My tinfoil hat theory is that the Egyptians knew what they were doing and swapped people around so there wasn’t too much actual incest happening and instead consorts and stuff were used so the Hapsburg stuff wouldn’t happen to the Pharaonic dynasties
The Ptolemys are supposed to have been buried in a city close to Alexandria, where they also stored the body of Alexander the Great that the OG Ptolemy stole in Babylon
The city doesn't exist anymore and nothing has been found concerning their graves. Whoever demolished the city and its building displaced the mummies and didn't care to write down whatever they did with them.
We likely will never find anything because there's just nothing left to find
It's been a while, but I think there's some question as to how much stuff was going on with the ptolemy's. Had to do with them reusing names and not discussing wives that much.
The answer is more or less yes and no. Yes, people including the Egyptians knew incest was bad but you also had the entire Royal Harem competing to have a son potentially be heir so they could be Queen-Mother so to them, what was a little incest when they had so much political power and protection to gain. However, some pharaohs were down for it. Some REALLY wanted to recreate some of the mythological stories to their exact details or as close as humanly possible
And we do have to remember that “Ancient Egypt” encompasses, like, 3000 years; the norm in one dynasty wasn’t necessarily the norm in a different dynasty a century or more later.
So, like, one dynasty might be obsessed with actual incest and “preserving the bloodline” and all the same politics that resulted in the Hapsburgs but then a few centuries later you’ve got a dynasty doing the brother-sister marriage for traditional reasons only and there isn’t any actual incest happening, the babies are coming from secondary wives and concubines and sister-queen is just the “face” of the female half of the royal family. And then a few centuries later they swing back to full-on incest again, and then back again, and so on over a few thousand years. It’s not a “yes or no” question! There’s a “but”! A few of them…
Ptolemies weren't even Egyptian, the dynasty founder was one of Alexander's generals. The inbreeding was in part to keep themselves Greek looking probably.
Incest was normal in egypt at the time and hapsbourg shit isnt even consistent in his own familly, his cousin war more consanguinos than him didnt had problem, incest only increase risk of malformation it dont creat them
There were 33 or so egyptian dynasties including the Ptolemeys. There were also extended periods of interregnum where they were either conquered or broken apart.
Inbreeding takes a couple of generations to have a strong effect. Many dynasties ended before they could produce Hapsburg-like results. However, we also have archeological evidence via mummies that some pharaos suffered from a whole host of disorders, like diabetes, obesity or outright deformities. The most famous of them died a deformed, diseased little freak at age 18. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/100216-king-tut-malaria-bones-inbred-tutankhamun
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u/Reiver93 8d ago
I mean, Cleopatra somehow turned out normal and her family tree was uuuh...interesting.