In a very flawed article from the Archaeology News Network, the former head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Zahi Hawass disputes Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves theory that the tomb of Nefertiti will be found behind the painted walls of Tutankhamun's tomb, in particular, the north and west walls. Part of Dr.Hawass's concern is for the preservation of the paintings which would have to be removed.
The article suggests that behind one wall there will be found a 'mundane' storeroom. Hard to imagine anything 'mundane' about the discovery of a storeroom off the boy king's burial chamber. Cutting apart the paintings is certainly something that will not happen in the near future. With scans of the walls done the next decision may be drilling a small hole in each wall that a camera could look into any void found.
What started me writing this piece, however, was a number of inaccuracies in the article which include that King Ay was Tutankhamun's brother. Ay was an old man, and likely the power behind Tutankhamun's short reign. Ay succeeded Tutankhamun on the throne, and may, or may not have been Tutankhamun's ancestor, through the boy king's queen, Ankhesenamun, the daughter of Nefertiti.
The article moves further along with Dr. Hawass's belief that Nefertiti was likely one of two mummies found in the Valley of the Queens tomb 21. This is in error as the two female mummies in question were found in the Valley of the Kings tomb Kv 21. The mummy known as Kv 21 A, has through DNA found to likely be Tutankhamun's queen, through the fetuses found with Tutankhamun in his tomb.
The suggestion by Dr. Hawass that the torn apart remains of the mummy Kv 21 B is Nefertiti is about as awful as it gets. Mr. Reeves believes Nefertiti is intact while Dr. Hawass is suggesting of Nefertiti that she is represented by a mummy reduced to a sad pile of violated bones in the 19Th century. If DNA has proven that the mummy of Ankhesenamun, Kv 21 A, is the daughter of the Kv 21 B mummy, then it is certainly the worst possible ending to the search for Nefertiti.
Photo of Tutankhamun's burial chamber, AFP
Photo of Kv21 B, Kenneth Garrett Photography
4 comments:
In the DNA study both females from KV21 had little match to each other.
Both had 10 in first marker, then nil, 26, nil, nil, nil, 12, nil.
This proposal as to them being Ankhesenamen/Nefertiti, therefore makes the younger female in KV35 whom Joann Fletcher proposed as Nefertiti, wrong and Hawass right.
As with the scanning, Salima Ikram in her column for KMT magazine, posted that the Japanese/Nat Geo scans did agree. Come the 'conference' and the Nat Geo scans did not! No outsider has been given the opportunity to compare both results!! If, there is nothing there,
why then is Hawass doing his own scans rather leave them for another to 'find nothing'? KMTScribe
Why would this be the worst end for Nefertiti? on the contrary, she would be found. And KV21B is Nefertiti.
As a portrait painter we understand anatomy and the lower portion of KV 21B's face is very like the bust of Nefertiti which is a fine reprisentation of the features of Nefertiti. She is also, via DNA, a very close relative of KV21A, sister or mother. Since she is in her 30s or early 40s she cannot be a sister. She is the best candidate for Nefertiti, who may well have died in a violent coup with Akhenaten, in which she was mutilated along with her daughter. One if these women wrote inviting a foreign prince to come and take the throne of Egypt, an act of a treason.
There is strong indication that Akhenaten and his family were a threat to the empire and had to go. Sorry if Reeves wants an intact body for Nefertiti, as would all of us, but this is one of the few times I agree with gadfly and usually off base Hawass.
Never ceases to amaze me. Scientists could identify the two fetuses found with Tutankhamun in his tomb and obtain a full DNA sequence of Nefertiti, who was the grandmother of the fetuses and mother of Ankhesenamun, Tuts wife. But they cant identify mummy 21a as Nefertiti or 21b as Ankhesenanum. These scientists are as bad as meteorologists who use dartboards to guess about the weather!
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