Where is Queen Nefertiti Mummy? Op-ed

By Zahi Hawass

An English woman came to Egypt to work with a mission to study the mummy, which was found inside the tomb of King Amenhotep II, which has the number (35). This mummy was found on the floor of a side room in the tomb, and it was in a very poor condition. Its right arm was severed.

Joan Fletcher, the English archaeologist, studied this mummy, and announced, without telling the Supreme Council of Antiquities, that this mummy belongs to Queen Nefertiti. She made a film through the Discovery Channel on this discovery.

In this conclusion, she relied more on the presence of a twisted right arm lying next to the mummy than on another straight arm, which was also found near the mummy. This, according to Fletcher's theory, indicates that it is a royal mummy, as the queens used to mummify in such a way that the left arm is twisted over the chest, while the other is straight.

In fact, placing the hands in this way does not indicate at all that it is the mummy of Queen Nefertiti, but only indicates that the mummy is a royal one.

There is another point related to the conclusion of this English lady, as the lower part of the face of the young woman's mummy is in a poor condition, and this is completely different form from the face of King Akhenaten.

Dr. Ashraf Selim, a professor of radiology at Al Qasr Al Aini, who worked with the research team, said that if the mummy's face was destroyed after the mummification process, then we are expected to see broken dry bones and outer skin with cuts.

The results of studying this mummy through a CT scan revealed that there are very small pieces of broken bones within the sinus gap, which indicates that the severe injury in the face occurred before the mummification or before death.

After this lady announced that this mummy is of Queen Nefertiti, I declared that this mummy is not of Nefertiti; this is because of the hair wig that Queen Nefertiti was wearing, I also found that the mummy's ears were pierced twice, and these two points can be noticed in the women who were not queens in the modern state, which assures that this mummy is not of Queen Nefertiti.

We studied this mummy via a CT scan through the Egyptian project to study royal mummies, and it became clear to us through the "CT Scan" that the estimated age of this mummy is 25 - 35 years.

After that, I studied this mummy through the "DNA", and it became clear that this mummy is the mother of King Tutankhamun, and the daughter of King Amenhotep III. It is known that we did not know the name of this lady, but we know that Amenhotep III had more than one daughter.

We have no evidence that Queen Nefertiti was the daughter of King Amenhotep III, but finding this mummy indicated that King Akhenaten had married his sister, and this is the reason for many health problems suffered by their son Tut.

As for the mummy of Queen Nefertiti, I think it is the mummy that was found inside cemetery No. (21), while the mummy next to her -without a head- belongs to her daughter Ankhesenamun; this will be discussed in the next study.

Contributed by Ali Abu Dashish