"The Greatest discovery since King Tut's Tomb" Ok, so back to the Hatshepsut thing.
This is not the greatest discovery in King Tut's tomb. KV-60, and thus Hatshepsut, was found in 1903. Howard Carter stumbled upon King Tut's tomb (KV-62) in 1922. After KV-60 was opened and mostly emptied, a decision was made to leave the "extra mummy" in the tomb, while taking Hatshepsut's wet nurse to a museum (undoubtedly a British museum). A while back, the tomb was reopened, and then resealed. Then, this year, the tomb ws re-reopened, and some brilliant scientist said, you know, in the interest of knowledge and all that, lets run some modern DNA tests and see if this is really who some of us think it is. And, amazingly enough... she was.
So. She was "discovered" in 1903, and it's taken us 104 years to prove it was really her. This is not an archaeological find, this is a scientific find. Yay for advances in DNA, which allow us to identify mummies, establish paternity, and catch criminals.
Also, the findings about Hatshepsuts health and state of being should banish forever the image of a slender well-formed woman with oiled bronze skin... and yet, the newest documentory on one of the Discovery channels shows just that.
Come on people. Really. You want fabulous looking dead royalty? Look up Esther. or the Queen of Sheba. Or Diana. Don't try and force you (admitedly more pleasant) mental image onto history when the facts clearly tell another story. Historians, for some reason, seem to have this strange romantic streak...
Pharaoh, he was a powerful man / With the ancient world in the palm of his hand This is just cool. A little disillusioning, though, to find out she was overweight, diabetic, and probably had liver cancer. Kinda spoils the typical vision of the good looking, fit, take-charge female who did something no other female has ever done... become pharaoh, with all the requisite titles (except, of course, Bull of Ma'at).
But cool and interesting, none the less. When I was about 10, my life ambition was to be an egyptian archeologist... probably why I enjoy my Elizabeth Peters books so much. This tomb (KV 60?) was actually discovered during the time those books were set... I think one of the Amelia Peabody books mentions it, actually... I'd have to look it up.
This is my brain..... in part, at least.
