The Younger Lady

The Younger Lady is the informal name given to a mummy discovered in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings, in tomb KV35 by archeologist Victor Loret in 1898. Through recent DNA tests this mummy has been identified as the mother of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, and a daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. The mummy also has been given the designation KV35YL ("YL" for "Younger Lady") and 61072, and currently resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Early speculation was that this mummy was the remains of Queen Nefertiti, which remains plausible, but DNA testing has not confirmed this and questions about that possibility remain.

The mummy was found adjacent to two other mummies in KV35: a young boy who died at around the age of 10, thought to be Webensenu, and another, older woman, identified as Queen Tiye by the recent DNA studies on Tutankhamun's lineage. All were found together, lying naked side-by-side and unidentified in a small antechamber of the tomb. All three mummies had been extensively damaged by ancient tomb robbers.

There has been much speculation as to the identity of the Younger Lady mummy. Upon finding the mummy, Victor Loret initially had believed it be that of a young man as the mummy's head had been shaved. A closer inspection later made by Dr. Grafton Elliot Smith confirmed that the mummy was that of a female, although Loret's original interpretation persisted for many years.

Recently, autosomal and testing have shown conclusively that the mummy is that of a female and, that she was the mother of Tutankhamun. The results also show that she was a full-sister to her husband, the mummy from KV55, and that they were both the children of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. There is speculation over the identity of the mummy from KV55 (sister marriage existed), with some Egyptologists, including Zahi Hawass, claiming the mummy is Akhenaten, and others, including anthropologist Joyce Filer, claiming the mummy as Smenkhare. This family relationship would lessen the possibility that the Younger Lady (and, by extension, Tutankhamun's mother) was either Nefertiti, or Akhenaten's secondary wife Kiya, because no known artifact accords either wife titles such as "King's sister" or "King's Daughter". The possibility of the younger lady being Sitamun, Isis, or Henuttaneb is considered unlikely, as they were Great Royal Wives of their father Amenhotep III, and had Akhenaten married any of them, they would have taken the place of Nefertiti as the principal queen of Egypt. The report concludes that the mummy is likely to be Nebetah or Beketaten, daughters of Amenhotep III not known to have married their father, although he is known to have had eight daughters with Queen Tiye.(Comment: Figure 2 eAppendix)

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