Queen Hatshepsut found!

Egyptologists generally regard Queen Hatshepsut as one of the most successful female pharaohs of Egypt.

CAIRO (Reuters) - 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 says news conference will be held in Cairo on wednesday. Although the body was one of two uncovered in 1903, there is new evidence "based on teeth and body parts" that one of those bodies is the mummy of the queen. If this proves true it would be one of the most important discoveries in this field since they found King Tut. Still, many Egyptologists still aren't convinced the archaeologist (who asked not to be named) has a bulletproof case. It will be interesting to see how well this archaeologists findings are accepted in the Egyptology community.

Reuters
Scientific American

Thats pretty cool...

Interesting information about being found in a simple tomb. If it had been lavish, she probably would have been found years ago by graverobbers...

DocMoreau

her tomb was lavish
and it was found years ago
by Egyptologists
edweb.sdsu.edu...
and as for tomb robbers
her Nephew robbed her tomb blind officially way before they got the oppotunity

Originally posted by Marduk
her tomb was lavish
and it was found years ago
by Egyptologists
edweb.sdsu.edu...
and as for tomb robbers
her Nephew robbed her tomb blind officially way before they got the oppotunity

Yes, since then British the English men and some Euroepan robbed everything ( not just HER TOMB ) from Egypt and put it in museums in Europe.

Who are the real robbers here?


99.99999% of those things in European museums was a result of robbing, looting, raping, conquering, colonising!!!!!!





[edit on 26-6-2007 by CinLung-Part-3]

just like to point out here that us English do not regard ourselves as European
we just spent the last 2000 years repelling Europeans from our little piece of turf and we're not about to link arms and do the hokey cokey with them
we didn't join the Euro for that reason and look what happened
a pound is now worth two dollars
I know where I'm going on Holiday this year
and it won't be Europe


[edit on 26-6-2007 by Marduk]

uk.reuters.com...

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.

If I recall correctly her successor Tutmoses the third hated her and did his level best to eliminate all record of her even existence. I will look it up.

Originally posted by grover
Hatshepsut was the eldest daughter of Thutmose I and Queen Ahmose, the first king and queen of the Thutmosid clan of the 18th Dynasty. Thutmose I and Ahmose are known to have had only one other child, a daughter Akhbetneferu (Neferubity), who died in infancy. Thutmose I also married Mutnofret, possibly a daughter of Ahmose I, and produced several half-brothers to Hatshepsut: Wadjmose, Amenose, Thutmose II, and possibly Ramose, through that union. Both Wadjmose and Amenose were prepared to succeed their father, but neither lived beyond adolescence. In childhood, Hatshepsut is believed to have been favored by the Temple of Karnak over her two brothers by her father, a view promoted by her own propaganda. Hatshepsut apparently had a close relationship with both her parents, and later produced a propaganda story in which her father Thutmose I supposedly named her as his direct heir (see below) Hatshepsut dressed like a man and wore a false beard to prove that she could be Pharaoh and rule Egypt in her own right.

Upon the death of her father in 1493 BC, she married Thutmose II and assumed the title of Great Royal Wife. Thutmose II ruled for thirteen years, during which it has been traditionally believed that Hatshepsut exerted a strong influence over him. Thutmose II died with only one son Thutmose III as a successor; however, Thutmose III was not eligible to immediately take the throne, having been born of a lesser wife and not of the Great Royal Wife Hatshepsut.

Thutmose II had one daughter with Hatshepsut: Neferure. Hatshepsut groomed Neferure as crown prince, commissioning official portraits of her wearing the false beard and sidelock of youth. Some scholars speculate that this is evidence that Hatshepsut was grooming Neferure for the throne; others that she was merely planning another Hatshepsut. Whatever her intentions were, they came to nothing as Neferure did not live into adulthood.

Towards the end of Thutmose III's reign an attempt was made to delete Hatshepsut from the historical and pharaonic record. This elimination was carried out in the most literal way possible. Her cartouches and images were chiselled off the stone walls - leaving very obvious Hatshepsut-shaped gaps in the artwork - and she was excluded from the official history that now ran without any form of co-regency from Thutmose II to Thutmose III. At the Deir el-Bahri temple Hatshepsut's numerous statues were torn down and in many cases smashed or disfigured before being buried in a pit. At Karnak there was even an attempt to wall up her obelisks. While it is clear that much of this rewriting of history occurred during the latter part of Thutmose's reign, it is not clear why it happened.

Furthermore the erasure was both sporadic and haphazard, with only the more visible and accessible images of Hatshepsut being removed. Had it been more complete we would not now have so many images of Hatshepsut. It seems that Thutmose must have died before his act of vengeance was finished, or that he never intended a total obliteration of her memory at all. In fact, we have no evidence to support the assumption that Thutmose hated or resented Hatshepsut during her lifetime. Had he done so he could surely, as head of the army (a position given to him by Hatshepsut, who was clearly not worried about her co-regent's loyalty), have led a successful coup. It may well be that Thutmose, lacking any sinister motivation, was, towrds the end of his life, simply engaged in 'tidying up' his personal history, restoring Hatshepsut to her rightful place as queen regent rather than king. By eliminating the more obvious traces of his female co-regent, Thutmose could claim all the achievements of their joint reign for himself.

en.wikipedia.org...

Like I promised, I looked it up and there is an extensive article on her. I really haven't read much on Egyptian history since I was a teenager but at one point I was seriously considering either archeology or anthropology as a career... I am still interested in the subjects.

Hmm, interesting. She is one of the leaders of Egypt in Civ IV, but in that she's not fat.

Bit more info on this find from National Geographic.

nationalgeographic.com

This morning authorities revealed that the larger, fleshy mummy is the real Hatshepsut. (See a video and a photo gallery of the Egyptian queen's discovery.)
"We are 100 percent sure," said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council on Antiquities and a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence.

A scan of the box revealed a rare nugget: a broken molar.
Only one of the two mummies was missing a molar—the larger woman—and the tooth perfectly matched a gap in her upper jaw.
DNA tests also suggest a close familial relationship between that mummy and the mummy of Hatshepsut's grandmother, Amos Nefreteri, Hawass said.

This and other evidence led scientists to believe that KV60 was the tomb of Hatshepsut's beloved nurse, Sittre-In.
Hawass and other experts conjectured that ancient Egyptian priests had moved Hatshepsut's mummy there to outwit tomb robbers.

It seems the fatter and older of the 2 mummy's found lying on the floor was Hatshepsut.

Nice thread.

mojo

[edit to add] Marduk i think it was her stepson not her nephew who robbed her tomb and probably had her body moved as well.

nationalgeographic.com

A young son by another wife was slated to become pharaoh upon her husband's death. But backed by the clergy, Hatshepsut ruled Egypt as regent in the name of the boy-king, Tuthmose III.
Over the next decade, she declared herself a pharaoh and ruled as co-king with her stepson. Art from this period shows her wearing feminine garb but capped with the headdress of a male king.

[edit on 28/6/07 by mojo4sale]

Radio interview broadcast with Zahi Hawass here discussing Queen Hatshepsut identification. just click on the red listen icon under the headline.

enjoy.