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THE FIRSTBORN OF EGYPT. Prince Ahmose Sapair was the eldest son of Ahmose, the pharaoh of the Exodus story, according to Jacobovici. Sapair, whose anthropoid sarcophagus is in the Cairo Museum, was only 12 years old when he died. The film claims that he and the other firstborn sons of Egypt were killed by a low, creeping cloud of poisonous carbon dioxide that had been released from beneath the Nile in a situation similar to Lake Nyos, Cameroon. Jacobovici explains that as they slept near the ground in their beds—a symbol of their privileged status—Sapair and the other firstborn of Egypt were quickly suffocated by the carbon dioxide cloud while the other children slept safely on the roof. Bietak dismisses this explanation by pointing out that, although it may seem an appealing explanation for the tenth plague, the elderly and distinguished citizens of Egypt also slept in beds, so the firstborn males would not have been the only ones affected by the gas cloud.