Queen Of Punt Syndrome? T.I. Farag1, M.A. Sabry2, A. Iskandar3. 1) Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada; 2) Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; 3) Purdue University, Hammond, Indiana, USA.
Critical bioanthropological and medico-genetic dissection of ancient art and mummies is a fascinating emerging discipline. In Cairo Museum, a relief (#11465) from Queen Hatshepsut’s tomb (c.1479-1457 B.C.) in Deir el-Bahari shows the Queen of Punt(Somalia) with a lined face, hyperlordosis, corpulent body, gluteofemoral obesity and apparent symmetrically distributed hamarto-neoplastic swellings on the trunk, arms and thighs, sparing her face, neck, hands and feet. The portrait of her daughter, on the same relief, shows a similar posture. In the absence of the Queen’s mummy (died nearly 34 centuries ago), there is insufficient substance, too much speculation and too few facts to decide the precise diagnosis.
Here we review different hypotheses regarding the Queen’s characteristic phenotype including artistic pseudopathology, racial steatopygy, filariasis, myxodema, rickets, bilateral congenital hip dislocations in addition to the following 8 monogenic disorders: Achondroplasia, Dercum disease, lipodystrophy, Launois-Bensaude syndrome, Neurofibromatosis, familial obesity, Proteus syndrome and X-linked dominant hypophosphatemic rickets (MIM 100800, 103200, 151660, 151800, 162200, 164160, 176920, 307800).
It seems that the Queen’s portrait represents a truly unique phenotype which, if accepted as a new entity, can be coined as Queen of Punt Syndrome. Syndromologists are invited to contribute their expertise to solve the puzzle and help in the precise delineation of the Queen’ s alleged pathological obesity and lumbar hyperlordosis. Acknowledgments: Thanks to Prof. John M. Opitz and Prof. R.Neil Schimke for their valuable comments and contributions. References:
Ghalioungui, P. & El-Dawakly, Z. 1965. Health and Healing in Ancient Egypt. Cairo: Dar Al-Maaref.
Kunze, J. & Nippert, I. 1986. Genetics and Malformations in Art. Berlin: Groose Verlaf.
McKusick, V.A. 1998. Mendelian Inheritance in Man (12th ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.