Akhenaten Mummy

News from the Valley of the Kings (see http://kv64.info ) March 2nd … a week or so ago Zahi Hawass claimed the mummy in Kv55 is ‘probably’ Akhenaten. The media accepted this attribution as a fact but this article disagrees – and says the mummy in Kv55 was not Akhenaten. She draws on the personal relationships between the last members of dynasty 18 and the role of Ay, a brief successor to Tutankhamun. Velikovsky, of course, saw some strange relationships among the final few kings, is his book Oedipus and Akhenaten. This article is more prosaic, very long, some 9 pages of text, and the arguments probably only concern those interested in the nuances of ancient history, and exact chronology. In conclusion she suggests the mummy might be that of Smenkare, the problem then being that he would have been the father of Tutankhamun (or closely related). DNA evidence might support Smenkare as a brother of Akhenaten. However, it is the idea of a second line of claimants that is intriguing, via Yuya and Thuya to the Kv62 foetuses. This line is consistent with Nefertiti the wife of Akhenaten (and presumably the mother of the two foetuses). Nefertiti was the daughter of Ay who was the son of Yuya and Thuya. Hence, one line from Amenophis III via Akhenaten, his brother Smenkare, and Tutankhamun (end of line) allowing Ay to succeed the latter on account of being the father of Nefertiti.