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Hatshepsut

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Davita
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« on: June 29, 2007, 11:03:26 pm »

Egyptologists Think They Have Hatshepsut's Mummy



Sculpted Head to show Egyptian Headress taken at Met. Museum of Art.  (Walter Daran/ Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images)

By Jonathan Wright
June 25, 2007

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.

Several Egyptologists have speculated over the years that one of the mummies was that of the queen, who ruled from between 1503 and 1482 BC -- at the height of ancient Egypt's power.

The archaeologist said Hawass would present new evidence for an identification but that not all Egyptologists are convinced he will be able to prove his case.

"It's based on teeth and body parts ... It's an interesting piece of scientific deduction which might point to the truth," the archaeologist said.

Egyptologist Elizabeth Thomas speculated many years ago that one of the mummies was Hatshepsut's because the positioning of the right arm over the woman's chest suggested royalty.

Her mummy may have been hidden in the tomb for safekeeping after her death because her stepson and successor, Tuthmosis III, tried to obliterate her memory.

Donald Ryan, an Egyptologist who rediscovered the tomb in 1989, said on an Internet discussion board this month that there were many possibilities for the identities of the two female mummies found in the tomb, known as KV 60.

"Zahi Hawass recently has taken some major steps to address these questions. Both of the KV 60 mummies are in Cairo now and are being examined in various clever ways that very well might shed light on these questions," he added.
In an undated article on his Web site, Hawass cast doubt on the theory that the KV-60 mummy with the folded right arm was that of Hatshepsut.

"I do not believe this mummy is Hatshepsut. She has a very large, fat body with huge pendulous breasts, and the position of her arm is not convincing evidence of royalty," he wrote.

He was more optimistic about the mummy found in the wet-nurse's coffin and traditionally identified as the nurse's. That mummy is stored away in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

"The body of the mummy now in KV 60 with its huge breasts may be the wetnurse, the original occupant of the coffin ... The mummy on the third floor at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo could be the mummy of Hatshepsut," Hawass wrote.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3313952&page=1
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« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2007, 11:09:18 pm »

Elusive Egyptian queen found at last?
Jonathan Wright
Reuters
 Tuesday, 26 June 2007

 

 
The Sphinx of Hatshepsut paid tribute to one of the most famous queens to rule ancient Egypt. Now archaeologists say they have identified her remains in the Valley of the Kings (Image: Reuters/Tara Todras-Whitehill)


Egyptologists are confident that remains found in a humble tomb in the Valley of the Kings are those of Hatshepsut, one of the most famous queens to rule ancient Egypt.

Egypt's chief archaeologist Professor Zahi Hawass is expected to announce the discovery later this week, which has been touted as the most important find in the area since the discovery of King Tutankhamen.

The candidate for identification as the mummy of Hatshepsut is believed to be one of two females found in 1903 in a small tomb.

The humble tomb is thought to be that of Hatshepsut's wet nurse, Sitre In.

Several Egyptologists have speculated over the years that one of the mummies was that of the queen, who ruled from between 1503 and 1482 BC at the height of ancient Egypt's power.

It is understood that Hawass will present new evidence this week to identify the queen.

"It's based on teeth and body parts ... It's an interesting piece of scientific deduction which might point to the truth," says an archaeologist familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be named.

But not all Egyptologists are convinced that Hawass will be able to prove his case.

Egyptologist Elizabeth Thomas speculated many years ago that one of the mummies was Hatshepsut's because the positioning of the right arm over the woman's chest suggested royalty.

Her mummy may have been hidden in the tomb for safekeeping after her death because her stepson and successor Tuthmosis III tried to obliterate her memory.

Dr Donald Ryan, an Egyptologist who rediscovered the tomb in 1989, says on an internet discussion board this month that there are many possibilities for the identities of the two female mummies found in the tomb, known as KV 60.

"Zahi Hawass recently has taken some major steps to address these questions. Both of the KV 60 mummies are in Cairo now and are being examined in various clever ways that very well might shed light on these questions," he adds.

In an undated article on his website, Hawass casts doubt on the theory that the KV-60 mummy with the folded right arm is that of Hatshepsut.

"I do not believe this mummy is Hatshepsut. She has a very large, fat body with huge pendulous breasts, and the position of her arm is not convincing evidence of royalty," he writes.

He is more optimistic about the mummy found in the wet-nurse's coffin and traditionally identified as the nurse's. That mummy is stored at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

"The body of the mummy now in KV 60 with its huge breasts may be the wet nurse, the original occupant of the coffin ... The mummy on the third floor at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo could be the mummy of Hatshepsut," Hawass writes.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1962294.htm
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« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2007, 11:13:28 pm »

Tooth clinches identification of Egyptian queen
Wed Jun 27, 2007 12:12PM BST
 
By Jonathan Wright





Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, looks at a mummy identified as Queen Hatshepsut before a news conference at the Egyptian museum in Cairo June 27, 2007. 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. REUTERS/Nasser Nuri




CAIRO (Reuters) - A single tooth has clinched the identification of an ancient mummy as that of Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt about 3,500 years ago, the country's chief archaeologist said on Wednesday.

The right mummy turned out to be that of a fat woman in her 50s who had rotten teeth and died of bone cancer, Zahi Hawass told a news conference to announce the identification.

 It was found in 1903 in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, where the young Pharaoh Tutankhamun was buried, and Hawass himself thought until recently that it belonged to the owner of the tomb, Hatshepsut's wet-nurse by the name of Sitre In.

But the decisive evidence was a molar in a wooden box inscribed with the queen's name, found in 1881 in a cache of royal mummies collected and hidden away for safekeeping at the Deir al-Bahari temple about 1,000 metres (yards) away.

During the embalming process, it was common to set aside spare body parts and preserve them in such a box.

Orthodontics professor Yehya Zakariya checked all the mummies which might be Hatshepsut's and found that the tooth was a perfect fit in a gap in the upper jaw of the fat woman.

"The identification of the tooth with the jaw can show this is Hatshepsut," Hawass said. "A tooth is like a fingerprint."

"It is 100 percent definitive. It is 1.80 cm (wide) and the dentist took the measurement and studied that part. He found it fit exactly 100 percent with this part," he told Reuters

http://uk.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUKL2776273020070627?feedType=RSS
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« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2007, 11:14:56 pm »

DNA TESTS

The team examining the mummy are also doing DNA tests and preliminary results show similarities between its DNA and that of Ahmose Nefertari, the wife of the founder of the 18th dynasty and a probable ancestor of Hatsephsut's.

DNA analysis is complicated because Hawass recently concluded that the mummy once assumed to be that of Tuthmosis I, Hatshepsut's father, is not in fact his. It belongs to a much younger man who died from an arrow wound, he said.

 Asked why he would not wait for more complete DNA analysis, Hawass said: "You do not need anything else (other than the tooth) ... And we do have a definite answer now on the similarity between Hatshepsut and the grandmother, Ahmose Nefertari."

One Egyptologist, who asked not to be named, said not all archaeologists were confident the identification was watertight. "It's an interesting piece of scientific deduction which might point to the truth," the archaeologist said.

The New York Times quoted Kathryn Bard, an Egyptologist at Boston University, as saying: "You have to be so careful in reaching conclusions from such data."

The confusion about the identities of many royal mummies often arises from political events after they died.

Hatshepsut's tomb, for example, was found looted and without any mummified female, possibly because her son and successor, Tuthmosis III, tried to wipe out all traces of her memory after she died in about 1482 BC.

Priests probably moved the collection of 40 royal mummies, including the box with the tooth, to Deir al-Bahari hundreds of years after the pharaohs died, in order to protect them from desecration and looting during a time of insecurity.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUKL2776273020070627?feedType=RSS&pageNumber=2
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« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2007, 11:19:09 pm »


Back in the limelight

After three and a half millennia, the mummy of Egypt's most famous female ruler has been identified. The giveaway, writes Nevine El-Aref, was a single loose tooth

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
The four female mummies that were subjected to CT-scan; Hatshepsut's mummy; the wooden box that preserved the liver and molar of Hatshepsut
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Ancient mystery resolved

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From top: the four female mummies that were subjected to CT-scan; Hatshepsut's mummy; the wooden box that preserved the liver and molar of Hatshepsut
photos by: Brando Quilici
More than 300 foreign and Egyptian journalists, TV crews, photographers, Egyptologists and scientists gathered in front of the Egyptian Museum hoping for a glimpse of the mummy of Egypt's best known female ruler, Hatshepsut.

The object of their interest lay in a sandstone sarcophagus, one arm folded across her chest, a face frozen in the mask of death: thus it is that Queen Hatshepsut silently greets her visitors after spending 3,500 years unattended inside the modest undecorated tomb of her Wet Nurse Sittre-In (KV60), located in the Valley of the Kings on Luxor's West Bank.

Ever since Howard Carter discovered the tomb in 1903 and found two well preserved 18th Dynasty female mummies in royal pose, speculations that one of them was Hatshepsut have regularly emerged.

The whereabouts of Hatshepsut's mummy has been one of the great riddles of Egyptology. It was not among the cache of royal mummies found in 1871 and 1881 in Deir Al-Bahari, nor in the unfinished tomb KV20, planned for her in the Valley of the Kings in her capacity as the official wife of Thutmose II. Hatshepsut's empty sarcophagus was discovered -- it is now in the Egyptian Museum -- alongside that of her father, Thutmose I, also empty and now in Boston. Some of Hatshepsut's funerary objects -- Canopic jars and ushabti figurines -- have also been discovered, and a small wooden box supposedly containing her liver. But the whereabouts of the female Pharaoh's own mummy has always been a subject of conjecture.

In KV60 a small female mummy was found inside an 18th Dynasty sarcophagus inscribed with the name of Hatshepsut's royal Wet Nurse Sittre-In. Alongside the sarcophagus, lying on the floor, was a second mummy, of an obese woman with a shaved forehead and long hair at the back of her head. The arms were laid across the figure's chest, and the hand was clenched -- a classic royal pose. But Carter paid little attention to the tomb, continuing instead with his search for the final resting place of the boy- king Tutankhamun.

In 1906, when Edward Ayrton re-explored the tomb and removed what was thought to be Sittre-In's mummy, along with her sarcophagus, to the Egyptian Museum, the obese woman was left alone in the tomb until 1989, when anthropologist Donald Ryan recleared KV60.

With the launch two years ago of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) five-year mummy project, involving CT-scans of a large number of mummies, it was decided the obese woman of KV60 should be among them.

"Last year, when Discovery Channel approached me about searching for the mummy of Hatshepsut, I did not think I would be able to make a definite identification but it would give me an opportunity to examine unidentified female mummies from the 18th Dynasty, which no one has studied as a group," SCA Secretary- General Zahi Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly. He pointed out that although there were many theories about the identities of these mummies none of them had been tested against the latest scientific technology.

"I had to depend on a team of skilled Egyptologists, radiologists, anatomists, pathologists and forensic expert," Hawass continues, "to examine these mummies, keeping in mind that they were moved quickly at night by the high priests of Amun who controlled the Theban necropolis during the Late Intermediate Period, and who wanted to hide and preserve the bodies of 18th,19th and 20th dynasty rulers. The priests might have stripped the mummies and the royal tombs of their most valuable treasures yet still they wanted to protect the royal remains from the tomb robbers who roamed the sacred hills of Thebes."

In their hurry, Hawass believes, mummies were misplaced or unidentified. Initially the royal mummies were rehoused in nearby tombs -- records show, for instance, that the mummy of Ramses II was originally moved to the tomb of his father Seti I and then later transferred to the Deir Al-Bahari Cache. "It is difficult to plot the routes followed by the mummies," says Hawass. In the process of moving the corpses and the confusion that ensued some, at least, were unidentified, while others were stripped of all identification.

"The SCA initiated the CT-scan project in order to solve at least some of the mysteries that grew out of the relocating of mummies," says Hawass, "and Hatshepsut seemed a perfect place to start."

Efforts to identify the mummy of Hatshepsut began last year when four unidentified New Kingdom royal female mummies were examined. The mummy thought to be that of Sittre-In, housed in its sarcophagus -- double the size needed for the corpse -- on the third floor of the Egyptian Museum, was also examined, along with two additional unidentified New Kingdom mummies originally found in the cache of 1881 at Deir Al-Bahari.

The first, designated as "Unknown Woman B", was of an older woman, bald in front and with the remains of white curly hair and fake black locks attached. "At first glance it seemed not to be royal but CT-scans revealed that the arms were originally crossed over the chest, a sign of royal mummification," says Ashraf Selim, professor of radiology at Cairo University. Scans also revealed the second mummy, "Unknown Woman A", had been mummified in an unusual position. The head is bent to one side, the legs crossed below the knees and her mouth is wide open, suggesting she suffered some kind of trauma at the time of her death. Her left leg is broken in the front and her arms have been cut off, possibly by thieves.

Mummies believed to be most closely related to Hatshepsut were also scanned, including those thought to be of Thutmose II and III. The first was Hatshepsut's husband, and probably her half- brother, the second her stepson. The result of the scans, reveals Hawass, shows that Thutmose II was suffering from heart disease which led to his early death. The mummies thought to be those of Hatshepsut's father and her grandmother, Thutmose I and Ahmose- Nefertari, were also scanned.

Hawass said that CT-scans indicate that the mummy which was once believed to be that of King Thutmose I, Hatshepsut's father, is not actually his. The scans show that the mummy belongs to a young man who was not placed in the royal pose of mummification, and had the remains of an arrow embedded in his chest, implying that he had been killed, whereas Thutmose I died of natural causes. The mummy is that of a man who died at the age of 40, making it impossible for him to be Hatshepsut's father.

That left only the mummy of the obese woman found in KV60. Four months ago it was moved to the Egyptian Museum for scanning. Examinations showed the woman was about 50 years old and had suffered tooth decay and a number of other illnesses. She was diabetic, and could have died from complications from her diabetes, or from the results of a 2cm wide tumor in her left leg, says Selim.

Following the mummy scans, Hawass ordered a re-examination of funerary objects associated with Hatshepsut, including Canopic jars found in tomb KV20 and a small wooden box bearing her cartouches found with the DB320 cache.

"The box eventually held the key to the riddle," says Hawass. To his surprise it contained, in addition to the mummified viscera, a single tooth, a molar. During the process of embalming, anything associated with the body or its mummification was ritually preserved in a box and had to be buried properly. It seemed, therefore, that during the mummification of Hatshepsut the corpse had lost a tooth which the embalmers placed in the box.

Galal El-Beheiri, professor of orthodontics at Cairo University, examined the CT scans of the four unidentified female mummies to check whether any of them had a missing molar. To everyone's surprise, the obese mummy from KV60 was missing a tooth, and the hole left behind matched the tooth found in the box from DB320. "The mummy of the obese woman, then, is really that of Queen Hatshepsut," says Hawass.

Minister of Culture Hosni told the Weekly that the identification of Hatshepsut was an important milestone in Egyptology, and that the use of high-tech equipment could lead to solving other riddles, including the whereabouts of the mummies of Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. "Identifying the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut and resolving the mystery of her death, and that of members of her family will result in rewriting an important part of ancient Egyptian history, especially that of the 18th Dynasty, which witnessed several drastic shifts in religion, politics, trade and economy," Hosni told the reporters crowded at the entrance of the Egyptian Museum to witness the event. He added that the "marriage" between modern technology and archaeology has resulted in important findings which helped resolve the enigma surrounding some of the ancient Egyptian royals. Two years ago, the mystery behind Tutankhamun's death was resolved, and, as well, the diseases he suffered from.

Hawass struck a deal with Discovery Channel to establish a DNA lab in the Egyptian Museum. With a budget of $5 million, the lab serves as the backdrop for a documentary film on the search for Hatshepsut. Supervised by Yehia Zakaria Gad, professor of molecular genetics at the National Research Centre, the lab has already taken DNA samples from Hatshepsut, her grandmother Ahmose Nefertari, her father Thutmose I and the Wet-Nurse Sitre- In.

After finally being identified, the mummy of Hatshepsut will now join those of her ancestors and descendants on the Egyptian Museum's second floor.

WHO WAS HATSHEPSUT: Queen Hatshepsut's (1502- 1482 BC) name means "united with Amun in front of the nobles".

In ancient Egypt, women often held high status, and could own and inherit property. Yet female rulers remained rare: only Khent- Kaues, Sobeknefru and, possibly, Nitocris, preceded Hatshepsut. Pharaoh was an exclusively male title and in early Egypt there was no word for Queen regent.

Hatshepsut slowly assumed the regalia and symbols of Pharaonic office, including the Khat head cloth topped with an uraeus, the traditional false beard, and the shendyt kilt.

The myth of her divine birth goes as such: Amun placed the ankh, the symbol of life, beneath Ahmose's nose, and then Hatshepsut was conceived. Khnum, the god who formed the bodies of human children, was then instructed to create a body and ka, or corporal presence/ life force, for Hatshepsut. Khnum and Heket, the goddess of life and fertility, led Ahmose to a lion bed where she gave birth to Hatshepsut. To further strengthen her position, the Oracle of Amun proclaimed that it was the will of Amun that Hatshepsut be Pharaoh. She also claimed that she was her father's intended heir and that he had made her crown prince of Egypt.

Hatshepsut enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous reign. She built magnificent temples, protected Egypt's borders and masterminded a highly profitable trading mission to the Land of Punt.

She was the daughter of Thutmose I, the third ruler of the 18th Dynasty, and of Ahmose Hetep Temhu. She was married to her step brother, Thutmose II, who held Egypt's throne from 1516-1504 BC They had one daughter, Neferure.

Some Egyptologists believe when Thutmose II died he bequeathed Egypt's throne to Thutmose III, his son from another wife. Because Thutmose III was still a child Hatshepsut became a co-regent. She ruled in that capacity for two years before declaring herself Pharaoh, and though she continued to include Thutmose's name beside her own for several more years, by the ninth year of her regency hers was the only name to appear on royal documents. To legitimate her role as Egypt's ruling Pharaoh, Hatshepsut dressed in men's attire; assumed the regalia and symbols of Pharaonic office, held male titles and used masculine grammatical forms in official documents in an attempt to stop any opposition, as well as to make Egyptians feel that nothing had changed in their tradition by her arrival on the throne. She even eventually dropped the female ending from her name (t), becoming, in effect, His Majesty Hatshepsu.

To support her claims the priests of Amun promulgated the myth, depicted on the walls of Deir Al-Bahari Temple in Luxor's West Bank, that she was the daughter of Amun-Re.

MONUMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH HATSHEPSUT: Like all 18th Dynasty kings, Hatshepsut constructed a number of monuments dedicated to Amun-Re. She had temples, chapels and obelisks erected in Karnak, Luxor, Deir Al-Bahari and Medinet Habu to commemorate the god, herself and her political role.

DEIR AL-BAHARI: Hatshepsut ordered the engineer Senmut to carve her funerary temple complex into the side of a mountain to the east of the Valley of the Kings. It consists of three colonnaded balconies, and its holy of holies was built on the same axis as Hatshepsut's burial chamber inside her tomb, KV20.

Senmut designed the temple with rows of colonnades that reflect vertical patterns displayed by the cliff backdrop. A ramp connects the three levels of the temple, and on either side of the lower end of the incline are T-shaped papyrus pools. On the ground level the ramp is lined in antiquity with 200 sandstone statues of sphinxes with Hatshepsut's head. The third level is decorated with 22 life-size statues featuring Hatshepsut.

The most important decorations on the temple walls relate to Hatshepsut's divine birth and the mission to the land of Punt during the ninth year of her reign. The latter feature the life of Punt's inhabitants, showing their traditions, costumes and houses as well as the animals and plants that were found there. Religious scenes showing Hatshepsut and her father Thutmose I with different deities are also carved in relief on the walls.

The temple includes a number of chapels, including ones dedicated to the mummification god Anubis, Hathor, the sun god Re-Horakhti, and Amun-Min as well as those dedicated to king Thutmose I and Hatshepsut.

THE OBELISKS OF HATSHEPSUT: Hatshepsut erected two obelisks between the fourth and the fifth pylons of Karnak temple. One of them was toppled in antiquity, but the northern one still stands today. It is 29.5 metres tall, made of red granite and weighs 323 tonnes. Its lower part bears 32 hieroglyphic lines, eight on each side. The pyramidion atop the obelisk was covered with gold and silver to reflect the sun's rays.

Egyptologists have found pieces of the toppled obelisk scattered within Karnak Temple, while its pyramidion was found beside the sacred lake. Pieces are on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and museums in Liverpool, Glasgow and Sydney.

These obelisks differed in their decoration from others erected during the New Kingdom. Hatshepsut and her step-son Thutmose III are shown worshipping Amun Re and presenting their offerings to the god.

Hatshepsut also built two other obelisks, but King Thutmose III removed them to the Festival Hall in Karnak Temple and obliterated her image and name from them. The pyramidion of one of them is now on display at the Egyptian Museum.

THE RED CHAPEL: At the open-air museum in Karnak Temple, the French mission has reconstructed Hatshepsut's Red Chapel. Some of the blocks were found by the French archaeologist Henri Chevrier in 1924 near the Third Pylon, partly demolished in the massive earthquake that hit Egypt during the late 19th century.

The blocks of the Red Chapel, along with others of Senwosret I's White Chapel, were reused by king Thutmose III in the construction of the Third Pylon.

In 2002, the French mission re-assembled 315 of these blocks.

HATSHEPSUT'S COLLECTION AT THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM: The museum displays a large collection of objects related to Hatshepsut, including a painted sandstone head featuring the queen in the Osiride shape which originally decorated the façade of Deir Al-Bahari Temple. Her red sandstone sarcophagus decorated with a number of gods and deities is also on display, along with several ushabtis and pieces of jewellery.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/851/eg11.htm
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« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2007, 11:26:33 pm »


Hatshepsut (also read as Hatchepsut and meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies)[3] was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt. She is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful female pharaohs of Egypt, reigning longer than any other female ruler of an indigenous dynasty.

Hatshepsut is believed to have served as a co-regent from about 1479 to 1458 BC (or Years 7 to 21 of Thutmose III).[4] She is regarded as one of the earliest known queens regnant in history (after Merneith of the 1st dynasty) and only the second woman known to have formally assumed power as "King of Upper and Lower Egypt" after Queen Sobekneferu of the 12th Dynasty.

Hatshepsut's remains were long considered lost, but in June 2007, a mummy from KV60 was publicly identified as her by Zahi Hawass, the chief of Egypt's antiquities. Evidence supporting this identification includes the results of a DNA comparison with the mummy of Ahmose Nefertari, Hatshepsut's grandmother.[5] Modern CT scans of the mummy believed to be Hatshepsut suggest she was about 50 when she died of some combination of metastatic bone cancer, diabetes, and liver cancer.[2] Egyptologists not involved in the project, however, have reserved acceptance of the findings until further testing is undertaken
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« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2007, 11:30:21 pm »



Hatshepsut's Temple

Burial complex

Hatshepsut had begun construction of a tomb when she was the Great Royal Wife of Thutmose II, but the scale of this was not suitable when she became "king", so a second tomb was built. This was KV20, which was possibly the first tomb to be constructed in the Valley of the Kings. The original intention seems to have been to hew a long tunnel that would lead underneath her mortuary temple, but the quality of the limestone bedrock was poor and her architect must have realized that this goal would not be possible. As a result a large burial chamber was created instead. At some point, it was decided to dis-inter her father, Thutmose I, from his original tomb in KV38 and place his mummy in a new chamber below her own. Her original red-quartzite sarcophagus was altered to accommodate her father instead, and a new one was made for her. It is likely that when she died (no later than the 22nd year of her reign), she was interred in this tomb along with her father.[27]

The tomb was opened in antiquity, the first time during the reign of Hatshepsut's successor, Thutmose III, who re-interred his grandfather Thutmose I to his original tomb, and then possibly moved Hatshepsut's mummy into the tomb of her wet nurse, In-Sitre, in KV60. Though her tomb had been largely cleared (save for both sarcophagi still present when the tomb was fully cleared by Howard Carter in 1903) some grave furnishings have been identified as belonging to the female pharaoh, including a "throne" (bedstead is a better description), a senet game board with carved lion-headed red-jasper game pieces bearing her kingly title, a signet ring, and a partial ushabti figurine bearing her name. In the Royal Mummy Cache at DB320 an ivory canopic coffer was found that was inscribed with the name of Hatshepsut and contained a mummified liver. However, there was a lady of the Twenty-first dynasty of the same name, and this could belong to her instead


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut
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