…AND THE BOURBONS TOO…

Well, if you haven't discovered it by now, today should be conclusive proof that I've been poking around genetics issues related to Europe's royal houses, and I came across this interesting article about the return of the skull of French king Henry IV to a descendant of the family. Henri IV was, as the article notes, a significant French king who helped broker a peace in his realms between Protestants and Catholics, and who, additionally, was the grandfather of France's arguably most famous king, Louis XIV.

Head of King Henry IV of France returned to relative after Genetic Testing

Well, this is more grist for the mill, to be sure, for it is yet another indicator that DNA testing has been done on at least one representative of one of Europe's most famous and influential royal houses, the Bourbons. In this case, we're told that it was done to determine if indeed it really was Henry IV, whose remains "went missing" during the craziness of the French Revolution. But that testing could have told a lot more.

With Europe's royal houses we are dealing, in a certain sense, with a geneticist's "dream-come-true," for the histories and intermarriages among these families are well-known, and thus the results of genetic testing can be compared to the known family trees of these various houses, something that is not so easily done with the family lines of the lesser nobility or hoi polloi, so in a certain sense, the interest in these families is fully rational and in and of itself, nothing suspicious at all. Now, when we add to this that similar records exist for the royal houses of the Far East - in Korea, China, Japan, Indochina even - and even in many cases for the Indian subcontinent - geneticists would be able to construct a very sturdy map of the history of the branches of the human family and how they're related.

But there's the rub: we are looking at an enterprise combining genetics with historical records, with texts, so at some point - if it hasn't already - the thought will occur to scientists that a similar enterprise might and could conceivably be undertaken on remains much older than early-modern French kings, and be undertaken in conjunction with far older texts. Research might be conducted, say, on the recently discovered remains of King Gilgamesh, or on the oldest Egyptian pharoahs, and that might conceivably shed light on the ancient texts of those societies.

I don't know about you, but once again, my mind is telling me "Well this is nice, and all perfectly rationalizable, after all, the records, the remains, allow scientists to reconstruct a very accurate picture." We're looking at a kind of interdisciplinary "genetic paleography" as it were. But my gut tells me that something else is going on...my gut tells me they're going to start - if they haven't already (and my gut tells me that they have started) - looking for "something." My guess? If they're looking for anything, they're looking for any evidence of that tie to the Annunaki of ancient lore.

Whether or not they tell us what they've found is another matter.... My guess is, if they have found or do find it, that they will tell us...but slowly, and in isolated dribbles, leaving us to connect the dots. So, it's time to stay on our toes!