| THE MUMMY OF AMENHOTEP II By Marianne Luban The second Amenhotep was discovered in his own tomb in the Valley of the Kings, numbered KV35. He was found within a coffin in a red-varnished yellow quartzite sarcophagus by Victor Loret in 1898. In addition to the mummy of this pharaoh, KV35 became a repository for many other kings of the 18th and 19th Dynasties and three denuded and unidentified remains now known as "The Elder Lady", the "Younger Lady" and "The Little Prince". The mummy of Amenhotep II is in a reasonable state of preservation. He was a fairly tall man for his time and well-built, his texts boasting of his physical prowess on more than one occasion. Estimates of his age at death range from 40-50 years. He was slightly balding with graying dark-brown hair remaining on his head and his teeth were in good condition for a man of his age. Radiological studies revealed that Amenhotep suffered from the dehabilitating disease of ankylosing spondylitis, which causes severe stiffening and even fusion of the joints. His death may have been caused by small-pox or some other contagion that manifests in papules erupting on the skin, but that is so far unproved. The face of the mummy of Amenhotep II has, unfortunately, taken on a decidedly sinister quality and he is one of the more frightening-appearing among the pharaonic remains. This is mainly due to the sides of his mouth having become cracked past their natural dimensions, the withered lips displaying the usual over-bite of the Thutmosid Dynasty. Also, the thin, once long and very sharp nose has its cartilaginous parts shrunk back onto the bone in an almost telescopic fashion. However, once, Amenhotep must have been a fairly good-looking man, resembling his father, Thutmose III, in one sense, and his own son, Thutmose IV, in another. See NEXT PAGE for my artistic reconstruction of the features of Amenhotep II. |
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