Female Pharaoh mummy found

2007-06-26 14:24

Cairo - The centuries-old search for the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut, the only woman to have reigned as a pharaoh in Egypt, may finally have ended - in a Cairo museum.

According to US-based Discovery Channel, Egypt's antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass will announce at a media conference in Cairo on Wednesday "the most important find in Egypt's Valley of the Kings since the discovery of Tutankhamun" in 1922.

Hawass last year revealed at a lecture in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York that the true mummy of Hatshepsut was discovered on the third floor of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo lying among thousands of other artefacts.

Discovery Channel, which is to air a documentary about the find, said Hawass had now confirmed the identity of Hatshepsut through sophisticated DNA analysis.

It added that forensic scientists had used latest cutting-edge CT-scans to produce detailed 3D images of the mummy.

'One of the most important finds'

Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, was quoted by Discovery confirming the breakthrough.

"The discovery of the Hatshepsut mummy is one of the most important finds in the history of Egypt," the channel quoted him as saying.

"Our hope is that this mummy will help shed light on this mystery and on the mysterious nature of her death."

Hatshepsut, daughter of Pharaoh Tuthmosis I who ruled from 1504-1484 BC, was one of the most powerful female monarchs of the ancient world.

Soon after her death, her monuments and tomb were demolished by her jealous successor Tuthmosis III and her mummy was thought to be lost forever.

The tomb of teenage pharaoh Tutankhamun was found in 1922 by Britons Howard Carter and Lord George Carnarvon.

- AFP