CT scans identify the mummy of femme Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who ruled during the 18th dynasty--roughly 1502 to 1482 B.C. This is big news. A story was in the Los Angeles Times this morning. Reuters reports it as well, and includes this quartet of pictures of the mummy. I give both sources, along with the website of Dr. Zahi Hawass, because you have to read them all to get the whole story. (Dr. Hawass' site has the BEST pictures.)

And here is my version. I'm not going to give you the formal bio of Hatshepsut, who was the daughter of Thutmose I, wife of Thutmose II, and mother of Thutmose III. Read it on Wiki! She was a powerful ruler who kept her son from the throne, so some wondered: did he kill her? Thutmose III certainly did his best to destroy her images and wipe out her name, but her temple is still one of the top tourist sites in Egypt. (The above picture is from Prof. Larmann's Art History website at faculty.Evansville.edu)

So how was her body found and identified?

In 1902, Howard Carter (who would discover King Tut's tomb twenty years later) found an empty sarcophagus with Hatshepsut's name on it, along with a box of canopic jars bearing her cartouche. (Canopic jars hold the internal organs of the mumified person--liver, stomach, lungs, etc.) A year later, Carter discovered a tomb (he was good at that) with two female mummies. One was in a coffin that named Hatshepsut's royal wet-nurse Sitre-In; the other was on the floor. The coffined body went to the Egyptian Museum. The other corpse was left in the tomb, forgotten, and re-discovered in 1989 by Donald Ryan.

Several people wondered if this unboxed mummy might be a queen, because of the way its left arm bent up so that the hand rested, clenched, over the chest--a royal pose. Discovery Channel approached Dr. Zahi Hawass, who--bless him!--never passes up the chance for further exposure. They wanted him to build a show around the search for Hatshepsut. Hawass gathered four possible mummies that could be Hatshepsut, including the uncoffined lady. He was unconvinced about her "royal pose" but had the mummy carefully moved to Cairo for CT scans and study. He noted that this large unidentified women would fit into Sitre-In's coffin, and speculated that the bodies had been switched. He thought the mummy found in the box--the one sitting in the Cairo museum for 100 years--might be Hatshepsut.

The result of the scans? The unboxed mummy was fat, had huge breasts, and was between 45 and 60 years old when she died of bone cancer. Her teeth were in an awful state--even in life. That didn't prove anything. Hawass decided to CT-scan the box with the canopic jars, and a wooden box found in 1881. This last little box had been found in a cache of royal mummies at the Deir al-Bahari temple. It had Hatshepsut's cartouche on it, and supposedly contained her liver.

Surprise! It did contain a liver (blech!) It also contained a tooth--a molar. The fat mummy had bad teeth and was missing a molar. Dentists were called in to consult, and the tooth was found to be a perfect fit for the mummy.

Bottom line: we now know that Hatshepsut died of cancer. We have her body, after 3500 years. Zahi Hawass has another hit TV show (airing July 17), and overweight women all over the world have a new hero.

I hope Camryn Manheim gets to play her in the movie version.