Queen Tiye’s mummy.
She was found in 1898, when Victor Loretin discovered the tomb chamber KV-35, he saw that among the mummies that were there, there was that of a woman with long hair, who he named “The Elder Lady” .
It was unusual to see such a well-preserved face and hair. Next to the long-haired mummy there were two other mummies, that of a young woman – named “Younger Lady” and that of a boy who was called “Unknown Boy”.
The mummies did not have sarcophagi or anything that could identify them at first, however, a lock of hair from Tutankhamun’s tomb, inside a miniature sarcophagus with the name Tiye helped in identifying it, this lock was probably a memory for eternal life of the much-loved grandmother.
In 1976, this lock was compared in an analysis with a sample of hair from the mummy “The Elder Lady”, it was concluded that the lock belonged to her.
In February 2003, the mummy was studied again by a group of researchers from York University, who carried out X-ray examinations. And in that study, the age of “Elder Lady” when she died was estimated to be between 45 and 55 years old, measuring 145 cm. tall.
In 2010, DNA tests carried out by a team from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, together with the National Geographic Society and Siemens, officially confirmed that the “Elder Lady” mummy was the powerful Queen Tiye. The research also confirmed that she was the grandmother of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, mother of Pharaoh Akhenaten and also the mother of the other mummy found with her, the “Younger Lady”.
