Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Hatshepsut mummy update Hawass has posted a long article on his Hatchepsut theory: The Search for Hatshepsut and the Discovery of her Mummy

The last thing that we scanned was the wooden box bearing her cartouches that was found inside the DB320 cache.
It turned out that this box held the key to the riddle. To our surprise, in addition to mummified viscera, there was a single tooth inside the box. We know from other “embalming caches” that anything associated with a body or its mummification became ritually charged, and had to be buried properly. Therefore, it seemed that during the mummification of Queen Hatshepsut, the embalmers put into the box anything that came loose from the body during the mummification process. The other surprise in the box confirmed this: it contained not only the liver but other, unidentified organic material, probably from the queen’s body.

. . .

Not only was the fat lady from KV60 missing a tooth, but the hole left behind and the type of tooth that was missing was an exact match for the loose one in the box from DB320! We therefore have scientific proof that this is the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut.


Reading this, it seems more like he is confirming what Elizabeth Thomas and Don Ryan have suggested: That the obese woman found in KV60 is that of Hatshepsut. That is:
-- The "obese woman" with the crooked arm that Ryan found lying on the floor of the tomb was missing a tooth
-- They found a box inscribed with Hatshepsut's cartouches in DB320 (mummy cache) containing various body parts including a tooth which fit the "obese woman" in KV60.

Ergo, the mummy of the "obese woman" is Hatshepsut. The earlier article seemed like he was suggesting otherwise. But read the whole thing.

(via EEF)

UPDATE: Artist's conception of the "obese lady" from KV60: