title: Relic excavated in western India is probably of Georgian Queen Ketevan.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500007, India. Electronic address: nirajrai@ccmb.res.in.
authors.forename: Niraj
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rai
authors.affiliation: Archeological Survey of India, Bhopal Circle India. Electronic address: n_taher2000@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Nizamuddin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Taher
authors.affiliation: CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500007, India. Electronic address: mnujnu@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Manvendra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Estonian Biocentre, Riia23, Tartu, 51010, Estonia. Electronic address: gyanc@ebc.ee.
authors.forename: Gyaneshwer
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chaubey
authors.affiliation: CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500007, India. Electronic address: adityanjha@ccmb.res.in.
authors.forename: Aditya Nath
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Jha
authors.affiliation: CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500007, India; Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India. Electronic address: lalji@ccmb.res.in.
authors.forename: Lalji
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500007, India. Electronic address: thangs@ccmb.res.in.
authors.forename: Kumarasamy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Thangaraj
mesh_terms: D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000737:chemistry*; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005260:Female; D018732:Forensic Anthropology; D005580:Fossils; D060005:Genotyping Techniques; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial
keywords: Ancestry; Ancient DNA; Queen Ketevan; Relic