Genetic history of Egypt

The genetic history of Egypt tells us a lot about the people who have lived there over many thousands of years. Because Egypt is in a special place in the world, it has been a meeting point for many different groups of people. People from North Africa, the Sahara/Sahel, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and sub-Saharan Africa have all had a part in shaping the genetic makeup of Egypt. By studying these connections, we can learn more about the history, movements, and cultures of people who lived in and around Egypt.

Genetic studies on ancient Egyptians

Egyptologist Barry Kemp has noted that DNA studies can only give clear answers about the people of ancient Egypt if the results come from a good number of individuals and cover a wide area and time period. According to historian William Stiebling and archaeologist Susan N. Helft, different DNA tests on recent samples, such as the Amarna royal mummies, have led to disagreement about the genetic makeup of the ancient Egyptians and where they came from.

2012 study of Ramesses III

In 2012, two mummies from two people of the 20th dynasty, Ramesses III and "Unknown Man E" thought to be Ramesses III's son Pentawer, were tested by Albert Zink, Yehia Z Gad, and a team of researchers led by Zahi Hawass. The tests showed that both mummies had the same genetic markers; using a method by Whit Athey, the Y chromosome marker E1b1a was found.

In another study in 2020 by the same group, looking again at the family of Ramesses III and "Unknown Man E" (possibly Pentawer), E1b1a was found most often in modern West African groups (~80%) and Central Africa (~60%).

2017 DNA study of Mummies at Abusir el-Meleq

A study in 2017 by Schuenemann and others looked at DNA from 151 Egyptian mummies from Abusir el-Meleq in Middle Egypt. The samples were from the Late New Kingdom, Ptolemaic, and Roman times. Full mother-line DNA sequences from 90 samples and full genetic data from three ancient Egyptians were compared with other old and modern groups. The study used 135 modern Egyptian samples. The ancient Egyptians in the study had very similar mother-line DNA markers and grouped together, showing genetic continuity over 1,300 years. Modern Egyptians shared these markers but also had 8% more connection to Africa. A wide range of mother-line DNA markers was found including groups of J, U, H, HV, M, R0, R2, K, T, L, I, N, X and W. Also, three ancient Egyptians were tested for father-line DNA, two had Middle Eastern marker J and one had marker E1b1b1a1b2. Both markers are found in modern Egyptians and are common among Afroasiatic speakers in Northern Africa, Eastern Africa and the Middle East. The researchers noted that the ancient Egyptians they studied might not represent all ancient Egyptians since they were from one site in northern Egypt. The tests showed that Ancient Egyptians had more links to Near Eastern and European groups than modern Egyptians, likely because modern Egyptians have an 8% more African connection. However, data from people living under Roman rule in Anatolia did not show a closer link to the ancient Egyptians from the Roman period. "Genetic continuity between ancient and modern Egyptians cannot be ruled out despite this more recent sub-Saharan African influx, while continuity with modern Ethiopians is not supported".

The estimated amount of sub-Saharan African ancestry in these three ancient Egyptians ranged from 6 to 15%, and in the 135 modern Egyptian samples ranged from 14 to 21%, showing an 8% increase in African connection. The age of the ancient Egyptian samples suggests that this 8% increase in African connection happened mostly in the last 2000 years. The 135 modern Egyptian samples included 100 from modern Egyptians from a study by Pagani and others, and 35 from el-Hayez Western Desert Oasis from a study by Kujanova and others. The 35 samples from el-Hayez Western Desert Oasis, described in the Kujanova study as a mixed, small but original group, were already known to have a relatively high sub-Saharan African connection, more than 11% higher than the 100 modern Egyptian samples.

Verena Schuenemann and the authors of this study suggest a high level of genetic interaction with the Near East since ancient times, probably going back to Prehistoric Egypt although the oldest mummies at the site were from the New Kingdom: "Our data seem to indicate close mixing and connection at a much earlier time, which is not surprising given the long and complex links between Egypt and the Middle East. These links date back to Prehistory and happened at many levels, including trade, diplomacy, moving people, attacks and taking people away".

PCA and ADMIXTURE analysis of three ancient Egyptian samples and other modern and ancient populations.

PCA using only European samples based on the nuclear [genome](/wiki/Genome)-wide data from three ancient Egyptian samples.

Full results from the ADMIXTURE analysis using all samples in the merged data set, from the 2017 study by Schuenemann and others.

F<sub>ST</sub> values showing the genetic differences of [HVR-1](/wiki/Hypervariable_region) (mother-line DNA) between 90 ancient Egyptians and modern groups. Blue values show higher genetic differences, red values show lower genetic differences between the ancient Egyptian group and modern groups in the area.

Responses to the 2017 DNA study

The 2017 study led to responses from scholars in other areas, looking at the study's conclusions from a multi-disciplinary view.

In 2020, Stuart Tyson Smith, a professor of anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, said: "Also, they did not consider that the mouth of the Faiyum Oasis, where the sample was taken, is known from historical records as an area where Middle Eastern people, like the Sherden, were settled as a reward for military service, during the late New Kingdom, about 1300 to 1070 BCE. This gives a more likely reason for any stronger link to Middle Eastern groups, and weaker ties to Sub-Saharan groups than modern Egyptians in their sample, but this was not even thought about."

In 2021, Gourdine and others questioned Scheunemann and others' claim, in an unpublished article, that the increase in the sub-Saharan part in the modern Egyptian samples came from the trans-Saharan slave trade. Instead they said that the sub-Saharan "genetic links" might be from "early settlers" and "the relevant sub-Saharan genetic markers do not match the geography of known trade routes".

In 2022, biological anthropologist S.O.Y. Keita said there were issues with the study's methods and conclusions such as generalizing too much and not considering other reasons. He pointed out problems with using samples from West Africa as a comparison group and generalizations about geographical Egypt and population origins from the sample results. He also noted that the authors used their Bayesian statistical method to infer movements rather than include other data in their explanations about the population history.

In 2022, archaeologist Danielle Candelora said there were several limits with the 2017 Scheunemann study such as "new (untested) sampling methods, small sample size and problematic comparison data".

In 2023, Stiebling and Helft said that the 2017 study was the largest on ancient Egyptians but noted that the findings still came from a small number of mummies from one site in Middle Egypt from the New Kingdom and later times. They also said that this study could not represent earlier groups or Egyptians from Upper Egypt who were geographically closer to Sub-Saharan groups.

In 2023, Christopher Ehret said that the conclusions of the 2017 study were based on too small sample sizes, and that the authors had a biased view of the genetic data. Ehret also criticized the Schuenemann article for saying that there was "no sub-Saharan genetic part" in the Egyptian population and pointed to earlier genetic analysis which had identified the Horn of Africa as the origin of the E-M35 father-line marker.

In 2025, UNESCO scholars Augustin Holl and Jean Gourdine both made similar criticisms, in the international General History of Africa Volume IX publication, of the 2017 Scheunemann study in terms of its geographical coverage, general conclusions on the population of Egypt and method used. Gourdine said there were a number of biases in how the data was seen and the conclusions did not agree with other analysis such as the Amarna STR analysis, and evidence of identifiable African markers such as E1b1b1, JK2955 (marker L3) and JK2963 (marker M1a1i), which existed before the trans-Saharan slave trade in Egypt.

Later findings

A 2020 study looked at ancient samples from Lebanon. Two people who lived in Lebanon around 500 BCE did not group with their Lebonese contemporaries. The study used the same Egyptian samples from the 2017 Schuenemann study to test these two people further. One of these two people was a woman who grouped with the three ancient Egyptian people from Schuenemann and others, meaning she shared all her ancestry with them or a genetically similar group. The other was a man who got ~70% of his ancestry from a group related to the woman and ~30% from a group related to ancient Levantines. More testing suggests that the woman was an Egyptian woman and the man was her son from a man who himself had both Egyptian and Lebanese ancestry.

2018 study of Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht

The tomb of two high-status Egyptians, Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht, was found by Egyptian workers led by Sir William Flinders Petrie and Ernest Mackay in 1907. Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht lived during the 12th Dynasty (1985–1773 BCE) in Middle Egypt and were 20 years apart in age. Their tomb has been called Tomb of Two Brothers because the mummies were buried next to each other and writings on the coffins mention the female name Khnum-Aa, described as 'lady of the house' and called the mother of both Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht. The father-line DNA sequences were not complete, but the father-line markers showed they had different fathers, meaning they were half-brothers. The marker identities matched mother-line DNA marker M1a1 with 88.05–91.27% confidence, thus "showing the African origins of the two people" according to the study authors, based on their mother-line.

2018 study of Djehutynakht

In 2018 the mummified head of Djehutynakht was tested for mother-line DNA. Djehutynakht was the leader of the Hare nome in Upper Egypt during the 11th or 12th Dynasty in the early Middle Kingdom around 2000 BC. Two labs looked at Djehutynakht's DNA and found he belonged to mother-line DNA marker U5b2b5, described by the lead author Odile Loreille as "a European marker". U5 is thought to have started in Europe, and U5b2b5 has been found in ancient European samples from the Neolithic time onwards. U5b2b5 has also been found in 10 samples from Christian Period Nubia, and a related European sequence (U5b2c1) has been seen in an ancient sample from Carthage (6th century BCE). Among ancient Egyptian samples the Djehutynakht sequence matches a U5a lineage from sample JK2903, a 2000-year-old skeleton from the Abusir el-Meleq site in Egypt. Marker U5 is found in modern Egyptians, and is found in modern Egyptian Berbers from the Siwa Oasis in Egypt. A 2009 study by Coudray and others recorded marker U5 at 16.7% in the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, while marker U6 is more common in other Berber groups to the west of Egypt.

2020 study on two Egyptian child mummies

A study on male child mummies from the Greco-Roman period from the Memphite or Luxor area, showed that the mother-line DNA for one was T2c1a and the other HV. Identical or closely related versions of these markers are found in both ancient and modern Egyptians, as well as among several current groups of the Near East and North Africa. The researchers said that mother-line DNA alone is not enough to reach any clear conclusion about the origin of a person, but the results fit with an Egyptian origin. The ages of the two mummified bodies were from 11–15 years old, and 2–4 years old.

2020 study of Tutankhamun and other mummies of the 18th Dynasty

A 2020 study by Gad, Hawass, and others looked at mother-line and father-line DNA markers from Tutankhamun's family members of the 18th Dynasty, using careful control steps to make sure the results were good. The study found that the father-line DNA marker of the family was R1b. Marker R1b is found in modern Egyptians. Modern Egypt is also the only African country known to have all three R1 subtypes, including R1b-M269. The father-line DNA profiles for Tutankhamun and Amenhotep III were not complete and the analysis gave different probability numbers even though they had matching allele results. Because the links of these two mummies with the KV55 mummy (identified as Akhenaten) had been confirmed in an earlier study, the father-line DNA prediction of both mummies could be taken from the full profile of the KV55 data. Genetic analysis showed the following markers for the 18th Dynasty:

• Amenhotep III: father-line DNA R1b & mother-line DNA H2b.
• Tutankhamun: father-line DNA R1b & mother-line DNA K.
• Akhenaten: father-line DNA R1b & mother-line DNA K.
• Tiye: mother-line DNA K.
• Yuya: father-line DNA G2a & mother-line DNA K.
• Thuya: mother-line DNA K.

Both father-line DNA markers R1b and G2a, as well as both mother-line DNA markers H and K, are found in modern Egyptians.

2020 study of Takabuti

In 2020 the mummy of Takabuti was tested for mother-line DNA. Takabuti was a noblewoman from Thebes in Upper Egypt who lived during the 25th Dynasty, around 660 BC. Looking at her DNA showed she belonged to mother-line DNA marker H4a1. The study says that "the H super-marker is the most common mother-line DNA marker in Europe and is also found in parts of current Africa and western Asia". Marker H is also found in modern Egyptians, the subgroup H4 in particular, along with H2a1 and H13a1, make up 42% of H markers in modern Egypt, with H4 making up 16.7% of H markers in modern Egypt.

2020 study of mummies at the Kurchatov Institute

In 2020, three mummies, from the 1st millennium BCE, from the Pushkin Museum of Arts collection were tested at the Kurchatov Institute of Moscow for their mother-line and father-line DNA markers. One of the mummies was found to belong to the father-line DNA marker R1b1a1b (R1b-M269), which started in Eastern Europe, and another to the father-line DNA marker E1b1b1a1b2a4b5a, which started in North Africa. They also belonged to mother-line DNA markers L3h1 and N5, common in Africans and Middle Easterners, respectively. The third mummy was found to belong to mother-line DNA marker N, which is found across Eurasia as well as eastern and northeastern Africa.

2022 and 2025 commentary on mummies of the 18th and 20th Dynasties

In a comment on Hawas and others (2010& 2012), the anthropologist S.O.Y. Keita said, based on putting the data into the PopAffiliator online calculator, which only calculates links to East Asia, Eurasia, and sub-Saharan Africa, but not to North Africa or the Near East, for example, that Ramesses III and the Amarna ancient royal family (including Tutankhamun) showed "a link with sub-Saharan Africans in one link analysis, which does not mean they did not have other links — an important point that type-thinking hides. Also, different data and methods might give different results, which would show the complexity of biological history and its understanding."

Christopher Ehret, David Schoenbrun, Steven A Brandt and Shomarka Keita (2025) made more comments on the Amarna results in a multi-area review about Ehret's Afrasian theory that Afroasiatic languages started in East Africa (rather than North Africa or the Near East), noting the R1b M89 marker type found among the three Amarna pharaohs (Tutankhamun, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten) was not further specified. The authors also said that the R1b marker usually seen as showing a move back to Africa from or through the Near East could have been from Asian move back or links across the Sahara as the genetic marker is found at relative high numbers among Chadic groups, although the authors said that the specific R1b-V88 type found most often in Chadic-speaking groups was not found in the Egyptian 18th dynasty pharaohs. Referring to a Short Tandem Report (STR) mother-line background analysis on the Amarna royal mummies, done by Keita in an earlier publication, the authors said this analysis could suggest closer links across the Sahara. Ehret and others also shared through private talking with the Gad group that "other eighteenth dynasty types in the Amarna time were found to be E1b1a (Gad et al 2020)" The authors further guessing that the mix of the old Asian type (R1B) and an affiliation that is tropical African (E1b1a) is an example of mixing found in some Nile Valley groups, and that a mix of types could show Egypt being near a meeting place.

In 2025, biochemist Jean-Philippe Gourdine looked at genetic data on the Ancient Egyptian groups in the international scholarly publication, General History of Africa Volume IX. Building on a previous STR analysis done on the Amarna mummies, Gourdine said the analysis had found "that they had strong links with current sub-Saharan groups: 41 per cent to 93.9 per cent for sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 4.6 per cent to 41 per cent for Eurasia and 0.3 per cent to 16 per cent for Asia (Gourdine, 2018)." He also pointed to similar analysis done by DNA Tribes, which specializes in genetic family history and had large sets of data, with the latter having found strong links between the Amarna royal mummies and Sub-Saharan African groups.

2025 Old Kingdom male from Nuwayrat

See also: Egypt–Mesopotamia relations and Old Kingdom individual (NUE001)

Genetic make-up of the Nuwayrat genome:a) PCA of current world groups, with addition of the Old Kingdom Egyptian genome from Nuwayrat (NUE001). b) PCA of current groups from North Africa and West Asia, with addition of ancient North African and West Asian genomes

Face drawing and showing made from the Nuwayrat individual skull.

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Model of Nuwayrat genome make-up.

Researchers successfully recorded the first full genome of an Old Kingdom person from Nuwayrat, a high-status man who lived about 4,500-4,800 years ago (carbon dated to 2855-2570 BCE, confirmed by burial practices linked to the Third and Fourth Dynasty).

The Nuwayrat person's genetic make-up is best described as a mix between two sources, the majority of which (77.6% ± 3.8%) comes from a group shown by Middle Neolithic people from Skhirat-Rouazi in Morocco (4780–4230 BCE), whose own make-up comes from groups in the Neolithic Levant (76.4 ± 4.0%), with a smaller Iberomaurusian part (22.4 ± 3.8%). The remaining (22.4% ± 3.8%) of the Nuwayrat person's make-up is most closely linked to Neolithic Mesopotamian genomes (9000–8000 BCE). No other two-source model was as strong (P > 0.05). Two more three-source models were also found, but they gave similar make-up numbers, with only a small extra part from the Neolithic/Chalcolithic Levant.

The Nuwayrat person was genetically most similar to current groups of North Africa and West Asia. The mother-line DNA marker I/N1a1b2 and father-line DNA marker E1b1b1b2b of the Nuwayrat person are both most often found in these areas, matching his whole-genome links. Tests did not show any big part in the Nuwayrat genome linked to a previously published 4,500-year-old hunter-gatherer genome from the Mota cave in Ethiopia, or other people in central, eastern, or southern Africa.

The Nuwayrat person is thought to have had brown eyes, brown hair, and skin colour from dark to black. The bone looking also showed that he would have been 157.4–160.5 cm tall. These physical features match those seen in current Egyptians and North Africans.

The authors said they had limits in their study, such as using only one Egyptian genome for looking, and known limits in guessing the above-mentioned body features in groups that are not well studied. For reference, the HIrisPlex-S body feature analysis done in the study gave chances for eye, hair and skin colours as follows: for the eyes, ~98.79% for brown, ~1.19% for medium and ~0.02% for blue; for the hair, ~52.89% for black, ~0.14% for red, ~45.04% for brown and ~1.92% for blond; for the skin, ~37.84% for dark to black, ~56.78% for dark, ~5.28% for medium and ~0.1% for light.

About the extra face drawing, the researchers said that while the DNA looking is a guide to where people came from, there was no real proof of any certain skin colour, eye colour, or hair colour, and so, the drawing was done in black and white without head hair or face hair.

The findings show a pattern of wide cultural and population growth from the Mesopotamian area, which affected both Anatolia and Egypt during this time, and shows direct proof of genetic links related to the eastern Fertile Crescent (specifically Mesopotamian Neolithic) in early dynasty ancient Egypt.

Later genetic changes

Genetic modelling suggests that most current Egyptians get their make-up from a mix of five old groups. Up to 75% comes from groups linked to the Old Kingdom person from Nuwayrat and to Middle Neolithic groups from Morocco, which made up about 80% of the Nuwayrat person's make-up. Additional parts include links to the Bronze Age Levant, which the researchers said was the second most common make-up part, as well as more recent mixing from sub-Saharan Africa (East and West African groups) that the authors said was shown from earlier shared analysis and their models.

Genetic studies on modern Egyptians

Historically, scientists have studied the genes of modern Egyptians to understand their origins. By looking at certain parts of their DNA, researchers have found clues that show Egyptians share genetic links with people from North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

These studies suggest that modern Egyptians have ancestors from many places. Their genetic makeup includes very old African lineages, as well as later influences from Near Eastern and European groups. This mix reflects Egypt's position as a crossroads between several important regions throughout history.