Amarna, Before and After

[Aldebaran]

3 hours ago, Wistman said:

Personally I find it hard to believe that Akhenaten would have raised a Mittanni princess so high, considering his family affiliations.  I surmise she is a sister of his, though her name may have been changed due to Atenism.  If she's the YL and mother of Tut, and Akhenaten's KV55, then they're siblings.

Well, Tushratta was a powerful man and maybe even a relative of the Amarna royals since the Mitanni princesses had been coming to Egypt since the reign of Thutmose IV.  After all, who was Mutemwia, the mother of Amenhotep III?  She is not attested as a queen of the fourth Thutmose during his short reign but, of course, depicted as having been one during the reign of her son.  For all we know, she can have the one sent from Mitanni, given an Egyptian name.  In a letter to Akhenaten, Tushratta mentioned "my daughter who is there with you".  You seem to be able to believe that Kiya could be a sister of Akhenaten while you can't seem to believe that Nefertiti can have been one, although Kiya has no such "king's daughter" title, either.  Even if Kiya really was the daughter of a king of Mitanni, that would not show up in her titulary while she was in Egypt.  Anyway, Kiya, although prominent, was not considered an Egyptian royal lady as she had no cartouche.  The only women with cartouches at Akhet-aten were Nefertiti, Meritaten, and Tiye.  Probably, we will never know just who Kiya was.

As to the Darnells--I suppose they don't realize how many people they turn off with their "show".  Costumes are for the theater.  In Egyptology they merely smack of "showing off".  It's not about them, after all, but the work.

So you say Dodson has changed his mind about the KV55 individual as Smenkhkare.  I hope that isn't because he now believes Smenkhkare is the same person as Nefertiti and Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten like Reeves!  I wish Dodson would change his mind about the Meidum graffito that says, in Year 30, Amenhotep III set his heir upon the throne of his father.  Dodson has maintained this doesn't mean a coregency but just an announcement of who the successor would be.  Other than an actual coregency, which would ostensibly guarantee this, there is no precedent of such an announcement ceremony for a very good reason.  The mortality of young people in those times was as high as the older ones.  One simply couldn't announce the future successor as nobody could tell whether or not he would outlive the father.  That had already happened to Amenhotep III with his eldest son and who knows who else there might have been that was older than Akhenaten.  12 older sons died before Ramesses II and the 13th one, Merneptah, succeeded.  That was because Ramesses II lived to be so old but that is the point--the older one got the more of one's children were likely to disappear.

As for the children of Akhenaten and Nefertiti--yes they look very cute as depicted at their city with their elongated little heads but I urge everyone to watch the show "When Cousins Marry" on Youtube and see how devastating this can be to the children of such unions.  Cousins?  What about siblings, an even worse scenario?  In the UK, political correctness is even preventing health officials from decrying such marriages.  I suppose I was surprised they were not prevented by law!

Edited August 27 by Aldebaran

[Wepwawet]

2 hours ago, Wistman said:

My bad.  It wasn't Suppiluliuma the Hittite king who'd sent his daughter to wed AIII, but Tushratta the Mittani king.  Somebody spank me.

I also mixed up Hittites with Mittanians, it's easy at times, just as easy as remembering how to spell Suppiluliuma  🙄

2 hours ago, Wistman said:

Personally I find it hard to believe that Akhenaten would have raised a Mittanni princess so high, considering his family affiliations.  I surmise she is a sister of his, though her name may have been changed due to Atenism.  If she's the YL and mother of Tut, and Akhenaten's KV55, then they're siblings.

I also don't think she was a foreigner. I would go with her perhaps being an Akhmin cousin, and the names of known or suspected "Akhmin's" does, to us, though not necessarily so to an AE, look to follow a pattern. Yuya, Tuya, (a valid alternate spelling) Tiye and Ay, then add to that Kiya. However, it's what it looks like to us, and I do not think it's anything of special note, with Yuya, to an AE, being the odd one out.

On the identity of the YL I don't want to speculate anymore until we get the DNA results of the two KV20 mummies and the KV35 prince, if they are ever released. I'm on the EEF mailing list, so even if there's no public fanfare, something might popup on that.

[Wepwawet]

7 minutes ago, Aldebaran said:

In the UK, political correctness is even preventing health officials from decrying such marriages.  I suppose I was surprised they were not prevented by law!

It may even be a crimminal offense in the UK to say anything against this sort of nonsense, and this post may be illegal, I'm not joking, I'm really not joking as we are rapidly becoming a totalitarian surveillance state. Hail Starmer!

[Aldebaran]

9 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

It may even be a crimminal offense in the UK to say anything against this sort of nonsense, and this post may be illegal, I'm not joking, I'm really not joking as we are rapidly becoming a totalitarian surveillance state. Hail Starmer!

I will defiantly give the URL.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkxuKe2wOMs&t=2240s

[Wistman]

3 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

You seem to be able to believe that Kiya could be a sister of Akhenaten while you can't seem to believe that Nefertiti can have been one, although Kiya has no such "king's daughter" title, either.  Even if Kiya really was the daughter of a king of Mitanni, that would not show up in her titulary while she was in Egypt.  Anyway, Kiya, although prominent, was not considered an Egyptian royal lady as she had no cartouche.  The only women with cartouches at Akhet-aten were Nefertiti, Meritaten, and Tiye.  Probably, we will never know just who Kiya was.

No you misunderstand me, I think it's more likely than not that Nefertiti was Akhenaten's sister.  And your arguments are totally valid and carry weight.  But I'm keeping an open mind about possibilities, what with such a lack of sureties.

3 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

So you say Dodson has changed his mind about the KV55 individual as Smenkhkare.

Apologies, I've only heard that second hand.  I have no citations.

[Wepwawet]

8 hours ago, Wistman said:

I've only heard that second hand.  I have no citations.

In his 2022 book, (Tutankhamun, King of Egypt), Dodson lays out various scenarios, but goes with the opinion that KV55 is Smenkhkare, and that he is a younger brother of Akhenaten.

I'll quote from page 12.

Quote

The DNA publication's preferred identification of the KV55 mummy was with Akhenaten (in spite of almost all assessments making the body that of a man in his 20s, which would have required him to have sired his first child before his tenth birthday!)

Dodson doesn't say so, but this first child would of course be Meritaten. He then goes on to lay out further ways in which the DNA evidence can be interpreted when it comes to first cousins.

So there is dispute over the age of KV55, but, I think, a general consensus that while the coffin was originally for a queen, it had been adapted for a king, the texts suggesting Akhenaten, and there is dispute over the interpretation of the DNA. I'll add my observation that as there is zero evidence of a younger brother being made co-ruler, period, let alone usurping the senior king's son, and that this overturns the religious/mythical stricture we see in the conflict between Horus and Set against this, I cannot see Smenkhkare as a younger brother of Akhenaten, or as KV55, but, as Amarna is so odd and out there, it cannot be excluded. I think that's sort of sitting on the fence.

 

Edited August 28 by Wepwawet

[Wistman]

Yes sorry for that mistake everyone.  Again: a spanking?

On a different note, here is a 2019 paper by Traugott Huber on the north wall of KV62, a response to Reeves's theory of its sequencing and depictions.  In case you all haven't already read it.  9 pages.

https://www.academia.edu/40243114/Response_to_Nicholas_Reeves_The_decorated_North_Wall_in_the_tomb_of_Tutankhamun_KV62_The_Burial_of_Nefertiti_II_&nav_from=1968135e-e9f1-435e-b0f2-97fba56b398f&rw_pos=0

 

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Wistman said:

Yes sorry for that mistake everyone.  Again: a spanking?

On a different note, here is a 2019 paper by Traugott Huber on the north wall of KV62, a response to Reeves's theory of its sequencing and depictions.  In case you all haven't already read it.  9 pages.

https://www.academia.edu/40243114/Response_to_Nicholas_Reeves_The_decorated_North_Wall_in_the_tomb_of_Tutankhamun_KV62_The_Burial_of_Nefertiti_II_&nav_from=1968135e-e9f1-435e-b0f2-97fba56b398f&rw_pos=0

 

In a previous post I mentioned the KV20 mummies when it should be the KV21 mummies. Must be the heat of August here in the UK, oh wait, there's not been much of a summer, again, or spring, the grass is very very green though.

However, Huber's paper needs a lot of unpacking, but I'll easily deal with one part, the part where he debates whether the north wall secene showing the ka of Tutankhamun greeting Osiris-Tutankhamun actually shows this. Huber says that an intimate scene between a mortal and a god is unthinkable, this is part of his reason to say we do not see Tutankhamun, but Nefertiti, and there is no Osiris, despite the figure looking suspiciously like Osiris. He's wrong, with a caveat, about such an intimate scene not being possible between a mortal and a god. Thankfully in the tomb of Seti I we have a huge number of scenes covering just about everything that needs to be covered. There are many scenes with Seti I and a god or gods, and in many of them Seti I and a god are holding hands, as can be seen in the picture below, and or placing a hand on the shoulders of the king. In some scenes with Horus, Ra-Horakhty, Anubis and Thoth, the god holds hands with Seti and also places a hand on his shoulder.This is normal, but there is a caveat with Osiris. Seti I is portrayed a number of times with Osiris, but on no occassion do they touch each other, get very close, but never touch, no holding hands, no hand on shoulder, so Huber is right only so far as a scene with a king and Osiris goes, not with any god per se. I too can do the pedant thing 😁

 

Edited August 28 by Wepwawet

[Aldebaran]

13 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Dodson doesn't say so, but this first child would of course be Meritaten. He then goes on to lay out further ways in which the DNA evidence can be interpreted when it comes to first cousins.

So there is dispute over the age of KV55, but, I think, a general consensus that while the coffin was originally for a queen, it had been adapted for a king, the texts suggesting Akhenaten, and there is dispute over the interpretation of the DNA. I'll add my observation that as there is zero evidence of a younger brother being made co-ruler, period, let alone usurping the senior king's son, and that this overturns the religious/mythical stricture we see in the conflict between Horus and Set against this, I cannot see Smenkhkare as a younger brother of Akhenaten, or as KV55, but, as Amarna is so odd and out there, it cannot be excluded. I think that's sort of sitting on the fence.

 

Oh boy--the DNA interpretations.  What a mess in general.  It gives me a headache.  When it comes to the age of the KV55 individual, the chief problem is that nobody is taking into consideration a lengthy coregency, which shaves years off any age those who don't believe in a coregency would expect Akhenaten to have been at death.  I say 32--but the other problem is that one can't age a skeleton so precisely and there is going to be an age range.  Therefore that age is not going to be the deciding factor as to just who KV55 is.  It's a young man and not a mere boy --that could be the summary.  The Egyptians found the remains to be of an older male but I am not sure why.

If one goes by the coffin--it's as Wepwawet says.  No other king but Akhenaten is indicated there.  If you watched the film about the cousin marriages among the UK population of Pakistani origin, you will have noticed that the afflicted kids would look perfectly nice if one merely took a photo of them without showing any of their movements or the noises they make.  Since ancient reliefs and paintings are also a kind of "snap shot", the same can be said for the Amarna progeny.  Those kids also looked nice and that's all one could tell about them.  Any difficulty there is perfectly hidden.

I noticed that Bob Brier, who has a new book about Tutankhamun, was back to the "athletic king" during a talk on Youtube.  I don't know--I tend to doubt it.  Brier indicated that there seemed to be no actual club foot since both of the various sandals of Tut were the same, making no allowances for a crippled foot.  Yet CT scan did notice some sort of foot problem.  My guess is it is only severe equino varus that requires a special shoe but problems in walking could result from lesser conditions, no matter what type of sandals.  Also, the pharaoh did not necessarily have to walk very far with carrying chairs and chariots at his disposal.

[Wistman]

2 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

When it comes to the age of the KV55 individual, the chief problem is that nobody is taking into consideration a lengthy coregency, which shaves years off any age those who don't believe in a coregency would expect Akhenaten to have been at death.  I say 32--but the other problem is that one can't age a skeleton so precisely and there is going to be an age range.  Therefore that age is not going to be the deciding factor as to just who KV55 is.

Yes if the long coregency is the ultimate truth, ages would be shaved off other individuals of the era as welll.  Say, for example, Sitamun.

Let's say she was @ 15 on her father AIII's 30th year Heb-Sed festival, an adult woman in that era, maybe near the age of young Prince Amunhotep.  Her consort and brother Prince Thutmose, Shu to her Tefnut, had recently died, Prince Amenhotep's consort Nefertiti (a sister or cousin) had already been selected for him, maybe the couple was now slated to be the new Shu and Tefnut, and perhaps no other available prince was high enough in the esteem of AIII and Tiye to accept as substitute consort for her (and they preferred to intermarry anyway) especially for their eldest and favorite daughter, and as former Tefnut without her Shu maybe it was considered less than ideal to position her so twice, so it was decided she would wed her father and live as his secondary wife at Malkata in splendor.  She could have gifted her beautiful chairs to her grandmother's grave goods at any time before the tomb was finally sealed up upon Yuya's death, some time after AIII's first Heb-Sed.)  With the long co-regency, in this theoretical scenario she would be 22 upon AIII's death,  which would be yr 7 for AIV, now Akhenaten.  Sitamun, still beautiful and with noble bearing, would no longer be the wife of AIII, though with formal attachments to him as former wife, but still within child-bearing years.  Coincidentally it was at this juncture that Kiya showed up at Akhetaten, and held in remarkably high esteem, though without formal titulary.  If she were Sitamun, disguised for some religious or political purpose, she would be 28 in yr 13, when Tut was supposedly born. and 31 in yr 16 of Akhenaten's rule, her latest suggested date at Amarna; any of these dates of her death fall within the 25 - 35 range for the YL.

No it's not an ideal or provable scenario, but possible.  If the long co-regency applies.

And of course, we cannot say for sure what the exact age of any of these mummies were at death.

Just musing.

[Wepwawet]

19 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

Bob Brier, who has a new book about Tutankhamun

I've not seen the video so don't know what he's said in it, but I have read his latest book, and he calls for re-testing the mummies using up to date techniques, and allowing biological samples of the mummies to be sent to laboratories outside of Egypt. Presumably the two KV21 mummies and the KV35 prince have been tested using the latest techniques, but I wonder if the others have been re-tested, surely they should be.

[Wepwawet]

15 hours ago, Wistman said:

She could have gifted her beautiful chairs to her grandmother's grave goods at any time before the tomb was finally sealed up upon Yuya's death, some time after AIII's first Heb-Sed.)  With the long co-regency, in this theoretical scenario she would be 22 upon AIII's death

What I wonder is if she were actually the eldest daughter of AIII and Tiye, or the eldest surviving when she first enters the record. I ask this because if we ascribe the earliest ages at marriage for AIII and Tiye at twelve years old, then I think we could realistically expect their first child to be born sometime in year three, and potentially earlier, but I don't want to stretch things too much. We have only two names for eldest children before Thutmose vanishes, Thutmose himself and Sitamun, and have no idea who came first. Would it be reasonable to assume that by the end of year five both had been born? if so, Sitamun could have been as old as 35 by the death of AIII, but I honestly doubt she would have been younger than 30, presuming she was the first born daughter, and there is no evidence contra. Crown Prince Thutmose would I suspect have been in his mid+ twenties by the time he vanishes, put at year 30, but the record is totally silent and I don't know why authors put forward this date, bettern than saying nothing ?

There is wiggle room on this around the age that AIII took the throne, and the age of Tiye, and I see estimates of between six and fifteen. The younger age is too young, and I've written before that we known that Amunhotep III was the eldest of at least six sons of Thutmose IV, so I doubt he was as young as six on the death of his father. If the estimate for the age at death of Thumose IV at around thirty is correct, and he had a ten year reign, then he may well have had several children even before his father Amunhotep II had died. This would potentially have AIII being born two years before his father became king, at least six brothers and numerous sisters appearing during the next decade.

Edited August 29 by Wepwawet

[Aldebaran]

3 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

I've not seen the video so don't know what he's said in it, but I have read his latest book, and he calls for re-testing the mummies using up to date techniques, and allowing biological samples of the mummies to be sent to laboratories outside of Egypt. Presumably the two KV21 mummies and the KV35 prince have been tested using the latest techniques, but I wonder if the others have been re-tested, surely they should be.

I don't don't what people expect from re-testing.  Just keep in mind there are already eight microsatellite markers for most of the royal mummies already tested.  When you test a family, you can readily see how the alleles at the markers are passed down through the generations--and there is no doubt in anybody's mind who the generations are.  Tutankhamun, securely identified, had parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents--all there.  Each generation passed down two alleles at eight marks and these must be repeated--which they are.  You can get a relationship picture from eight markers and some of the relationships were already suspected from the archaeological record, anyway.  It looks pretty accurate to me and I don't expect anything to change there at all.  Nothing needs confirmation by further testing.  Only the ones who don't really know how this works would expect anything different to show up.  

The only royal mummies whose relationship status would benefit from next-generational sequencing are the ones from whom a complete eight-marker profile could not be obtained and--obviously--ones who were not yet tested.  And--oh--further DNA testing is NOT going to reveal a cousin relationship between the Younger Lady and KV55.  Those who don't know why haven't done their DNA homework at all and, at very least, haven't read my papers or trusted their content.

The other day I saw someone make a comment at Academia [not in a paper, just a comment] that humanities professors are absolutely useless for science.  Sure looks that way for Egyptology.

Edited August 29 by Aldebaran

[Kenemet]

23 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

Oh boy--the DNA interpretations.  What a mess in general.  It gives me a headache.  When it comes to the age of the KV55 individual, the chief problem is that nobody is taking into consideration a lengthy coregency, which shaves years off any age those who don't believe in a coregency would expect Akhenaten to have been at death.  I say 32--but the other problem is that one can't age a skeleton so precisely and there is going to be an age range.  Therefore that age is not going to be the deciding factor as to just who KV55 is.  It's a young man and not a mere boy --that could be the summary.  The Egyptians found the remains to be of an older male but I am not sure why.

The fusing of the bones of the skull (https://www.forensicpaper.com/article/2/1-1-2-956.pdf).  The relatively tight closure of the sutures suggest that this is not an individual in their 20's and that they are closer to 40 or perhaps older. 

 

[Aldebaran]

22 minutes ago, Kenemet said:

23 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

Oh boy--the DNA interpretations.  What a mess in general.  It gives me a headache.  When it comes to the age of the KV55 individual, the chief problem is that nobody is taking into consideration a lengthy coregency, which shaves years off any age those who don't believe in a coregency would expect Akhenaten to have been at death.  I say 32--but the other problem is that one can't age a skeleton so precisely and there is going to be an age range.  Therefore that age is not going to be the deciding factor as to just who KV55 is.  It's a young man and not a mere boy --that could be the summary.  The Egyptians found the remains to be of an older male but I am not sure why.

The fusing of the bones of the skull (https://www.forensicpaper.com/article/2/1-1-2-956.pdf).  The relatively tight closure of the sutures suggest that this is not an individual in their 20's and that they are closer to 40 or perhaps older. 

Okay--thanks.  In "Scanning the Pharaohs" it says the cranial sutures of KV55 could be seen [page 87] and on page 84 the age range of 35-40 is given.  The paper you cited has a claim of being able to age persons between 30-60, age of death, within five years [page 3] whereas, previously, a wider range was demanded.  I claim a bit more youth for Akhenaten--32 at death because of his youthful looks on his earliest kingly statues.  I give him age 15 to begin as coregent.  So we are in a ball-park for a lower end.  I  wouldn't quibble.  Akhenaten was already a father in his earliest years on the throne.   Persons who still claim KV55 is Smenkhkare are ignoring a lot, clinging to old information.

 

Edited August 29 by Aldebaran

[Kenemet]

On 8/26/2024 at 1:28 PM, Wepwawet said:

For the record, I do not think that Smenkhkare was a foreign prince.

At least one pharaoh ruled that the women of his court could not marry foreigners... foreign women were welcome in the harems but foreign men were not welcome to take royal Egyptian brides.  This would indicate that Smenkhare is Egyptian and not a foreigner.

Edited August 30 by Kenemet

[Kenemet]

19 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

Okay--thanks.  In "Scanning the Pharaohs" it says the cranial sutures of KV55 could be seen [page 87] and on page 84 the age range of 35-40 is given.  The paper you cited has a claim of being able to age persons between 30-60, age of death, within five years [page 3] whereas, previously, a wider range was demanded.  I claim a bit more youth for Akhenaten--32 at death because of his youthful looks on his earliest kingly statues.  I give him age 15 to begin as coregent.  So we are in a ball-park for a lower end.  I  wouldn't quibble.  Akhenaten was already a father in his earliest years on the throne.   Persons who still claim KV55 is Smenkhkare are ignoring a lot, clinging to old information.

 

I would peg him as being slightly older (35-ish), though grouping by age using the cranial sutures can be problematic.  Here's a better paper on estimating age with sutures; this one has some nice diagrams:
https://forensicsdigest.com/scope-of-forensic-anthropology-estimation-of-age/

But without actually having the skull in our hands, guesses are going to vary quite a bit.

[Aldebaran]

Back to the paper about the cranial suture closing, the final conclusion there was that it was helpful but "hazardous" for the purpose of aging an individual without other considerations. So the conclusion was that complete absence of closure indicated below 30 and complete fusion above 40.  So I think "Scanning the Pharaohs" could have been a bit more explanatory there when it came to what was seen on the cranium.  Since the age range of 35-40 was given, one might assume that the sutures were not yet fully fused.

[Aldebaran]

Kenemet, we seem to have posted simultaneously.

[Kenemet]

5 hours ago, Aldebaran said:

Back to the paper about the cranial suture closing, the final conclusion there was that it was helpful but "hazardous" for the purpose of aging an individual without other considerations. So the conclusion was that complete absence of closure indicated below 30 and complete fusion above 40.  So I think "Scanning the Pharaohs" could have been a bit more explanatory there when it came to what was seen on the cranium.  Since the age range of 35-40 was given, one might assume that the sutures were not yet fully fused.

If you look at the skull, you can see that they're not completely fused, though they're well on their way to it.  I don't know if "Scanning the Pharaohs" went into the skull in any detail. 

This kind of weird forensics isn't of much interest to most people, so I can see why they skipped it and other markers of age.

 

[Wepwawet]

9 hours ago, Kenemet said:

This kind of weird forensics isn't of much interest to most people

Such as this:

Quote

the bizygomatic, interorbital and maxilloalveolar breadths are bigger than x+s.

Which comes from this paper by Eugen Strouhal, which I'm sure we have all read at some popint since it was published in 2010. I'm in no postition to question the forensic details of why Strouhal gives KV55 an age of 19-22, and here is a short bio for anybody unfamiliar with him, now deceased, and as the bio states, one of the founders of paleopathology. The only part of his analysis I can question is his finding that KV55 is an older brother of Tutankhamun.

Scanning the Pharoahs is, as regards this skeleton, very light on the details we would like to see. The authors say this about the age:

Quote

The CT study of the skeleton of the KV55 mummy indicates an adult male, 35-45 years old,...

They do not back up this statement with a single piece of evidence, and we are left to take their word on this. The chapter on KV55 is three pages long, one page consisting of an inventory of which bones were present, one page consisting of two very poor photos of CT scans from which nothing can be cleaned except this is a human skeleton, very helpful, with only one page devoted to text, most of which is about the background to the discovery and historical evidence, which is shaky anyway.

To indicate what a mess this is, Habicht in his book (Smenkhkare) provides a list, which I know I've posted before in this thread, of 14 conclusions arrived at by various people over the years who have examined these bones. Two do not offer a name, one states only that it is not Akhenaten, two state that it is Smenkhkare and eight state that it is Akhenaten. As for age at death, six give no age, two give an age of thirty five or over, one gives an age of not more than thirty and four give an age of below 26. These findings are from G.E. Smith in 1912 to Hawass/Saleem and Strouhal in 2010, who have opposite findings. Who are we to believe.....

Edited August 31 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

Would have been easier to do this in the first place.

 

[Aldebaran]

Prof. Smith, at least, goes into a lot of detail about KV55 in his "Royal Mummies" but he does say "In the skull the cranial sutures show no sign of obliteration, the teeth are unworn, and the right upper wisdom tooth is not erupted."

Even though he thought this male was Akhenaten, now I see what caused the professor of anatomy to make a more conservative, youthful determination although at, first, according to Arthur Weigall, the official who sent him the bones, Smith opined in a letter "a man of about 30".  Sooo, I am really left wondering how we get from this to 35-40 by CT-scan,  One can't question the expertise of Smith when it comes to cranial sutures.  But the Indian doctors who wrote the paper Kenemet gave did warn that one must be careful of them, make sure the rest of the bones tell the same story.  I think, though, that KV55 must have had the same tough teeth as the Elder Lady, who was over 50 when she died with teeth not very worn.

Edited August 31 by Aldebaran

[Aldebaran]

You know who else I think is mysterious--Habicht.  Does he say in his book where he studied and where he obtained his PhD? 

Nevermind.  I found his thesis today.

https://flex.flinders.edu.au/file/5cb994d0-bc68-40d9-8b54-ba87de49955b/1/ThesisHabicht2018OA.pdf

Edited August 31 by Aldebaran

[Kenemet]

1 hour ago, Aldebaran said:

Prof. Smith, at least, goes into a lot of detail about KV55 in his "Royal Mummies" but he does say "In the skull the cranial sutures show no sign of obliteration, the teeth are unworn, and the right upper wisdom tooth is not erupted."

Even though he thought this male was Akhenaten, now I see what caused the professor of anatomy to make a more conservative, youthful determination although at, first, according to Arthur Weigall, the official who sent him the bones, Smith opined in a letter "a man of about 30".  Sooo, I am really left wondering how we get from this to 35-40 by CT-scan,  One can't question the expertise of Smith when it comes to cranial sutures.  But the Indian doctors who wrote the paper Kenemet gave did warn that one must be careful of them, make sure the rest of the bones tell the same story.  I think, though, that KV55 must have had the same tough teeth as the Elder Lady, who was over 50 when she died with teeth not very worn.

I think that the young estimate of KV55 is a reasonable conclusion based on Strouhal (and based on his very detailed observations of the bones.  Do we know how Hawass came to his conclusion?

Elder Lady does bring about a good point -- that these measurements are based on a statistical sample and that there are still outliers.