The Younger Lady

The Younger Lady is the informal name given to an ancient Egyptian mummy discovered within tomb KV35 in the Valley of the Kings by archaeologist Victor Loret in 1898. The mummy also has been given the designation KV35YL ("YL" for "Younger Lady") and 61072, and currently resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Through DNA tests, this mummy was identified as the mother of the pharaoh Tutankhamun and a daughter of pharaoh Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Tiye. unless this mummy was in fact a cousin of Akhenaten and not a sister. Two Egyptologists, Zahi Hawass and Martin Bommas have suggested that she was Beketaten, the youngest daughter of Queen Tiye and Amenhotep III and the mother of Tutankhamun.

Other researchers voiced their skepticism towards this identification due to DNA degradation and the fact that inbreeding in the late 18th dynasty might have made some readings inconclusive, and proposed that the Younger Lady might have been one of Amenhotep III's and Tiye's granddaughters, rather than their daughter.

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

Description of the mummy

Dr. Grafton Elliot Smith examined the mummy in his survey of the ancient royal mummies conducted at the beginning of the twentieth century. He immediately noted that the body was that of a woman, not a man as thought by Loret and later authors; this mistake he ascribed to the fact the mummy's head was shaved. The body was measured to be tall and he judged her to have been no older than twenty-five years at the time of death based on the degree of fusion of the iliac crest and her non-erupted wisdom teeth. CT scanning suggested an age of twenty-five to thirty-five years at death based on the condition of the epiphyseal union and the closure of the cranial sutures.

There is a small ( oval-shaped hole in the front of the skull;

The Younger Lady has a gaping wound in the left side of her mouth and cheek. It was thought that this wound, which also destroyed part of the jaw, had been the result of the actions of tomb robbers, and CT scanning as part of The Egyptian Mummy Project determined that the wound had happened prior to death. Ashraf Selim viewed the wound as too violent to be the result of an accident. In his opinion, the Lady had been injured in an act of deliberate violence.

The woman has several missing teeth due to her facial injury, one of which is seen inside her mouth. The upper wisdom teeth are non-erupted; her teeth have no visible attrition, and no occlusal irregularities.

The left arm of the mummy extends beside her body, with the hand placed over the left hip; the right arm has been snapped off close to the shoulder, presumably by ancient tomb robbers. DNA tests have shown that this woman was the mother of Tutankhamun. The results also revealed she was a full-sister to her husband, the KV55 mummy, and that they were both the children of Amenhotep III and Tiye. The possibility of the Younger Lady being Sitamun, Iset, or Henuttaneb is considered unlikely, as they were Great Royal Wives of their father, Amenhotep III, and had Akhenaten married any of them, as Great Royal Wives, they would have become the principal queen of Egypt, rather than Nefertiti. The report concludes that the mummy is likely to be Nebetah or Beketaten, daughters of Amenhotep III and not known to have married their father, although he is known to have had four daughters with Tiye. No son is recorded for Nefertiti.

Identification of the Younger Lady as sister to Akhenaten raised some skepticism, as none of his sisters are known to have prominent position on his court in Amarna. Joyce Tyldesley speculates that her and KV 55 mummy might indeed be full-siblings and descendants of Amenhotep III and Tiye, but not as their children, but as grandchildren: Queen Meritaten and Pharaoh Smenkhkare (the latter being in this reconstruction a son of Akhenaten and Nefertiti). Kara Cooney considers unlikely both Nefertiti being Tutankhamun's mother and the Younger Lady being Akhenaten's sister, and she instead proposes that Akhenaten fathered his son by one of his daughters, Meritaten or Meketaten, "making him [Tutankhamun] a product of father-daughter incest and thus fitting the [inbreeding] DNA evidence of his body".

On other hand, Juan Antonio Belmonte points that while from genetical point of view identification Younger Lady as Meritaten is possible, it appears not very likely:

Assuming the identification the Younger Lady as a daughter of a pharaoh (Amenhotep III), a full sister and probable wife to a second pharaoh (Akhenaten), and the mother of a third pharaoh (Tutankhamun/Tutankhaten), she does not appear to have been a prominent figure in her lifetime. As of the 2020s, no inscription, relief, or statue dedicated to this young pharaoh's mother has been found. KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun, contains mementos from his life and reign; none of these items ever mention his mother. This is in stark contrast to the influential mothers of the pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who had a large presence in the reigns of their sons. Tiaa served as king's mother to Thutmose IV, Mutemwiya as king's mother to Amenhotep III, and Tiye as king's mother to Akhenaten. It seems likely that Tutankhamun/Tutankhaten never had a king's mother (mwt nswt) during his reign, indicating that she had died before his rise to the throne. This lends credence to the Younger Lady being a minor wife of Akhenaten who died before Tutankhamun became king.

Belmonte argues that man buried in KV 55 should be identified as Smenkhkare, who was both son of Amenhotep III and Tiye, and brother-husband to Younger Lady. He believes such scenario would perfectly explain the lack of informations about Younger Lady despite her being consort of the Pharaoh, as she could remain overshadowed by his chief queen Meritaten, or even die before his ascension to the throne.

Facial reconstruction On 7 February 2018, The Younger Lady was featured on the seventh episode of the fifth season of Expedition Unknown, entitled "Great Women of Ancient Egypt". On the presumption that the mummy might be Nefertiti, a team led by Expedition Unknown's host Josh Gates used the preserved remains, modern technology, and artistry to present a reconstruction of what the Younger Lady would have looked like in full royal regalia. The bust was created by French paleoartist Élisabeth Daynès.