MYSTERY OF A WOMAN’S HAIR

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 154, 17 March 1923, Page 15

MYSTERY OF A WOMAN’S HAIR

IN A PHARAOH’S TOMB. Among the many strange discoveries in Tutankhamen’s tomb at Luxor none perhaps lias caused more discussion than the alabaster box containing human hair of a grey colour —the hair of some woman placed in that tomb more than 3000 years a"o, states a correspondent of the “Daily Mail,” writing from Cairo. One theory is that this hair was that of Tutankhamen’s queen. But this is most improbable. His queen was still in her ’teens when he died. She was the third daughter of Akhnaton (Tutankhamen’s predecessor on the throne of the Pharaohs) and is definitely known' to have been born about the sixth year of Akhnaton’s reign, Akhnaton died in the 17th year of his reign, so the girl was at her father’s death about 11 or 12, and it waa then that she married Tutankhamen. It is safd to say that Tutankhamen reigned about six or seven years, and thus his queen was perhaps only 17 years of age at his death, or 19 at the very most. This grey hair could not have come from a woman of 17 or 19; and ’it is extremely improbable that in her old age the tomb was reopened for the purpose of depositing her grey hair in it. It is all the more improbable because of an intrigue in which she was involved after her husband’s death. Tutankhamen left no son, and he was succeeded by his wife’s grandfather, Ay, the father of Akhnaton’s queen. Tutankhamen’s queen was so much annoyed at this that she tried to marry a son of the King of Hittites, promising him that he should become Ring of Egypt. There is a record of thia engagement, but not of the marriage, though it probably took place. Her schemes against her grandpapa. l however, failed, and very possibly she was put out of the way, as Egyptian ' sovereigns sometimes were. In any case she disappeared. The name 'of this lady was first of all Ankh-sen-pa-Aton. This was changed when tho dynasty returned to Thebes, to Ankh-s-Amen, or, possibly, bv the prefix of the feminine article Ta. to Ta-Ankh-s-Amen. , In the Hittite document where she is mentioned, she is called Dakhftjnbn. which is almost certainly a corruption of the Egyptian name.

The mystery of this hair has yet to be revealed.