Relic excavated in western India is probably of Georgian Queen Ketevan

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• 作者：Niraj Rai ; Nizamuddin Taher ; Manvendra Singh ; Gyaneshwer Chaubey ; Aditya Nath Jha ; Lalji Singh ; Kumarasamy Thangaraj
• 关键词：Ancient DNA ; Ancestry ; Queen Ketevan ; Relic
• 刊名：Mitochondrion
• 出版年：January, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：14
• 期：Complete
• 页码：1-6
• 全文大小：877 K

文摘

History has well documented the execution of Queen Ketevan of Georgia by the Persian Emperor of modern day Iran. Based on historical records, in 1624 two Augustinian friars unearthed the queen's remains and one of them brought the relic to the St. Augustine convent in Goa, India. We carried out ancient DNA analysis on the human bone remains excavated from the St. Augustine convent by sequencing and genotyping of the mitochondrial DNA. The investigations of the remains revealed a unique mtDNA haplogroup U1b, which is absent in India, but present in Georgia and surrounding regions. Since our genetic analysis corroborates archaeological and literary evidence, it is likely that the excavated bone belongs to Queen Ketevan of Georgia.