Scientists have extracted and analyzed DNA from mummies that are thousands of years old, and they have found that the ancient Egyptians are actually more genetically similar to people living today in the Near East — countries like Israel, Lebanon, and Syria — than modern-day Egyptians.

In 2010, a team analyzed ancient DNA from 16 royal mummies, but the method they used wasn’t very good at distinguishing actual mummy DNA from modern DNA that might have contaminated it over the years.

In a study published today in the journal Nature Communications , scientists used a new, more precise method of DNA sequencing to analyze genome data from several mummies spanning different time periods in ancient Egyptian history.