NGC debuts Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty

By Stone Martindale Jul 13, 2007, 20:52 GMT

Alfre Woodard- © Scott Alan / Photorazzi

On Monday, July 16, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, National Geographic Channel (NGC) presents a one-hour special, Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty, that documents the high-tech forensic investigation conducted by an international team dedicated to resolving the fate of the famed queen.

Emmy Award-Winning Actress Alfre Woodard Narrates Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty

It is one of Egypt's enduring mysteries.  What happened to Nefertiti and her husband, Akhenaten -- the radical king, and likely father of King Tut?  In a dark and mysterious tomb located in the Valley of the Kings, there is a small chamber with two mummies without sarcophagi or wrappings.  At times, both have been identified as Queen Nefertiti by scholars, filmmakers and historians.  But the evidence has been circumstantial at best.

Now, for the first time, National Geographic Channel (NGC) and Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, use a CT scan machine that can go inside these two mummies to get scientific evidence that will establish whether either could be Nefertiti -- and if not, who they may be. 

Some ancient Egyptian history reads like a soap opera.  In the city of Amarna, there lived Egypt's most famous royal spouse, Nefertiti, and her beloved husband, Akhenaten, the pharaoh. 

They were revolutionary leaders, reinventing Egyptian religion and building a new capital city to honor the sun god.  Also present at this time were Akhenaten's secondary wife, Kiya, who many scholars believe was the mother of King Tut, as well as Akhenaten's mother, the powerful Queen Tiye. 

It was a tangled set of relationships that would result in the birth of the legendary King Tut and the eventual disappearance of all the other key players.  What happened to members of Tut's royal family, the lost dynasty of Amarna?  

In Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty, the National Geographic forensics team led by Hawass employs the state-of-the-art CT scan imaging technology used by National Geographic in 2005 to reveal the true face of King Tut and solve the mystery surrounding his death. 

In this noninvasive procedure, the mummies are placed in a scanner that generates cross-sectional slices -- over 1,500 for the entire body -- that are then used to create a 3-D image, accurate down to a nearly microscopic level.

"CT technology virtually unwraps the mummies without damaging them," explains Hawass.  "They reveal everything, including information about age and disease."

Hawass and his team first examine the two female mummies, originally found together with an unidentified prince in a tomb chamber just a few hundred feet from where King Tut was discovered. 

Unwrapped and unprotected by sarcophagi, one displayed evidence of severe wounds and the other mummy's arms had become detached -- critical pieces of the puzzle, since their original positions would reflect their royal status. 

Known as the Younger Lady and the Elder Lady, both mummies have been identified as Queen Nefertiti at different times and by different teams, each making educated guesses based on their available tools. 

But the CT scans yield more conclusive and previously unavailable data, all but eliminating the possibility that either mummy is actually the missing queen.  The CT scans reveal new clues, such as the original configurations of the arms, piercings, evidence of childbirth and probable age at death, all of which lead investigators to deduce that neither of these mummies is the famed Nefertiti.

The evidence instead leads Hawass to conclude that the mummy known as Elder Lady is most likely Akhenaten's mother, the powerful Queen Tiye.  Additionally, it appears the Younger Lady may be Kiya, Akhenaten's secondary wife and the woman many identify as King Tut's mother. 

But the search for Nefertiti does not end here, as the investigation moves to Cairo to examine another mummy whose identification has been debated since it was discovered in 1907 in very close proximity to King Tut's tomb.   

The CT scan of this mysterious mummy immediately reveals some familiar characteristics.  The mummy is male and between 25 and 40 years old, and the head has a strange egg-shaped skull, known as "dolichocephalic," that is strikingly similar to the shape of Tut's head, as revealed by CT scan. 

Could this mummy be King Akhenaten, father of the legendary King Tut? 

Both mummies also share several idiosyncratic features, including a light scoliosis of the spine, impacted wisdom teeth, and a similarly cleft palate and almost identical jaw and cheekbones. 

The sarcophagus that held this male mummy also lends some support to the theory that this could be Akhenaten.  Although the cartouche that bears the mummy's name was damaged, gold leaf fragments and hieroglyphs have been linked to one name -- Akhenaten.

Although it is impossible to be 100 percent certain, the evidence indicates that Hawass may have successfully identified the pharaoh Akhenaten, King Tut's father.  After examining all three of these mummies, a likely portrait of King Tut's family has begun to emerge -- except for that of Nefertiti, who for the moment is still missing.

Other experts featured in Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty include Dr. Hany Amer, radiologist; Aidan Dodson, Egyptologist, University of Bristol; Marc Gabolde, Egyptologist, University of Montpellier; Susan James, Egyptologist; Peter Lacovara, archaeologist, The Amarna Royal Tombs Project; and Dr. Ashraf Selim, professor of radiology, Cairo University.

Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Channel (NGC) is a joint venture between National Geographic Ventures (NGV) and Fox Cable Networks (FCN). Since launching in January 2001, NGC initially earned some of the fastest distribution growth in the history of cable and more recently the fastest ratings growth in television. The network celebrated its fifth anniversary January 2006 with the launch of NGC HD which provides the spectacular imagery that National Geographic is known for in stunning high-definition. NGC has carriage with all of the nation's major cable and satellite television providers, making it currently available to almost 65 million homes. For more information, please visit www.nationalgeographic.com/channel.