The Younger Lady is the common name for an ancient Egyptian mummy found in tomb KV35 in the Valley of the Kings by archaeologist Victor Loret in 1898. The mummy is also known by the labels KV35YL and 61072. It is now displayed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. DNA tests showed that this mummy was the mother of Pharaoh Tutankhamun and the daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife, Tiye. Earlier ideas that the mummy was Nefertiti were proven incorrect because Nefertiti was never called "King's daughter" unless this mummy was a cousin of Akhenaten, not his sister. Egyptologists Zahi Hawass and Martin Bommas suggested that the mummy might be Beketaten, the youngest daughter of Queen Tiye and Amenhotep III and the mother of Tutankhamun.
Other researchers questioned this identification because DNA damage and inbreeding during the late 18th dynasty could have made test results unclear. Some proposed that the Younger Lady might instead be a granddaughter of Amenhotep III and Tiye, not their daughter.
Discovery
The mummy was discovered next to two other mummies in KV35: a young boy who died at about ten years old and is believed to be Webensenu, and an older woman identified as Tiye through recent DNA studies related to Tutankhamun's family. The three mummies were found together in a small room near the tomb of Amenhotep II. They were lying naked, side by side, and were not immediately recognized. All three mummies had been heavily damaged by ancient tomb robbers.
Description of the mummy
Dr. Grafton Elliot Smith examined the mummy during his study of ancient royal mummies in the early 1900s. He discovered the body was a woman, not a man as previously believed by Loret and others. He thought this mistake happened because the mummy’s head was shaved. The body was 1.58 meters (5 feet 2 inches) tall, and he estimated the woman was no older than 25 years old at death based on the fusion of the iliac crest and her unerupted wisdom teeth. CT scans later suggested an age of 25 to 35 years at death, based on the condition of the epiphyseal union and the closure of the cranial sutures.
A small oval-shaped hole, 3.8 by 3 centimeters (1.5 by 1.2 inches), is located on the front of the skull. The hole has sharp, beveled, and festooned edges, and bone fragments are inside the skull. There is no evidence of healing or sclerosis, which suggests the injury occurred after death. The skull contains her shrunken and dried brain and dura mater. No embalming material was found inside the cranial cavity, which is unusual because other late Eighteenth Dynasty mummies show evidence of brain removal. Linen packs were placed near the eyes, and subcutaneous packing was found in her right cheek and mid-face.
The Younger Lady has a large wound on the left side of her mouth and cheek, which also damaged part of her jaw. Earlier, it was thought tomb robbers caused this injury, but a 2003 examination by a team from the University of York and CT scans from The Egyptian Mummy Project showed the injury occurred before death. The wound affected her cheek, left maxillary sinus, alveolar process, and jaw. No healing is visible. Many of her facial bones are missing, and a resin-treated linen pack was placed over the wound, suggesting the injury happened before mummification. Researchers believe the injury was fatal and likely caused by a heavy object hitting her face. Some scholars, like Hawass, think it was accidental, such as a kick from an animal, while others, like Ashraf Selim, believe it was deliberate violence. Julian Heath suggests the wound was caused by an axe blow.
The woman is missing several teeth due to her facial injury, with one tooth visible inside her mouth. Her upper wisdom teeth have not erupted, and her teeth show no signs of wear or misalignment.
The front wall of her chest was damaged by ancient tomb robbers, creating a large hole. Her heart remained in place, and her diaphragm had two holes to remove her lungs. Her internal organs were removed through an embalming incision measuring 56 by 135 millimeters (2.2 by 5.3 inches) in the left inguinal region. The incision was oval-shaped and gaping. The torso was packed with resin-treated linen fibers. A resin-treated linen pack was placed in her pelvis, which had a wide opening and was covered in resin. This may have been used to remove her internal organs during mummification, possibly an example of perineal evisceration. Subcutaneous filling was found at the back of her right hip. Her pelvis has postmortem fractures, and her legs were damaged, with the front halves of both feet missing.
Don Brothwell noted a possible puncture or stab wound below her left breast, but this claim is not supported by photos.
The left arm of the mummy extends beside her body, with her hand over her left hip. The right arm is broken near the shoulder, likely by tomb robbers. The break has gaping ends with no evidence of healing. The missing right arm caused controversy among researchers because two severed arms were found in KV35. One arm was bent with a clenched fist, and the other was straight. Royal Egyptian women were often positioned with one arm bent and the other straight, with the left arm typically bent. Ashraf Selim compared the arms to the mummy’s left hand and found the bent arm was too long and had different bone consistency. The straight arm matched the mummy’s size and bone density, so it was likely hers. The newly identified right arm has two breaks—one in the upper arm and one at the wrist—and the hand is missing.
The Younger Lady has a double-pierced left earlobe, and the right earlobe is damaged. Pierced ears were common among New Kingdom women, including royals and non-royals, so this detail does not help identify her. A wig found in KV35 might have belonged to her, but it cannot confirm her identity. Supporters of the theory that she is Nefertiti pointed to the wig’s similarity to those used by Nefertiti, but wigs were common fashion items and do not confirm the user’s identity.
Identity
There has been much guessing about who the Younger Lady was. When the mummy was first found, Victor Loret thought it belonged to a young man. Later, Smith examined it more closely and found it was a woman. Smith believed she was part of the royal family but thought she lived during the time of Amenhotep II.
In 1999, Marianne Luban, an independent researcher, wrote online that the Younger Lady might be Nefertiti. This idea was repeated in 2003 by Fletcher. DNA tests later showed that the woman was the mother of Tutankhamun. The tests also found that she was the full sister of her husband, the KV55 mummy, and that both were children of Amenhotep III and Tiye. This family connection makes it less likely that the Younger Lady was Nefertiti or Kiya, because no known records give titles like "King's sister" or "King's Daughter" to either of them. It is also unlikely that the Younger Lady was Sitamun, Iset, or Henuttaneb, because these women were married to Amenhotep III and would have become the main queen of Egypt if they had married Akhenaten. The report suggests the Younger Lady might be Nebetah or Beketaten, daughters of Amenhotep III who are not known to have married their father, though he had eight daughters with Tiye.
Some Egyptologists still believe the Younger Lady was Nefertiti or Kiya, but Nefertiti was not Akhenaten’s sister. Some people who study DNA think the results might show three generations of close family marriage instead of a single full-sibling marriage. No son is recorded for Nefertiti.
The idea that the Younger Lady was Akhenaten’s sister caused some doubt, because none of his sisters are known to have held important roles in his court in Amarna. Joyce Tyldesley suggests that the Younger Lady and the KV55 mummy might be full siblings and descendants of Amenhotep III and Tiye, but not their children, but their grandchildren: Queen Meritaten and Pharaoh Smenkhkare (who, in this view, was the son of Akhenaten and Nefertiti). Kara Cooney thinks it is unlikely that Nefertiti was Tutankhamun’s mother or that the Younger Lady was Akhenaten’s sister. Instead, she believes Akhenaten might have fathered Tutankhamun with one of his daughters, Meritaten or Meketaten, which would explain the DNA evidence of inbreeding in Tutankhamun’s body.
On the other hand, Juan Antonio Belmonte says that while the Younger Lady could be Meritaten from a genetic perspective, this seems unlikely. He explains that if the Younger Lady was the daughter of a pharaoh (Amenhotep III), the sister and probable wife of another pharaoh (Akhenaten), and the mother of a third pharaoh (Tutankhamun), she does not appear to have been a well-known figure during her lifetime. No inscriptions, reliefs, or statues from the time mention her. The tomb of Tutankhamun, KV62, contains items from his life, but none refer to his mother. This is different from other influential mothers of pharaohs in the Eighteenth Dynasty, such as Tiaa, Mutemwiya, and Tiye, who were known for their roles. It seems likely that Tutankhamun never had a mother who held the title of "king’s mother" during his reign, which might mean she died before he became king. This supports the idea that the Younger Lady was a minor wife or concubine of Akhenaten. Willeke Wendrich also thinks she might have been a minor wife or concubine, noting that Egyptian pharaohs often had many wives, which sometimes led to competition among their sons for the throne.
Belmonte argues that the man buried in KV55 should be identified as Smenkhkare, who was the son of Amenhotep III and Tiye and the brother-husband of the Younger Lady. He believes this would explain why little is known about the Younger Lady, as she might have been overshadowed by Akhenaten’s chief queen, Meritaten, or she might have died before Akhenaten became king.
Facial reconstruction
On February 7, 2018, The Younger Lady was shown in the seventh episode of the fifth season of Expedition Unknown, titled "Great Women of Ancient Egypt." Based on the belief that the mummy might be Nefertiti, a team led by Expedition Unknown host Josh Gates used the preserved remains, modern technology, and artistic skills to create a reconstruction of what The Younger Lady would have looked like wearing royal clothing and jewelry. The bust was made by French artist Élisabeth Daynès, who studies ancient remains.