The 4,500-Year-Old Egyptian Man Found In A Tomb — And The DNA Test That Revealed His Unexpected Ancestry

The 20 percent Fertile Crescent ancestry in NUE001 is not a complete surprise to Egyptologists.

In fact, the research team took some care to note that their finding was “consistent with long-standing Egyptological models” — that the genetic result was a confirmation and precise characterization of something that the archaeological and historical evidence had long suggested.

Connections between Egypt and the ancient Near East in the period of Egypt’s formation have been documented by archaeology for well over a century.

Artifacts, pottery styles, administrative practices, and artistic conventions show clear evidence of movement and exchange between Egypt and the broader Fertile Crescent region in the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age periods — roughly the fifth through third millennia BCE.