Sunday, July 22, 2007

Hatshepsut's Mystery



The mummy of Hatshepsut, one of ancient Egypt's most famous female pharaohs, has been positively identified. That was revealed during the conference which held on the Egyptian Museum to announce the unravelling of one of the greatest mysteries of ancient Egypt by the Egyptian Minister of culture Farouk Hosny and the Secretary General of Supreme Council for Antiquities Zahi Hawwas.
A team led by archaeologist Dr Zahi Hawwas carried out numerous tests with the clinching evidence being a tooth in a box inscribed with the pharaoh's name. The tooth was a perfect match for a missing upper molar in the mummy.
Using CT scanning techniques to produce three dimensional images of the mummy proved conclusively to be that of Hatshepsut.
Now that the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut has finally been identified, archaeologists can begin to solve the mystery of the death of Hatshepsut, Which may rewrite the whole history of the 18th Dynasty.
Hatshepsut lived in the 18th Dynasty. She commandeered the throne from her young stepson, Thutmose III, dressed herself as a man and, in an extraordinary move, declared herself pharaoh.
Though her power stretched across Egypt and her reign was prosperous, her legacy was erased from Egyptian history. Historical records were destroyed, monuments torn down and her corpse removed from her tomb, while her death was shrouded in mystery.
Hidden for Almost 3,500 years in a small neglected, undecorated tomb in Luxor’s West Bank, the body of the first woman pharaoh and the most powerful woman of the ancient Egyptian world will be on display in the Egyptian Museum, where her mummy will join those of her ancestors and descendents.

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