Hatshepsut Found!

Two posts ago, I started telling you about one of my favorite Royal Ladies; Queen Hatshepsut. A little over a year ago, in June of 2007, Hatshepsut's mummy was finally identified. She had been found in a mummy cache in a Valley of the King's tomb, KV60.

The cache was series of secret tombs in which agents of the High Priests of Amun, who controlled the Theban area during the 21st and 22nd Dynasties, hid the bodies of many of the kings and queens of the 18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties. They may have stripped both the mummies and the royal tombs of most of their valuables; they also acted piously, to protect the royal remains from the tomb robbers, which were rampant, even in antiquity.

When the mummies from that tomb were brought up, the mummy we now know as Hatshepsut was mostly ignored, for one very simple reason—she was fat.

However, what they did have were Hatshepsut's canopic jars, and a wooden canopic box bearing her cartouches. The box was the real treasure—inside was Hatshepsut's mummified liver and a single tooth.

The tooth fit into the head of the heavy woman with millimeters to spare, so she was indeed the long missing queen.

Subsequent DNA tests have proved it conclusively, we indeed have Hatshepsut's mummy.

From the information that we have about her, Hatshepsut's last few years weren't very comfortable.

" . . . Bald in front but with long hair in back, the mummy of Hatshepsut shows an obese woman just over 5 feet tall, with rotten teeth . . .[the]examination of the mummy's mouth and her missing molar. . .revealed very poor dental hygiene."

"Her mouth shows the presence of many dental cavities, periapical (root) inflammation and pockets," Ashraf Selim, the radiologist at Cairo University who examined the mummy, told Discovery News.

Obesity and poor oral hygiene suggested to Selim and colleagues that she might have suffered from diabetes.

But, Selim said, "Surely this is just a theory based on this circumstantial evidence, which we cannot confirm."

One thing, however, is certain: Hatshepsut had cancer, cancer that had metastasized.

"The type of cancer we discovered is affecting the pelvic bone, specifically the left iliac bone. From its location, character and the few tiny foci of bone rarefaction in the spine, we concluded that this tumor is a metastatic deposit rather than a primary tumor," Selim said.

Though bone cancer could not be totally ruled out, Selim said he believed it was more likely that another kind of tumor spread to the bone.

"It could have been a tumor affecting the lung, breast or kidney," Selim said.

Whatever the tumor's origins, it is very likely that Queen Hatshepsut spent her last days in pain.

"A bone tumor is certainly painful. The picture emerging from the mummy is not only unflattering, but would indicate rather poor health. But with the data at our disposal, I think any diagnosis is merely speculative," Gino Fornaciari, professor of forensic anthropology at the University of Pisa, told Discovery News."

From Discovery News

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I am glad that the theories that her step-son/nephew Thutmoses III killed her can be laid to rest, but it does seem like a sad ending for such a forward looking woman. But, despite all Thutmoses III's careful planning, Hatshesput's name will not be forgotten and she will live forever.

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The embedding has been disabled, but this is an interesting interview with Dr. Hawass on the finding of Hatshepsut. It is 6 minutes long. The Lost Queen of Egypt Interview