By: Ronit Marco, Sites & Photos
Photograph: Statues of Hathor in the Mortual Temple of Hatshepsut, Thebes, Egypt (Duby Tal, Albatross)

Egyptologists claim they have identified the mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt's
greatest female pharaoh, thanks to advanced forensic technologies. The find follows a one-year investigation led by Zahi Hawass, Egypt's secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Hatshepsut was the 5th Pharaoh of the 18th-dynasty of ancient Egypt. She was born in the 15th century BC to Pharaoh Tuthmose I and Ahmose, both of royal lineage. Upon the death of her father she married Tuthmose II, her half-brother. Following his death, having no living children with her husband, she became interregnum regent for the boy-king Tuthmose III, the child of Tuthmose II and a commoner mistress. However, wearing the male royal headdress and a false beard, she proclaimed herself pharaoh and became one of the few female rulers of the kingdom. She ruled for almost 20 years until her death in 1458 BC.

Under her rule, Egypt enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous time. Yet after her death the jealous successor Tuthmose III ordered all her images and inscriptions to be mutilated and her monuments demolished. Her name was systematically erased from any monument she had built.

Her mummy was never found. When Howard Carter explored her unfinished tomb KV20 in 1920, he found two empty sarcophagi: one was for Hatshepsut and the second for her father Tuthmose I. At another tomb that was labeled KV60 Carter had found stuffed geese and two sarcophagi: one inscribed for Hatshepsut's wet nurse Sitre-In, now at Cairo's Egyptian museum, and another containing an unknown female's mummy. This unidentified female, called KV60A, is now thought to be the missing pharaoh queen.

The researchers used CT scans to link distinct physical traits of the Hatshepsut mummy to that of her ancestors. In a box inscribed with the female pharaoh's name, a scan found a tooth that when measured, matched within a fraction of a millimeter the space of the missing molar in the mouth of the mummy called KV60A. DNA testing on the 3,000-year-old mummy and mummies from Hatshepsut family will be the next step to reach conclusive evidence.

The archeological, forensic and scientific investigations that lead to the identification of Hatshepsut will be revealed in "Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen," a documentary that airs Sunday, July 15 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The Discovery Channel.

Sites & Photos invites excavating archaeologists to submit news about their excavations and findings Read more

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Date :	31/07/2010
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