Why is the oldest whole genome ever sequenced from ancient Egypt so important?

A 2025 DNA study published in Nature analyzed a man from Nuwayrat in Middle Egypt who lived around 2855–2570 BC, spanning the transition from the Early Dynastic period to the Old Kingdom.

His ancestry was modeled as approximately 78% related to Middle Neolithic North Africans and 22% related to Neolithic populations from Mesopotamia and the eastern Fertile Crescent.

Importantly, these populations are genetic proxies rather than direct ancestors from Morocco or Mesopotamia. The results suggest that most of his ancestry came from a deeply rooted North African population, while around one-fifth reflected gene flow from populations related to the eastern Fertile Crescent.

This provides direct genetic evidence that contacts between early Egypt and the Near East involved not only trade and cultural exchange, but also human migration.

Researchers also predicted that he had brown eyes, brown hair and dark to black skin, although they caution that phenotype prediction is less certain for ancient populations with limited reference data.

Because this genome comes from a single individual, more ancient Egyptian genomes will be needed to determine how representative his ancestry was of Egypt as a whole.

📚 Source: Morez Jacobs et al. (2025), Whole-genome ancestry of an Old Kingdom Egyptian, Nature 644, 714–721.

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