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Voices over the years have still argued the case that there is still 20m to 25% probability that the skeleton could belong to Nefertiti (which could then also support the theory of Nefertiti being transformed into Smenkhkare late in the reign of Akhenaten - the similarity of the names of Nefertiti and Smenkhkare further supports this case), therefore the body in KV55 is Nefertiti / Smenkhkare because Nefertiti was Smenkhkare! No! Smenkhkare was a Man!! Eminent specialists have studied the skeleton and the majority agree that it is a male skeleton, in his mid twenties and so must have been the brother of Tutankhamun and so Smenkhkare could not of been Nefertiti. Scenes from the Amarna period show Smenkhkare with Meritaten and also with Akhenaten. Therefore Smenkhkare was buried in KV55 NO! Its Akhenaten!!! Recently (April 1999), new evidence has come forward (authored by by dental and anthropological specialists J.E. Harris and Fawzia Hussein) suggesting that the wear on the teeth on the skeleton tells a different age to one previously accepted. This wear shows the teeth were worn to a state which suggests that at the age of death the person was in his mid thirties! Therefore the body from KV55 must be AKHENATEN! NO NO NO!!!!!! SMENKHKARE!!!!! There is one small problem with the latest theory about the age / state of the teeth dating the body to his mid-thirties - this theory has not been published, it is referred to in 'After Tutankhamun' (a book which I have not seen), until the full theory by Harris and Hussein appears and can then be discussed and studied it can only remain nothing better than rumour. (For example anybody can suddenly announce such theories but the evidence must be available for people to check). And finally "(from KMT) ( EDITOR'S COMMENT: There is some recent information which is widely known in the international Egyptological community, but which cannot be publically admitted to due to an unfortunate set of circumstances involving museum politics and a sensitive diplomatic situation. Simply enough, the reconstructed trough (container) of the KV55 coffin has been found to exist outside Egypt [visitors to the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, will recall that it isn't on display there] and its interior - on the private report to this editor of several Egyptologists who have personally seen it or, in one case, photos of it -contains an inscribed band of gold foil [missed by Maspero et al., having been crushed into a ball that the excavators did not unwad] which includes the indisputable nomen cartouche of... Smenkhkare! Since it would thus seem pretty evident that the coffin had at some point been intended for Smenkhkare - and inasmuch as it was altered from a royal female's coffin to one appropriate for a king- it is a fair leap of faith to presume that its last occupant was none other than Smenkhkare. This of course doesn't answer the nagging question of whether or not that individual was male or female, for those stubbornly holding out for a "Smenkhkare is Nefertiti" identification. Hopefully the circumstances surrounding the present possession of the KV55 coffin trough, and its ultimate appropriate return to the Egyptian Museum, will be resolved one of these very first years, and the question of the ownership of the so-called "Amarna Cache" can be made a matter of the scholarly record.)" ??????? If someone would send me: "the recent information which is widely known in the international Egyptological community, but which cannot be publically admitted to due to an unfortunate set of circumstances involving museum politics and a sensitive diplomatic situation" to ib205@cus.cam.ac.uk It would be very much appreciated!!! |
