New evidence suggests King Tut’s gold mask actually belonged to Queen Nefertiti

The second round of scans of King Tutankhamun’s tomb are slated to be completed this weekend, but the British Egyptologist who convinced everyone else to look closer at the tomb hasn’t been sitting idle. Instead, Nicholas Reeves has now made another discovery, adding more weight to the notion that King Tut was laid to rest inside Queen Nefertiti’s tomb.

The story was broken by Al-Ahram Weekly, to whom Reeves emailed an advanced copy of a paper accepted for publication in December. The paper focuses on the gold mask of Tutankhamun, which Reeves believes actually belonged to Nefertiti.

Reeves has suspected this for a long time. He actually wrote a paper on the topic several years ago, although at that time he was able to find some compelling—but not definitive—evidence to support it. For example, while the face on the mask is definitely Tut, the remainder of the headdress is a different color of gold. And the mask’s ears have two piercings—something usually only seen in queens and children—meaning Tut’s face may have been placed over someone else’s.

However, the hieroglyphic inscriptions gave no hints indicating that the mask pre-dated Tut’s reign.

“Happily, this reluctant presumption of the mask’s textual integrity may now be abandoned,” wrote Reeves in the paper, adding that “a fresh examination of the re-positioned and newly re-lit mask in Cairo at the end of September 2015 yielded for the first time, beneath the hieroglyphs of Tutankhamun’s prenomen, lightly chased traces of an earlier, erased royal name.”

tut nefertiti

When Reeves discovered what appeared to be the not-fully erased hieroglyphs behind Tut’s name on the mask, he recruited specialists who helped him to reconstruct the potential previous inscription.

nefertiti

“Above, in green, we see the present, Tutankhamun-era inscription, with visible portions of the earlier, underlying text highlighted in red; below, in yellow, is the agreed reconstruction of this original name,” wrote Reeves.

What’s the significance? 

Of course, such images mean little to most people, so Reeves then explained their significance.

“The easiest elements to recognise within the erased text are three floating legs of a xpr-hieroglyph. Positioned somewhat to the left of the superimposed xpr of Tutankhamun’s prenomen nb-xprw-ra (Nebkheperure), space had originally been reserved on the right to accommodate a separate sign with rounded top and vertical base — evidently an anx.

“In combination with the remains of three short verticals beneath the later plural strokes of the Tutankhamun xprw and a heavily reemphasised ra, what these traces plainly spell out, from right to left, is the prenomen anx-xprw-ra – Ankhkheperure.”

Ankhkheperure is a personal name historically known to be associated with two people: Pharaoh Akhenaten’s chief wife Nefertiti, and the pharaoh Smenkhkare.

In fact, the entire inscription appears to read Ankhkheprure Nefernefruaten, or Queen Nefertiti.

“This name indeed confirms the conclusion I had reached previously on non-inscriptional grounds — namely, that Tutankhamun’s headpiece had been prepared originally for the coregent,” said Reeves.

There are other traces in the potentially erased inscription that point to Nefertiti as well. One part Reeves has intuited likely read mr nfr-xprwra, or “beloved of Neferkheperure”—another name for Akhenaten, Nefertiti’s husband.

Of course, this paper is yet to be published (although it has now been placed online for others to read), and the tomb is not cracked, so some may be (rightfully) skeptical of Reeves’ findings. However, the inscription has always been a confusing element of Tut’s mask, so Reeves’ interpretations may have just resolved a puzzling mystery.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Story Image: Cairo Museum