Tutankhamun's Queen

[dragonsteeth]

In his book Oedipus and Akhenaten, Velikovsky identifies Akhenaten with the lame footed or club footed Greek tragic hero. While the mummy of Akhenaten still hasn't been discovered, within the last decade it has been noticed that the mummy of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, long thought to be his son. did have a club foot, so perhaps a near miss for Velikovsky.

Recent studies and DNA test are said to show that the father of Tutankhamun was the child of the royal mummy from tomb KV 55. Hawass and colleagues claim this confirms that Tutankhamun really was the son of Akhenaten, but the age death for the mummy suggests it should be identified as the young Pharaoh Smenkhkere who reigned immediately before King Tut.

There is good evidence that Tutankhamun was still a young child when becoming Pharaoh, and then later after reigning for about nine years, died while still in his teens. It is generally assumed that his Queen Consort Queen Ankhesenpaaten the 3rd daughter of Queen Nefertiti was of a similar age to Tutankhamun when she became his Great Queen. Is this claim correct or could Queen or Princess Ankhesenpaaten have been several years older older when she married the young Pharaoh?

One of the claims following DNA testing of the royal mummies was that the mummy now known as the Elder Woman or Elder Lady is that of Queen Tiye the Great Wife of Amenhotep III. However, a well known feature for this mummy is that she still exhibits a mass of lustrous brown hair. When the royal mummies were paraded from the Old Cairo Museum to their home in the New Museum there were widespread comments about this surprising abundance of hair. This fact is made even more surprising when it is noted that the front of the top of this mummy's skull was clean shaven, otherwise this mummy's hair would have been even more abundant.

Despite claims that DNA indicates this must be Queen Tiye, this hardly seem possible. The age at death is far too low, and the match up with facial reconstructions is decidedly poor.

Are their alternative suggestions? The obvious candidate is Tutankhamun's young Queen Ankhesenpaaten.
A lock of this lady's hair was found in Tut's tomb by Howard Carter. Hair is a recurring theme for this young widow. Facial reconstructions are much more positive for this ID than for Queen Tiye. The age at death is too low for Tiye. For one hundred years we were told by Ancient Egyptian art experts that the New Kingdom artists could not and would not produce lifelike portraits. Now that facial reconstructions are being produced it has become clear that these dogmatic put downs for ancient artists were just based on their own prejudices.