Monday, June 25, 2007

Hatchepsut's mummy found. . . . .again Has Hatshepsut's mummy been found?
Egyptologists think they have identified with certainty the mummy of Hatshepsut, the most famous queen to rule ancient Egypt, found in a humble tomb in the Valley of the Kings, an archaeologist said on Monday.

Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, will hold a news conference in Cairo on Wednesday. The Discovery Channel said he would announce what it called the most important find in the Valley of the Kings since the discovery of King Tutankhamun.

The archaeologist, who asked not to be named, said the candidate for identification as the mummy of Hatshepsut was one of two females found in 1903 in a small tomb believed to be that of Hatshepsut's wet-nurse, Sitre In.


Not really again. As the article notes, speculation around these two mummies has been going on for a while. Don Ryan worked in this KV 60, as did I for a couple of seasons and he has some pics of the one mummy with the folded arm at his web site (about 1/3 of the way down).

The idea is that KV 60, which is a crudely cut thing nearby Hatchepsut's deep (and empty) tomb, was prepared for Sitre, and then Hatchepsut's mummy was placed there for safekeeping after it (the mummy) had been ransacked, rather like the cache mummies discovered earlier. Hawass thinks it's the other mummy. So, eh. We'll see what he says Wednesday.