Smenkhkare or Not?

In the summer issue of KMT, volume 21 Number 2 Summer 2010, the Editorial Director Dennis C. Forbes published an article, "So, What's become of the golden cartouche?" The short article is based on the gold foil coming from the interior lid and basin of the coffin found in Valley of the Kings tomb Kv 55 and whether there is an intact cartouche on the foil of the basin.

Egyptologist Georges Daressy working on behalf of the Cairo museum examined the foils when they came to the museum in 1907 and made some sketches. The foils reportedly have a line of inscription running down the center of the foil from top to bottom of the coffins basin and lid. Unlike the lid inscription the cartouche on the basin inscription is reported to be present and that the cartouche is of Smenkhkare.

Unfortunately, the recent DNA examinations of the royal mummies related to king Tutankhamen have left many people believing that the mummy found in the coffin is that of Akhenaten, particularly at the head of Egypt's Supreme council of antiquities.

With so much of Smenkhkare's burial equipment in Tutankhamen's tomb just across the path from Kv 55 and the ownership of the Kv 55 coffin being same it should not be a surprise that the mummy of Smenkhkare should be present also!

Having said that in ancient time the short-lived Pharaoh Smenkhkare had been robbed of much of his burial equipment for Tutankhamen's burial and the Kv55 coffin may just be another example of that robbery only the recipient being a different person?

The summer issue of Kmt is particularly interesting and a must get.