Posted on 06/07/2006 9:31:03 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Could the small tomb, designated KV63, hold a royal mummy, perhaps that of Tutankhamen's widow or even his mother? ...Otto Schaden, the man who found them, leads the American team. He believes they may have located the mummy of Tutankhamen's widow, Ankhesenamen, after traces of her name were found on the seal of one urn. The secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, thinks the final coffins may contain the remains of the pharaoh's mother, whose identity is unknown, and not the wife of Tutankhamen, the boy king who died at age 18.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
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US dig uncovers King Tut's neighbours
The Age | February 9, 2006 - 2:26AM
Posted on 02/08/2006 1:48:04 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1574477/posts
Oooh, thanks! I've always been fascinated by Ankhesenamon, stuck in the middle of the national crisis, as it were.
Thanks, sure will be interesting when they finally finish the dig and publish the results with pics.
I saw a one hour program about this on the Discovery/National Geographic Channel Sunday night. Reasonable program.
:')
Smenkhkhare, the Hittite Pharaoh
BBC History | September 5, 2002 | Dr Marc Gabolde
Posted on 07/30/2004 12:42:36 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1181802/posts
Thanks, interesting reading.
My pleasure.
The two had no sons; the parentage of Tut and Smenkhare have been speculated about, although generally they are considered to be the sons of Akhenaten and someone besides Nefertiti (perhaps each brother had a different mother). There's been a real drive on to make Smenkhare into a butched-up version of Nefertiti, but that's just wishful thinking IMHO.
Who Was Who Among The Royal MummiesSeti II is an interesting case, because he should belong to the Nineteenth Dynasty line, being the grandson of Ramesses II and son of Merenptah. Elliot Smith in his catalogue of the royal mummies had already noted in 1912 that Seti II does not at all resemble the orthognathous heavyjawed pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty, but bears a striking resemblance to the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Smith's observations, which were not made with the aid of x-rays and computer analysis of craniofacial variation, nonetheless were those of a person with considerable experience in examining human remains. Subjected to Jim's more sophisticated approach using cephalometric x-ray tracings and cluster analysis, this mummy was found to be most similar in craniofacial morphology to the mummies of Thutmose II and III. In other words, Seti II was not Seti II. The confusion between Seti II and Thutmose II may have been occasioned by the similarity of their prenomens when written in the hieratic script.
by Edward F. Wente
Since the identification of Thutmose I was already seriously in doubt, there would be room to insert the Seti II mummy into the first half of the Eighteenth Dynasty. This possibility sent me to reevaluate the dockets supposedly identifying the mummy of Thutmose II. On the mummy the orthography of the king's name was not without ambiguity, while on the coffin the scribe had originally written the prenomen of Thutmose I and then altered it to Thutmose II's. Since the mummy identified as Thutmose II was older at death than the Seti II one, and from historical considerations we believe that Thutmose I died at an older age than Thutmose II, the end result of this part of our inquiry was to suggest that the Thutmose II mummy really belonged to Thutmose I and the Seti II mummy to Thutmose II, while Thutmose III has possibly been correctly identified. I say "possibly" because the shroud of Thutmose III, which has been used to identify the mummy, was discovered not wrapped around the body but simply folded on top of the mummy, which itself bore no clear identification...
The craniofacial morphology of the mummy labeled Amenhotep III also made it difficult to place in the position he should occupy as son of Thutmose IV. Of the mummies in the collection only the one supposed to be Amenhotep II is a suitable candidate to have been the father of the Amenhotep III mummy. Over the years Jim became increasingly intrigued by the Amenhotep III mummy, because it is one of the most severely battered of the royal mummies, having suffered postmortem injuries of a very violent nature, more than what tomb-robbers generally inflicted upon the mummies in search of precious items. Since the publication of the x-ray atlas further study of this mummy has been undertaken by Jim and Dr. Fawzia Hussein, Director of the Anthropological Laboratory of the National Research Center, Cairo; and it has been ascertained that the skull is two standard deviations too large for his body, and its craniofacial characteristics are consonant with sculptured portraits of Akhenaten... What may be said on the basis of the biologic evidence of craniofacial variation is that the mummy labeled as Amenhotep III by the restorers was not a likely father, or even grandfather, of Tutankhamun... [W]e suggest that Thutmose IV was the paternal grandfather of Tutankhamun, a conclusion consonant with a literal reading of the text on the Oriental Institute astronomical instrument, and that Amenhotep III was his maternal grandfather. In other words, Tutankhamun was the offspring of a marriage between a son of Thutmose IV and a daughter of Amenhotep III.
Sequence Of Kings Royal Mummies Dynasty 18 Scheme 1 Scheme 2 Scheme 3 Thutmose I = Thutmose II Thutmose II Thutmose II Thutmose II = Seti II Seti II Seti II Thutmose III = Thutmose III Thutmose III ? Thutmose III Amenhotep II = --- --- ? Thutmose III Thutmose IV = Amenhotep II Amenhotep II Thutmose IV Amenhotep III = Thutmose IV Thutmose IV Amenhotep II Akhenaten = KV 55 --- Amenhotep III Smenkhkare = --- KV 55 KV 55 Tutankhamun = Tutankhamun Tutankhamun Tutankhamun Aye = Amenhotep III Amenhotep III ---
Royal Mummies Musical Chairs:Turning to the problematic "Thutmose I," they concluded that No. 61065 was, indeed, almost certainly a Thutmosid because of his craniofacial morphology, but not a king. Analysis of Harris’s x-rays concurred with Smith’s original estimate of the individual’s age at death being eighteen or twenty years — far too young for the historical Thutmose I. And then there was the aforementioned problem of the mummy’s extended arms. Since the arms of Amenhotep I and the individual thought to be Thutmose II were in the kingly crossed position, it seemed wholly unlikely that those who mummified "Thutmose I" would have broken with established tradition (inasmuch as the so-called "royal position" was apparently not a New Kingdom innovation, the skeletal remains of ephemeral King Hor of the late Middle Kingdom having been found at Dahshur by Jacques De Morgan with the arms crossed). Thus, Harris and Wente relegated No. 61065 to anonymity, leaving the "Thutmose I" slot open for another candidate.
Cases Of Mistaken Identities?
by Dennis C. Forbes
(book excerpt)
Initial examinations revealed that the back of the statue is engraved with two columns of hieroglyphic text bearing different titles of king Amenhotep III, who ruled for 38 years during the 18th Dynasty. According to Sabri Abdel-Aziz, head of the SCA's Ancient Egypt Department, the inscriptions written on the statue also include a cartouche of a 21st Dynasty queen called Henutaw, which reveals that the same statue was used in a subsequent era.
18th Dynasty"In some respects the last years of Amenophis III seem to have followed a normal course. Surrounded by everything that wealth could give he continued to reside in his luxurious palace on the west of Thebes, whence he carried on his correspondence with the Asiatic kings and the lesser chieftains of Palestine. Doubtless Queen Tiye still exerted an important influence upon his counsels. Special favor was shown to a daughter of theirs named Sitamun, to whom there appears to have been given, with Amenhotpe son of Hapu as its steward, an establishment of her own in the palace area. Since this Sitamun adds to her title of 'king's daughter' that of 'king's great wife' -- there is even a faience knob on which the cartouches of Tiye and herself face one another each preceded by this title -- several scholars have maintained that the old king married his own daughter, and this unwelcome conclusion is difficult to resist... [Amenophis III's thirty-eighth year] was the end and the next letter from Tushratta is addressed to the all-powerful widow Tiye and, recalling the good relations which had persisted between him and her late husband, expresses the hope that those with her son may be ten times as cordial."
...
"For the transition to the reign of Amenophis IV the letters from Tushratta are doubtless our best authority. In that to Queen Tiye it is clearly implied that the new king ascended the throne only after his father's death, and the same is asserted even more clearly in a letter to the young ruler from the great Hittite monarch Suppliluliumas. Hence the much canvassed co-regency must be an illusion. A hieratic docket in what was probably the first letter addressed by Tushratta to Napkhuria -- this being the cuneiform rendering of Amenophis IV's Prenomen Neferkheprure' -- dates it in year 2, and states that the Court was still in residence in western Thebes. We learn too that Tadukhipa's connubial duties had now been transferred from the father to the son, and it has sometimes been suggested that this Mitannian princess was none other than the beautiful Nefertiti, familiar to the modern world from her wonderfully modeled and painted head in the Berlin Museum. Obstacles to this theory are, however, that Nefertiti is known to have had a sister in Egypt, and that Tey, the wife of the elderly officer Ay who ultimately became king, claimed to have been her nurse..."
...
Lastly must be mentioned the family tomb which Akhenaten caused to be prepared 4 miles away in the eastern desert; his prematurely deceased second daughter Meketaten was actually buried there, but apparently neither her parents nor any of her sisters.
Still unconfirmed:
Another new tomb in the Valley of the Kings: ‘KV64’
Valley of the Kings Foundation | 31 July 2006 | Nicholas Reeves
Posted on 08/04/2006 9:20:31 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1678072/posts
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