Researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo said Tuesday that they will test the DNA of Egypt's legendary King Tutankhamen to determine the country's royal lineage and the cause of his death.
The archaeologists said they will start the project in December in conjunction with doctors and scientists at Nagoya University and researchers from the Egyptian government and a university in Cairo.
The team, which will be led by professor Sakuji Yoshimura of Waseda University, hopes to identify the father of the boy king, who the researchers say died about 3,300 years ago at the age 18.
Tutankhamen's mummified body was excavated in 1922, but researchers have not been able to categorically determine who fathered him and how he died.
The team will open Tutankhamen's coffin for the first time in 30 years and remove samples of hair, bone or nail from the mummy to check whether his DNA matches that of two children born to Amenhotep III, who is believed to have fathered the boy king.
"Our final goal is to map out the lineage of the kingdom," they said in a statement.
Egypt granted two Japanese universities the right to examine the mummy last year, beating researchers from the United States, Britain, France and Germany, they said.
Tutankhamen, whose spectacular golden death mask is famous, is believed to have ascended the throne at the age of nine. His coffin, one of the few to escape grave robbers, was discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922.
Yoshimura, an internationally known archaeologist, is well-versed in ancient Egypt and has extensively researched Amenhotep III.