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Young World
Clue of the missing tooth
ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN
Photo: AFP
Queen Hatshepsut: Ancient Egypt’s most famous female pharaoh.
Egyptologists say they have identified the 3,000-year-old mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s most famous female ruler. Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass made the official announcement at a packed news conference in Cairo. It is being billed as the biggest archaeological find in Egypt since the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. Archaeologists hope the mummy, which has lain unrecognised for decades, will yield clues about the mystery of her death and subs
equent disappearance. Mr Hawass has set up a DNA lab near the museum with an international team of scientists to verify the identification. An important piece of the evidence is said to be that the mummy has a missing tooth, and the gap matches exactly an existing relic, a preserved tooth engraved with Hatshepsut’s name. Hatshepsut was an important 18th Dynasty ruler in the 15th Century BC, having usurped her stepson, Thutmosis III. She was known for dressing like a man and wearing a false beard, and was more powerful than either of her more famous female successors, Nefertiti and Cleopatra. Hatshepsut’s funerary temple is one of the most visited monuments around the pharaonic necropolis of the Valley of the Kings in Upper Egypt. But after her death, her name was obliterated from the records in what is believed to have been her stepson’s revenge.
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