The search for Nefertiti

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The search for Nefertiti

Post by newcastle »

I am trying to ascertain more info regarding this article....


Centuries after her body was buried at what is still a secretive place, the mystery of queen Nefertiti might come to an end, as a recent radar survey discovered evidence that may lead to finding another burial chamber behind the walls of Tutankhamun’s tomb, according to Nature.

The survey, which has been published yet and only Nature has managed to get it, indicates that the young Pharaoh’s burial chamber hides a bigger tomb behind its northern walls that might hide the tomb of his stepmother, Nefertiti.

The research is led by an Egyptian mission headed by former minister of antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty. Through a ground-penetrating radar (GPR), the mission scanned the area behind the famous Tutankhamun’s chamber in Luxor.

They report, according to Nature, said that they have identified a previously unknown corridor-like space a few metres from the burial chamber. The mission’s results were submitted earlier this month to the Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by Mostafa Waziri.

Through the x-ray, the mission found a long rock corridor that is parallel in depth to Tutankhamun’s burial chamber. The corridor is located near the east, and appears in the scan to be around 2 metres high and 10 metres long.

The report suspects that it might not be linked to the young king’s tomb, and might be a part of another, undiscovered tomb in the area. However, due to its location perpendicular to Tutankhamun’s tomb, it is believed to be connected as unconnected tombs tend to be aligned at different angles.

Examining the data of the report, Ray Johnson, an Egyptologist at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute in Luxor told Nature that it identifies “clearly [that] there is something on the other side of the north wall of the burial chamber.”

The search for the royal queen’s tomb has been high and low for years, with no luck in finding an indicator to where she was buried. Last October, veteran Egyptologist Zahi Hawas revealed that an excavation mission is currently leading the biggest campaign since 1921 when Edward Hawart discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. He added that the mission has been working in the site since December 2017.

Back in 2015, when Eldamaty was the antiquities minister, the British scientist Nicholas Reeves, a specialist in Egyptian history and material culture, was the first to come out stating his suspicions of having the tomb of Nefertiti hidden behind the wall of the young king.

In a press conference, both announced the results of Reeves’s 18-month research, that came to believe that the iconic tomb of Tutankhamun might house extra rooms. The professor went on to add that his research even supports the possibility that the missing tomb of Queen Nefertiti might be enclosed in one of the extra compartments. However, his suspicions were announced as inaccurate a year later by Hawass, who assured that he came to find nothing in Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Reeves’s findings include the fact that Tutankhamun’s mask was initially made for a queen, as the ears show significant piercing marks, something that was never associated to men in Ancient Egypt.

He further supported his beliefs with evidence. While the tomb’s north wall showed evident cracks that suggest the existence of hidden doorways, the paintings covering that particular wall seems to be drawn later than the others, as it was painted on a white wall then concealed with yellow painting, unlike the other three walls that were initially yellow.

“Plastid-over walls are often found in many tombs, especially in the Valley of the Kings,” Reeves added. “The tomb was made for a queen; yet, the young king’s sudden death changed the tomb’s primary plan.”

https://wwww.dailynewssegypt.com/2020/0 ... ankhamuns/


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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by newcastle »

This appears to be a new, recent, survey....not the one which dismissed the idea of hidden spaces.

A radar survey around the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings has revealed possible evidence of further hidden chambers behind its walls.

The findings — in an unpublished report, details of which have been seen by Nature — resurrect a controversial theory that the young king’s burial place hides the existence of a larger tomb, which could contain the mysterious Egyptian queen Nefertiti.

Researchers led by archaeologist Mamdouh Eldamaty, a former Egyptian minister of antiquities, used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to scan the area immediately around Tutankhamun’s tomb. They report that they have identified a previously unknown corridor-like space a few metres from the burial chamber (see ‘Chamber of secrets’). Their finding was presented to Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) earlier this month.

The data are “tremendously exciting”, says Ray Johnson, an Egyptologist at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute in Luxor, Egypt, who wasn’t involved in the research. “Clearly there is something on the other side of the north wall of the burial chamber.”

The possibility of extra chambers beyond Tutankhamun’s tomb has previously been investigated by several teams, often working with private companies. But they produced conflicting results, and many researchers have dismissed the idea. For example, Francesco Porcelli, a physicist at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy who led a GPR survey inside the tomb in 2017, insists that his data rule out the existence of hidden rooms connected with the tomb.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00465-y
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by carrie »

Well like everything else in Egyptology the debate continues. At least Hawas doesn't seem to be involved.
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by Aromagician »

I havent been on here for a while. Did they ever dna test Tutankhamen?
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by newcastle »

Aromagician wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 10:13 am I havent been on here for a while. Did they ever dna test Tutankhamen?
The Tuthmosid family mummies, including Tutankhamun, were extensively subjected to DNA analysis back in 2008.

Few of the results were conclusive - hardly surprising given the condition of the mummies - and are still the subject of academic argument.

There are numerous articles on the results if you use Google .
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by Aromagician »

I always liked Joan Fletchers theory on Nefertiti, had her book with all the info.
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by Aromagician »

I was reading this article here https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/08/150814-nefertiti-tomb-tutankhamun-tut-archaeology-egypt-dna/ and think perhaps the tomb was Nefertitis, but she was removed and It was used for Tut. Would explain all the statues of a female Pharaoh.
I agree with Mark Gabolde
But in 2013, French Egyptologist Marc Gabolde challenged that conclusion. Closer examination of the DNA evidence, he says, revealed that Nefertiti was both the Younger Lady and King Tut’s true mother.
I do think she is the younger lady. feel it in my bones...
Marianne Luban also says the Younger lady is Nefertiti. Her analysis of the DNA says the mummy is Akhenatens sister.
A popular theory for quite some time was that Nefertiti was the daughter of Ay, who was a
brother of Queen Tiye—although Ay [later pharaoh] was never actually attested as being a brother of
that lady. Postulating that Nefertiti was the daughter of a brother of Queen Tiye, a man who was also a
son of Yuya and Thuya, one would expect to see more than the presence of a single different allele
from those inherited by Tiye from those same parents. If Ay had been the brother of Tiye, he would
have inherited alleles that differed from her own at the rate of about 50%—and passed those on to
his children. Therefore, contra Gabolde, it is not possible for Nefertiti, as a daughter of Ay, to have
received only one allele from her grandfather, Yuya, via Ay, that is different from the alleles seen in the
DNA of Yuya's daughter, Tiye. In brief, if Nefertiti had been a cousin of Akhenaten and not a child of
Tiye by her husband, Amenhotep III, her autosomal alleles would reflect that—but they do not. The
KV35Younger Lady, first identitified by me as Nefertiti, is the daughter of Tiye and Amenhotep III.
She is the full sister of her husband, Akhenaten. Ay cannot be found in this DNA picture.
Moreover, if Nefertiti had actually been the daughter of Ay, she would have had a mother, who
was possibly not a sister of Amenhotep III or Queen Tiye. That would mean the presence of different
alleles not seen in the autosomal DNA of Amenhotep III and Tiye—but these are absent, as well.
Nefertiti only has the alleles [represented by numbers] that Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye possess to
donate to their offspring
So are we still looking for Nefertiti, or do we not want to consider that brother and sister were Pharoah and Queen together? :oops:
Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination. ROY M GOODMAN
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by newcastle »

I’m always amused when these egyptologists ramble on about DNA analysis when they haven’t a clue about the science of genetics and the question of probabilities when it comes to comparing DNA samples.

That’s true even if you’re analysing DNA from a living human let alone one who’s been dead for 3,000 years and whose DNA - if you can find any - will have been corrupted by both time and the embalming process.

And don’t get me started on the genetic red herrings which result from the incestuous relationships within the New Kingdom dynasties.

“Feeling it in your bones”, as Aromagician suggests, is likely to be just as reliable when it comes to evidence in the matter of mummy identification.
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by Aromagician »

newcastle wrote: Mon Mar 30, 2020 3:47 pm I’m always amused when these egyptologists ramble on about DNA analysis when they haven’t a clue about the science of genetics and the question of probabilities when it comes to comparing DNA samples.
I think that they are very sophsticated in the DNA area these days.
Had mine done, amazing what they can do.

So maybe not so hard to analyse anymore, there are all sorts of sites where you can enter info and get the suggested relationship. You dont need to have anything but the dna codes.
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by carrie »

Yes but your alive Nefertiti's been dead quite a while. Mummy remains must have been handles by 100's if not 1000;s of people surely the DNA has been contaminated.
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by newcastle »

carrie wrote: Tue Mar 31, 2020 7:00 am Yes but your alive Nefertiti's been dead quite a while. Mummy remains must have been handles by 100's if not 1000;s of people surely the DNA has been contaminated.
Indeed.

And I was referring to Egyptologists - rather than DNA scientists - interpretIng the results of the minute DNA samples they were able to obtain. When you only have very small samples to match it’s misleading to draw definitive conclusions.....particularly in populations where cross- relationships were rife.

The analysis received very little peer review, was carried out in far from ideal conditions, and the published results owe far more to what Hawass WANTED them to show rather than conclusions one could sensibly infer from the evidence.
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by garfield4 »

And so it goes on ad finitum. If the truth comes out (doubtful at best} we can all sleep at night!
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by John Landon »

Feeling in ones bones. So Why do I feel Tutankhamun is infact Nefertiti.. ?
An Hermaphrodite but still capable of bearing children.

I first saw that mask in full colour on the front of a magazine when I was 9 years old and straight away I realised it was a woman's face, then I read the story about it belonging to a Boy King. The Beard is simply symbolic...

Perhaps whoever stole the Penis and removed the breastplate after HC put the body back in the tomb was trying to tell us something ?

Perhaps her real story has been convoluted over time, just like Mary Magdalene.. ?
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by A-Four »

Yes of course you know full well that the mask is feminine John.

Look carefully at each of the coffin lids and you will clearly see that each one is different, in truth they show a representation of each of the last five rulers (note that word) of the 18th Dynasty. With regards Ay and Horumheb, they really belong to the 19th Dynasty.

I understand they are still digging in the Western Valley, they are a very long way from a certain Royal Cashe,..........by the time they get any where near it they will have run out of money to continue their work,.........also, they would require a rather large crane,........ancient Egyptian were not stupid. :wi .
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by newcastle »

John Landon wrote: Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:13 pm

I first saw that mask in full colour on the front of a magazine when I was 9 years old and straight away I realised it was a woman's face, then I read the story about it belonging to a Boy King. The Beard is simply symbolic...
Really?

Then you are disagreeing with the vast preponderance of egyptological opinion which considers the FACE is a faithful representation of Tutankhamun. That A- Four agrees with you is no surprise. :urm:

The facial image matches other statues and representations of this pharaoh.

What is confusing you is that there are clear signs that the mask was originally prepared for another...possibly Neferneferuaten....and, when taken for use in the burial of Tutankhamun, the original face was cut out and replaced with a likeness of the young pharaoh.

Or are you still banging on about Tutankhamun being Nefertiti in drag...or vice versa? :lol:

Incidentally, no one stole the mummy’s penis. It fell off during handling and lay unnoticed for several years in the sand on which the mummy lay. It is now safe in a drawer. It has not not been reattached.
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Re: The search for Nefertiti

Post by Aromagician »

Marianne Luban has a very detailed analysis of the DNA. If it was contaminated it wouldnt match the Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, showing the younger lady is their daughter and AKhenatons sister. It is not possible it is Akhenatons daughter.
https://www.academia.edu/38584809/The_M ... =thumbnail

We just dont like the idea of Akhenaton and Nefertiti as brother and sister. Very game of thrones isnt it?
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