| To add to the confusion, the mummy now known as "Siptah" has all the same cranio-facial characteristics as the above and his skull very much resembles that of Tutankhamun when one compares their profiles in photos. Here are the statistics of "Siptah" as provided by Elliot Smith: length of skull 189 mill (also pentagonoid in shape) breadth of skull 147 mill min. frontal breadth 94 mill circumference 530 mill height of mummy 1 m. 638 mill While quite short, the young man known as Siptah (who might have been merely half- grown, after all) has a head that is somewhere in between "Seti II" and the "Amarna children". Having displayed some of his stats, it is probably best to let the young king alone and refrain from casting doubt upon his identification at this time. Perhaps he could be viewed as a kind of late 19th Dynasty magnet that, because of some obvious similarities, [11] pulls the mummy known as "Seti II" toward his era while the Thutmosids exert a force of their own for the same reason. For example, the embalming incisions of both "Seti II" and Siptah are sewn together with a thin strip of linen--but so is that of old Thuya, the mother of Queen Tiye. Although the pierced ears of the "Seti II" mummy excludes him from being a Thutmosid pharaoh prior to Thutmose IV, there are some factors about this cadaver which weigh against it being Akhenaten. However, the fine linen shirts found among the mummy's wrappings, which were monogrammed for King Merneptah, are not one of them. These shirts could have been provided by the restoration party and this appears to have been the case. More difficult to explain is a string of blue-glaze Eyes of Horus tied around the legs of the mummy and firmly embedded in the resinous mass presumably applied during the original embalming. The religion of Akhenaten would have had no use for such amulets. On the other hand, the embalming of the mummy generally conforms to the 18th Dynasty method and a large section of the individual's chest was hacked away by thieves in the same fashion as the three 18th Dynasty mummies on the floor of the "treasury". The strongest argument of all against "Seti II" being Akhenaten or any other 18th Dynasty mummy is that his face is covered with a layer of resinous paste, in the manner of Siptah and Ramesses III--although not nearly so thickly applied. The majority of the royal mummies of the 18th Dynasty have admirably preserved faces with the exception of Tutankhamun, the skin of his face being cracked, brittle and greyish from being treated with some compound. Reading the notes of Elliot Smith regarding the examination of "Seti II", one is made rather uneasy by his vagueness when it comes to the inscriptions found upon this mummy: "In the lower (right hand of one, left hand in the other)corner of the front of the shirt there was embroidered in red and blue thread a vertical cartouche and name, which Brugsch Pasha tells me is that of Meneptah." So far so good, but then: "Alongside this (nearer the edge) on one of the shirts is a vertically placed hieratic inscription in ink: and on the left corner, another, shorter, badly corroded inscription...I regret that it is not possible to give a fuller description of these shirts and of the writing upon them. At the time when I unwrapped this mummy the shirts were handed over to the conservator of the Museum, but when I came to write this Catalogue they were not to be found in the Museum." Regarding the inscription on the shroud in which the mummy had been wrapped, Smith only comments: "There was a faint traces of the name written (in ink) in hieratic on the front of this piece of linen." Moreover, the anatomist does not state that Brugsch or someone else confirmed this to say "Seti II". Another question that must be asked is--what if the "field notes" of Loret were not really as orderly as they appear in his article, but just some quick scrawls which he later transcribed in a somewhat erroneous manner? By the time Loret wrote "Le Tombeau D'Amenophis II", he had no more opportunity to re-check the mummies. However, in all fairness to Loret, those at the Boulaq Museum who were involved in the unwrapping of the Royal Mummies had just as much opportunity to make errors and reach false conclusions--if not more. One hates to make posthumous accusations, but that Gaston Maspero could be virtually blind when it came to certain mummies and their identities has been proved. The director of the Boulaq Museum once argued that a certain lady from the Deir el Bahri cache was not who she was advertised to be, even though the bandages covering her chest clearly declared her "The king's daughter and king's sister, Meryetamun, may she live". Maspero saw her as a mummy of the Middle Kingdom and a replacement for the original Meryetamun, a notion with which Elliot Smith, to his credit, for once did not concur. GO TO NEXT PAGE |