyptian Head

DNA from a 4,000-Year-Old Egyptian Head

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Why Aren’t there More Women Leading America’s Biggest Businesses?, From Cricket Player to Prime Minister of Pakistan, How Stuff Works

Episode: Why Aren’t there More Women Leading America’s Biggest Businesses?, From Cricket Player to Prime Minister of Pakistan, How Stuff Works

  • Aug 9, 2018 9:00 pm
  • 15:24 mins

(Originally Aired: 4/23/2018) Guest: Odile Loreille, PhD, Research Biologist, FBI For nearly a century, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has had a 4,000-year-old Egyptian mummy head in its vaults. Archaeologists were pretty sure the head belonged to Governor Djehutynakht - or his wife - because it was found in their tomb in 1915. But by that point looters had done a number on the tomb, so the mummified head was all jumbled in the mess left behind. Once archaeologists had exhausted their methods of identification, they called the FBI for DNA analysis. But could they extract enough DNA from a 4,000 mummified head to glean any information?

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