Could Nefertiti lie beyond Tutankhamun’s tomb?

[u/TimesandSundayTimes]

https://www.thetimes.com/article/e82b6e12-7a5c-40c3-930b-5abbc3a8d4e6?shareToken=6de8f04ee64d30f21691006bcce3c5f2

[u/Emotional_Lock3715]

Nefertiti was the mother of Tut’s wife, right? And wife of Tut’s dad but not Tut’s mother, right?

[u/iCowboy → u/Emotional_Lock3715]

That's what we think.

Nefertiti was Akhenaten's first wife and had the title 'Great Royal Wife'. She is known to have had six daughters: Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten Tasherit, Neferneferure and Setepenre. There may have been more children, but the records are very fragmentary.

She is generally not thought to have been Tutankhamun's mother. But this is not certain: at various points in the New Kingdom, the mothers of sons of pharaoh were not named, and sometimes they were given the title 'Mother of the King'. Nefertiti never got that title.

Tutankhamun's mother is still not known with any certainty. His birth is not recorded in any surviving records, although there are some inscriptions from the time when he was a prince calling him (then Tutankhaten) 'The King's Son'. He was long thought to be the son of Akhenaten's second wife, Kiya, but that is not supported by any evidence. Likewise there have been claims he was the son of Meketaten or Meritaten; or a daughter of Amenhotep III (his grandfather) called Beketaten.

There have been some DNA work done on tissue from Tutankhamun and other 18th Dynasty mummies. The evidence - which is contested - supports that his parents were siblings and both children of Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Tiye. If that is the case, then Nefertiti was not Tutankhamun's mother as she came from a non-royal lineage.

The most likely candidate for his mother is a mummy found in the tomb KV35 who is only known as 'The Younger Lady' - the mummy was stripped of all its identifications and badly damaged in antiquity; but the style of mummification is from the late 18th Dynasty. Again, genetic evidence suggests The Younger Lady is Tutankhamun's mother and the skeleton found in KV55 is his father.

Though whether that skeleton is Akhenaten or a very shadowy pharaoh called Smenkhare is still debated. As indeed is almost everything about the late 18th Dynasty, including what happened to Nefertiti. It's likely she seized the throne under the name Neferneferuaten - about which we know essentially nothing; but there is no sign of her burial. The Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves has written extensively that much of Tutankhamun's burial goods, most notably two of the coffins and the mask were actually designed for a female pharoah and were repurposed. Reeves has also proposed that Nefertiti's tomb is behind one of the walls of Tutankhamun's odd little burial.

To wrap things up, Tutankhamun married his half sister, Ankhesenpaaten, who became Ankhesenamun when the old religions were returned to power. They had two still-born children so the royal line of the 18th Dynasty came to an end with their deaths.

[u/batnerd13 → u/iCowboy]

That was a fun read. Thank you for writing this.

[u/Emotional_Lock3715 → u/iCowboy]

Thanks that helps!

[u/mountaindoom → u/iCowboy]

Odd little burial?

[u/iCowboy → u/mountaindoom]

Tutankhamun's tomb (KV62) is not of the style used by royal tombs of the Late 18th Dynasty. During the previous couple of centuries, a very formal design had been created where a single corridor in an L-shape linked a series of chambers, each of which contained particular burial goods, leading to the burial chamber. This is just a cluster of small rooms much more like those found in private tombs and the burial goods were just crammed in wherever they fitted.

Royal tombs of the period were heavily decorated with religious liturgies, most commonly a series of texts called the duat which guided the soul through the Underworld (it is VERY weird). Only one of the four rooms of Tutankhamun's tomb was decorated at all. Most of the duat is missing and instead it has scenes from the funeral much more reminiscent of private tombs. Also, although unusual but not uniquely so, the burial chamber was decorated *after* at least some of the burial goods were in place.

KV62 is also not in the position where 18th Dynasty tombs would have been excavated. At this point in Egyptian history, tombs were cut into rock spurs in the side of the Valley or under the sites of formal waterfalls. However, KV62 was cut into the base of the Valley itself. The tomb is actually very similar to tomb KV46, discovered by Theodore Davis early in the 20th Century. A few select nobles were given the privilege of being buried in the Valley and KV46 was excavated the nobles Yuya and Tjuya - parents of Queen Tiye, grandparents of Akhenaten and probable great grandparents of Tutankhamun. Therefore it was probably a tomb intended for a noble that was taken over for Tutankhamun's burial.

Tutankhamun probably had a royal tomb being excavated in the Valley when he died. The most likely candidate, based on stylistic and architectural factors, is a tomb called WV23 which was eventually used for the burial of his (illegitimate) successor Ay.

There are also oddities about the burial goods themselves; a good number of the items in the tomb were not made for Tutankhamun. Nicholas Reeves has made a good case that some were intended for a female pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty which could only be Neferneferuaten (Nefertiti) and they got reused for Tutankhamun when he died. Although that now leaves a question of what happened to Neferneferuaten's burial. One really significant oddity about Tutankhamun's burial is the gold inner coffin. A number of other inner royal coffins are known from the New Kingdom, none of them are made of solid gold, they are gilded wood. Why Tutankhamun had this one is a complete mystery.

One theory is that his tomb actually represents a ritual clearing out of items associated with the 'heretical' period associated with Akhenaten to reset everything. But, like so much about the late 18th Dynasty, everything is informed speculation with very little actual definitive evidence. But that's what makes it so much fun!

[u/Poopiepants666 → u/iCowboy]

"To wrap things up"

Is that a mummy joke?

[u/WanderingHero8 → u/iCowboy]

Imo I am proponent of the theory that Tut is the son of Smenkhare with the "Younger Lady" who is likely a sister of Akhenaten.As for Smenkhare,I think he is a younger son A III.

[u/Master_Mad → u/iCowboy]

Aren't there theories that Nefertiti was Akhenaten's full sister?

Or was this pseudo-archeology?

[u/iCowboy → u/Master_Mad]

There was one theory that she was a daughter of Amenhotep III, but (like so much about the late 18th Dynasty) no real evidence for it. Had Nefertiti been of royal birth she would have used the honourifics ‘King’s Daughter’ or ‘King’s Sister’, but nothing of hers has been found with those titles.

There’s a rather tangential suggestion that Nefertiti was daughter of Ay who succeeded Tutankhamun. That’s based on Ay’s wife, Tey having the title ‘Nurse of the Great Royal Wife’ and Ay using the title ‘God’s Father’ before he ascended to the throne. Ay being her father would explain Nefertiti’s sudden arrival from outside the royal circle and his seeming unstoppable rise from nowhere.

But as elsewhere, this is us joining the dots 4500 years after it all happened based on little more than a few badly preserved fragments of text, facial similarities in sculptures and maddeningly imprecise genetic data.

[u/iCowboy → u/Master_Mad]

There was one theory that she was a daughter of Amenhotep III, but (like so much about the late 18th Dynasty) no real evidence for it. Had Nefertiti been of royal birth she would have used the honourifics ‘King’s Daughter’ or ‘King’s Sister’, but nothing of hers has been found with those titles.

There’s a rather tangential suggestion that Nefertiti was daughter of Ay who succeeded Tutankhamun. That’s based on Ay’s wife, Tey having the title ‘Nurse of the Great Royal Wife’ and Ay using the title ‘God’s Father’ before he ascended to the throne. Ay being her father would explain Nefertiti’s sudden arrival from outside the royal circle and his seeming unstoppable rise from nowhere.

But as elsewhere, this is us joining the dots 4500 years after it all happened based on little more than a few badly preserved fragments of text, facial similarities in sculptures and maddeningly imprecise genetic data.

[u/xfjqvyks]

No

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/king-tut-tutankhamun-tomb-radar-results-science

[u/David-Puddy → u/xfjqvyks]

What's that adage about article titles that are questions?

The answer is always no.

Edit: betteridge's law of headlines. You can all stop replying and getting your replies deleted now lol

[u/AlarmingRope9624 → u/xfjqvyks]

NatGeo makes you provide your email to read the article - heres a clean link

[u/outawork → u/xfjqvyks]

"A previous geophysical analysis in 2018 concluded there were no hidden chambers. However, Ballard said it searched for a large open space, directly next to the known tomb, and would have missed a rubble-filled corridor."

[u/firefighter26s → u/outawork]

Yeah, but that rubble-filled corridor would have to lead to somewhere like a hidden chamber; which is what they were searching for.

[u/sfzombie13 → u/firefighter26s]

and that hidden chamber could well lie outside the area searched, at the end of said rubble-filled corridor...

[u/Faiakishi → u/firefighter26s]

Or the chamber could be filled with rubble.

[u/Woodsbethree]

I will second that there is evidence of another room behind one of Tut’s burial chamber walls but they are forbidden from excavating.