Mystery tomb could hold Tutankhamen's widow

The Daily Telegraph ^ | 6/2/06 | The Daily Telegraph

[wagglebee]

LONDON: It has been 84 years since Egypt's famed Valley of the Kings revealed its last great riches – the fabulous gold of Tutankhamen's tomb.

Now archaeologists believe they have stumbled across one final secret: The mummified remains of the boy king's widow buried 3000 years ago.

In a mysterious shaft less than 15m from Tutankhamen's burial ground, US archaeologists found seven coffins.

They believe one they have not yet been able to open may contain the remains of Queen Ankhesenpaaten.

The tomb – found by accident by Memphis University team leader Dr Otto Schaden – contained seven coffins stacked closely together and ringed by 28 clay jars, each decorated with a beautiful face mask. The coffins were buried about 1320BC.

A child-sized coffin – one of five so far raised – contained a small gilded ornamental sarcophagus of a quality that was usually buried only with royalty.

Ankhesenpaaten's link to the tomb was further underlined when a coffin seal was found with part of her name on it.

"I think there is a 70 per cent chance that Ankhesenpaaten's mummy is in that last coffin," Egyptian antiquities head Dr Mansour Boraik said.

"If she is, it will be a major find because very little is known about her."

[maine-iac7]

Tut and Wife Ankhesenpaaten

[Reddy]

bttt

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Waggs. Tut was married to (possibly) a half-sister, and the relationship may have been closer than that. :'o

To the others addressed above, a ping, you can guess why. ;')

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Waggs.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Waggs.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[Perdogg]

How did they keep their bloodlines disease free if they mated?

[wildbill]

There has been a lot of speculation that she was forced to marry Tut's successor to legitimize his accession to the throne.

[tarheelswamprat]

How did they keep their bloodlines disease free if they mated?

It has often been stated in articles that Egyptian pharoahs "married their sisters" but that is a misleading oversimplification. The practice was actually limited to a very specific relationship in which they had the same father but different mothers, i.e. half-sister and half-brother.

There is some interesting discussion of this practice (which was not limited to Egypt but occurred in other ancient middle-eastern dynasties as well) in the works of Zechariah Sitchin. His thesis was that the practice actually strengthened the bloodlines of the royal classes of these kingdoms because of their "unique" geneological heritage. That's a discussion for another time, however. /grin

Another example of this is found in the Old Testament account of Abraham marrying his sister Sarah. The original form of the name Abraham was "Abram", which was Sumerian, and Sarah was "Sarai" which was Sumerian for "princess". Thus Abraham and Sarah were expatriate Sumerian royalty from the city of Ur, who were simply following the traditional practice of their culture.

[old republic]

How did they keep their bloodlines disease free if they mated?

---

The close relation of parents is not a gurantee of defects. In fact, sometimes not only do they not have defects, but they may have above average positive traits. However, the marriage of close relations does increase the chances of bringing out recessive traits which can cause problems. In antiquity as today, sometimes the children of these marriages had problems and sometimes they did not. In the case of Tutankhamen, two stillborn baby girls were found buried with him in the tomb. They are almost certainly his own children.

[Hound of the Baskervilles]

No I don't think that's Tut. See the sun above the figures? That is the pharoah that worshiped the disk of the sun as an image of the one god Aton. So it must be Akhenton and his wife Nefertiri.

[old republic]

Here is another couple of pictures depicting Tutankhamen and Ankhesenamen. The first of the two is from the lid of a chest found in the Annexe of the tomb while the second is from a miniature gold shrine found in the Antechamber of the tomb. If the scenes depicted of them over and over again on the objects of the tomb are any clue as to the closeness of their relationship, then they must have been very close as the scenes of them often depict rather intimate behavior between the two.

[old republic]

No I don't think that's Tut. See the sun above the figures? That is the pharoah that worshiped the disk of the sun as an image of the one god Aton. So it must be Akhenton and his wife Nefertiri.

---

Its Tutankhamen alright. The picture is a modern artists rendition of the scene depicted on the back of the Golden Throne of Tutankhamen found in his tomb. Tutankhamen is believed to have been the son or half brother of Akhenaten, though he is more likely his son. Tutankhamen ruled during a period of transition and the worship of Aten is still the state religion during the initial part of Tut's reign. However, Tutankhamen reopened the temples of the old gods and ordered the transition back to the old religion. Hence Tut's name which had originally been TutankhATEN was changed to TutankhAMEN. However, the influence of the old religion and the art associated with it, which is often referred to as Amarna art, includes the images of the solar disc with outstretched arms common to Akhenaten's reign, and it left an indelible mark on the art of the Tutankhamen's reign as well.

[old republic]

Here is the picture of the actual golden throne.

[SunkenCiv]

Who sez they kept them disease free? ;') Akhenaten (Tut's father?) appears to have suffered from Marfan's syndrome, and judging from the Amarna-period art, so did his offspring. His offspring were frail. Also, there were some pharaohs who came from nowhere, and were apparently military leaders, or from the priesthood(s), chosen apparently because the line of pharaohs finally inbred itself out of existence.

Each pharaoh had to come from "the same womb" as his predecessor, which led to incestuous marriages, and there's no way to disguise it. Fathers married daughters, uncles nieces, brothers sisters, and of course, cousins married. Not all of these unions produced offspring, and favorite sons were put on the throne, and married to a princess of the blood just to legitimize the reign -- although I'm not an advocate for the legitimacy of a monarchy.

[Berosus]

I was of the impression that the art that shows Tut with the Aten was made before he became pharaoh, maybe even while Akhenaten was still alive. Then the old religion came back into style, and all of the Aten-related objects, like the throne, were kept around because they were too pretty (and too expensive) to throw away. The priests probably came up with some theological explanation to justify it, saying that the Aten had become part of Amen-Ra, or something like that.

[Berosus]

More likely that's how Queen Nefertiti looked. Note how she's wearing a red version of the blue crown in the famous bust. I understand that there's a movie about Nefertiti in the works, with Halle Berry playing the lead part.

[Berosus]

A case can be made that the XVIII dynasty was one of the least inbred. The pharaohs after Thutmose III were able to marry foreign princesses, a choice that normally was not available to earlier dynasties. And Queen Tiye, the matriarch of the Amarna period, was not of royal ancestry; her father Yuya was a general and a priest of Min. Still, I think the family's genetic good luck ran out with Tut, because both of his children were stillborn. Now I'm hearing speculation that the gold doll-sized coffin from KV63 might have been meant for one of the fetuses. As for why they were buried instead with wooden coffins in Tut's tomb, your guess is as good as mine.

[Graymatter]

Whatever ailed Ikhnaton, it can't be attributed to royal inbreeding. His mother Tiye was a commoner.

[ZULU]

Well, the Ptolemys inbred for generations and the final product - Cleopatra - was apparently not lacking in mnetal or physical attributes.

[ZULU]

If it is her tomb, maybe they can settle the issue of whether or not she was murdered by Aye, who succeeded Tutankhamun.

She had sent a letter to the king of the Hittites, enemies of Egypt, requesting he send her one of his sons as a husband as she would never consent to marry someone who was below her. The Hittite King sent one of his sons who was ambushed and killed. Ankhesenamun was then married to Aye.

Then she disappears from the records. Aye already had a wife who was his consort for many years and he was a very old man. In one tomb scene Aye is shown performing the "opening of the mouth" ceremony on Tutankhamun's mummy, which is unusual as it is usual done by the son and successor of the Pharaoh.

Aye and Horemheb, a General in Akhenaton's and later Tutankhamun's and Aye's armies may have been in cahoots together. Horumheb may have been involved in Tutankhamun's murder, the assassination of the Hittites King's son, and -possibly - the death of Ankhesenamum, although even an old man could have murdered a young woman.

I hope it is her tomb and the mystery of what happened to her can be revealed finally.