A skeleton found in a 4,500-year-old ceramic pot has rewritten the history of Ancient Egypt. A DNA test on the man’s bones has upended how historians could view the rise of Ancient Egyptian civilisation. The skeleton, found 165 miles south of Cairo at Nuwayrat, belongs to a 60-year-old potter who lived between 2855–2570 BC.

A DNA bone test on a man who lived 4,500 years ago in the Nile Valley has shed new light on the rise of the Ancient Egyptian civilisation.

For the first time, scientists have sequenced the oldest and complete DNA set of an ancient Egyptian man, dating to when the pyramids were first constructed.