The Younger Lady

The Younger Lady is the informal name given to an ancient Egyptian mummy discovered within tomb KV35 in the Valley of the Kings by archaeologist Victor Loret in 1898. The mummy also has been given the designation KV35YL ("YL" for "Younger Lady") and 61072, and currently resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Through recent DNA tests, this mummy has been identified as the mother of the pharaoh Tutankhamun and a daughter of pharaoh Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Tiye. Early speculation that this mummy was the remains of Nefertiti was argued to be incorrect, as nowhere is Nefertiti accorded the title "King's daughter." Discovery The mummy was found adjacent to two other mummies in KV35: a young boy who died at the approximate age of ten and is thought to be Webensenu, and an older woman, who has been identified as Tiye by the recent DNA studies on Tutankhamun's lineage. The three mummies were found together in a small antechamber of the tomb of Amenhotep II, lying naked, side-by-side, and unidentified. All three mummies had been extensively damaged by ancient tomb robbers. Description of the mummy Dr. Grafton Elliot Smith examined the mummy in his survey of the ancient royal mummies conducted at the beginning of the twentieth century. He immediately noted that the body was that of a woman, not a man as thought by Loret and later authors; this mistake he ascribed to the fact the mummy's head was shaved. The body was measured to be tall and he judged her to have been no older than twenty-five years at the time of death based on the degree of fusion of the iliac crest and her non-erupted wisdom teeth. CT scanning suggested an age of twenty-five to thirty-five years at death based on the condition of the epiphyseal union and the closure of the cranial sutures.