Most people know that his father is Akhenaten, but who was King Tut’s mother? Akhenaten is most famously linked with Nefertiti, but that isn’t King Tutankhamun’s mother. So who is?

Akhenaten also known as Amenhotep IV, like all the other pharaoh’s had several wives. We know of Nefertiti, Kiya, and an unidentified sister-wife (most likely) Tadukhipa.  He had at least ten children, one of which was Tutankhamun.

Tomb KV35 was first discovered in March of 1898 and it belonged to Amenhotep II, but it was also used as a cache for other royal mummies, possibly during the 3rd intermediate period.

In side chambers of the tomb, they found,

• Thutmose IV
• Amenhotep III (Akhenaten’s father – King Tut’s grandfather)
• Merneptah
• Seti II
• Siptah
• Ramesses IV
• Ramesses V
• Ramesses VI

Queen Tiye (Akhenaten’s mother- King Tut’s grandmother), who was identified as the so-called Elder Lady in February 2010 via DNA testing.

A prince, identified by some as Webensenu, son of Amenhotep II, whose canopic jars were found in the tomb, or Thutmose, the elder son of Amenhotep III and Tiye

An “unknown woman D” in an upturned lid of a coffin inscribed for Setnakhte (she may be queen Tawosret).

Two skulls were found in the well and an anonymous arm was found. A body on a boat was stolen or destroyed at the start of the twentieth century.

But there was another person found in that tomb as well and her name is “The Younger Lady”, or so we’ve come to call her. But just who is she?

Many years ago, British Egyptologist Joann Fletcher incorrectly assumed it would be the remains of none other than Nefertiti herself. She however was wrong.

Zahi Hawass thought it might be Kiya, another wife of Akhenaten who is believed by some to be the birth mother of Tutankhamun.

However thanks to DNA testing, we now know the truth. The remains belong to the mother of Tutankhamun alright, but his mother wasn’t Nefertiti or Kiya. It was actually someone we don’t know her name, so she is simply called “The Younger Lady”.

She is the daughter of Amenhotep III and Tiye, making her both the sister and wife of Akhenaten. Her name, however, remains unknown, leaving open the possibility that she is possibly either Nebetiah or Beketaten.

In 2003, a scientific team from University of York, working under Joann Fletcher, examined the mummy. A member of the team realized that the face wound could have been a premortem wound, rather than a postmortem wound as previously presumed. Instead of the Younger Lady’s remains simply being mutilated after her death by tomb robbers motivated by malice, it seemed likely the woman had been injured while still alive.

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A German archaeological team led by German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt discovered the bust on December 6, 1912, in Thutmose’s workshop. It was found in what had been the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, along with other unfinished busts of Nefertiti.

It has been kept in Germany since its discovery. Over the decades Germany has rejected repeated requests from Egypt for her return. It has also been the subject of an intense argument between Egypt and Germany over Egyptian demands for its repatriation, which began in 1924 once the bust was first displayed to the public. Egyptian inspectors were not shown the actual bust before they let it out of the country.

The bust of Nefertiti is believed to have been crafted about 1345 BC by the sculptor Thutmose. The bust does not have any inscriptions but can be certainly identified as Nefertiti by the characteristic crown, which she wears in other surviving (and clearly labeled) depictions.

Her elegant and chiseled features held proud and high on a swanlike neck, she has been smiling serenely for 3,400 years. At least that has long been the popular and scientific belief that draws half a million tourists to see her in Berlin every year. But now doubt has been thrown on the authenticity of the painted limestone and plaster bust of the 18th dynasty Egyptian queen Nefertiti by author Henri Steirlin, who claims she is a fake.

His book, Le Buste de Nefertiti – une Imposture de l’Egyptologie? (The Bust of Nefertiti – an Egyptology Fraud?), came out in 2009 and everyone was quick to discredit him. However, Henri Steirlin wasn’t the only one who thought it was a fake. Berlin author and historian Erdogan Ercivan wrote his own book, called Missing Link in Archaeology, where he too claimed that the bust was a modern fake.

The German authorities4 dismissed the claims as a publicity stunt since radiological tests, detailed computer tomography and material analysis have proved its authenticity. The pigments used on the bust have been matched to those used by ancient Egyptian artisans. 

Stierlin has said the stunning work that will later this year be the showpiece of the city’s reborn Neues Museum was created by an artist commissioned by Ludwig Borchardt, the German archaeologist credited with digging Nefertiti out of the sands of the ancient settlement of Amarna, 90 miles south of Cairo, in 1912.

But in 2014 the Smithsonian Channel shocked the world with their own part of the story.  They spoke to a convicted forger, who says he’s sure it’s a fake.

“The damage is selective, and that’s a dead ringer for a fake,” forger Shaun Greenhalgh says.

Here are some of the arguments from one of the commentators, against the authenticity of the Nefertiti bust.

• *Borchardt (the guy who first has the bust) had a reputation as a forger and a reputation for buying fakes and making fakes and trying to pass them off as real. Additionally, we know for a fact other parts in support of the bust are certainly fake, we know because…
• -It is inconsistent with the Egyptian style of its time, you cannot find another bust like in Ancient Egypt, additionally, it doesn’t appear in ANY record, Export record, Military record nor Import record. In other words, it first appears in Germany NOT Egypt, according to the record. This makes it impossible to authenticate as Egyptians.
• -Nefertiti is depicted as someone with a clearly extreme form of prognathism where their low jaw is forward and forehead slants backward. This is not depicted in the bust.
• -It was common that the men(merchants selling knock-offs) scratch off old paint, crush it and apply it with a binding agent.”
• -Borchardt made forgeries himself when he was a student. He imitated a cuneiform tablet and wrote logarithms onto it. A scholar fell for the practical joke.
• -The bust doesn’t fall into any known category we find anywhere in Egypt. It seems to be painted in a modern-day flesh color of a caucasian person maybe with a tan. Now being painted tan isn’t disqualifying in and of itself. It is all the other factors, mysterious history, NOT looking like Nefertiti (in ALL other depictions of her), and appearing in a paint color we NEVER SEEN BEFORE OR AFTER.
• -The bust is made of stone but has a plaster on it. This is again, unheard of.
• -The bust also has multiple layers, again this is uncommon. Usually, they’d sculpt down a single piece of stone. They wouldn’t plaster it.

What do you think? Is the Nefertiti bust real or a fake?