CAIRO: The mummy of the only female queen that ruled ancient Egypt has been identified following a century of rigorous search, announced antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass Wednesday at a press conference attended by the local and world media at the Egyptian Museum.
The mummy of Hatshepsut, the most powerful and glorious of ancient Egyptian queens, was tracked down when a tooth found in the bottom of one of her boxes indicated that one of four mummies that were subject to CT-scans belonged to the queen.
Culture Minister Farouk Hosni and Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, revealed the discovery in the presence of the Hatshepsut s mummy and that of another woman who is believed to be her nurse.
Because Hatsheptsut has remained a mystery over the centuries, only modern technology could unveil the secrets of one of the greatest royals in the history of ancient Egypt.
DNA and other CT-scanning technology were given to the Egyptian Museum by the Discovery Channel and National Geographic to help identify the mummy, a process that took an entire year.
An Egyptian medical team specializing in DNA and radiology took part in the discovery.
The effort to identify the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut began last year when Hawass scientifically examined four unidentified New Kingdom Royal female mummies, three of which were stored on the third floor of the Egyptian Museum.
The fourth was inside a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, discovered by Carter in 1903.
Hawass explained: In its burial chamber two mummies were found by Carter. One of them was of the queen s wet nurse, Sitre-In. The second belonged to a very obese woman laid on the floor next to In s coffin.
With long hair on its back and its left hand held across the chest, the second mummy was thought to be that of a royal. Finally the nurse s mummy was sent to the museum while the second, which was in very good condition, was kept in the tomb, added Hawass.
During the one-year search Hawass brought the controversial mummy from the Valley of the Kings to Cairo for examination, along with those of Sitre-In and two other unidentified women unearthed at El Deir El Bahari, the huge sanctuary founded by Queen Hatshepsut.
But it was coincidence that led to the identification of Hatshepsut. CT-scans showed that none of the two women s mummies found at Deir El Bahari could belong to the queen.
Hawass commented: With the help of our Egyptian medical team and inscriptions on Hatshepsut s sarcophagus we got the key to the riddle. In addition to the queen s viscera, the box contained one of the queen s teeth, a molar, all of which have been subjected to scanning.
It seems that during the queen s mummification, embalmers put any part that came loose from the body into the box. The molar that was found with two intact roots fit into a gap in the right jaw of the mummy of the fat woman which was recently shipped from the Valley of the Kings.
None of the other three had a missing molar and interestingly the third root of the molar was still there, added Hawass.
With this find, Discovery Channel has struck a deal with the SCA to set up the first ever DNA lab exclusively dedicated to the study of ancient mummies at a cost of $5 million.
The lab was built for a documentary on Queen Hatshepsut, which will be screened on Egyptian TV.
