"Legend says Egypt never produced such beauty." "Her very name means "The Perfect One."" "Her face adorned temples throughout the land, yet she vanished from history like a mirage." "Now, a lone Egyptologist thinks she's made the greatest discovery since King Tut's tomb." "In a secret chamber in the Valley of the Kings lie three ancient corpses." "According to Dr. Joann Fletcher, one may be none other than Egypt's lost queen, Nefertiti." "I still can't believe this is happening." "In the hands of an international team of experts, the latest technology will reveal the mummy's secrets," "and forensically reconstruct what may be the face of Nefertiti." "Is this one of history's most powerful women?" "It's incredible." "To find out, Dr. Fletcher embarks on a journey through time, back more than 3,000 years, to rewrite history." "She uncovers the story of a living god a tragic tale of power, love, betrayal and perhaps even murder." "The Egyptian Book of the Dead speaks of a terrible curse." "If a mummy is mutilated, the gods cannot recognize it." "It cannot enter the afterlife and is trapped between the world of the living and the world of the dead." "A mummy like this has lain forgotten in the Valley of the Kings, for 3,000 years." "Who is it, and why was it cursed?" "In 1912, in the shifting sands of the Egyptian desert," "German archaeologists found a relic, a bust of a forgotten queen." "This astonishing find is now an icon of beauty the world over, yet her life remains a mystery." "The name Nefertiti is repeatedly translated as "the beautiful one has come."" "In many ways she sort of set herself up as the perfect royal figure, and there's so much more to this woman than beauty." "Nefertiti is one of the most extraordinary female characters in the history of ancient Egypt." "There are a number of important queens, but amongst all them," "Nefertiti really does stand out as something quite special." "It's said Nefertiti's power was unsurpassed." "Raised in a harem, she married a pharaoh, bore six children, and helped lead a revolution that changed Egypt forever." "She and her husband led an exodus from the ancient capital, and built a dazzling city in the heart of the desert." "For some, she was a religious zealot, a conspirator, a traitor." "Others saw a heroine who made the ultimate sacrifice to save her country." "A queen of mystery and a queen of magic, queen of love, queen ofjealousy, queen of revenge." "Nefertiti is the most important queen in Egypt." "What happened to Nefertiti is one of Egypt's greatest unsolved mysteries." "One Egyptologist has spent the last 13 years trying to solve it." "In a walled-up chamber deep in a tomb" "Dr. Joann Fletcher thinks she's found the missing queen." "To identify a royal mummy as Nefertiti is a very significant find, very, very significant and extremely important, and I wish her luck." "Dr. Fletcher's hunt for evidence has taken her from abandoned cities and forgotten temples, to the tombs of the pharaohs." "There's no evidence." "There's a huge void in the available material from this period." "And, basically, anything we can say is guesswork." "Little remains from Nefertiti's time." "Drawing on fragmentary texts and unprecedented access to rare images," "Dr. Fletcher has painted a new portrait of the legendary queen." "And now, with the support of Discovery Quest," "Dr. Fletcher mounts the largest scientific expedition in the Valley of the Kings, in 25 years." "Joining her, a team of experts eager to employ the latest technology to uncover the truth about the mummy thought to be Nefertiti." "Can modern science reveal the mummy's secrets?" "Is this severed arm the hallmark of a pharaoh?" "Why does the mummy have a stab wound in its side?" "Using experimental forensic techniques the experts hope to recreate the mummy's death." "This could be a murder." "And what did Nefertiti really look like?" "Was she the beauty portrayed by her famous bust?" "Using the latest advances in forensic graphics, science will recreate the mummy's face." "But where does the mummy's story start?" "Joann believes the trail begins in the Valley of the Kings." "Here, several centuries after Nefertiti's death, her tomb was plundered, and her mummy defiled." "Every trace of rank and power stripped." "Even the wig from her head was torn away." "Then, the ultimate sacrilege her face smashed obliterating not just her beauty, but her identity denying her entrance to the afterlife," "a fate worse than death." "But they left behind a telltale clue," "... a clue overlooked by everyone except Dr. Joann Fletcher." "She's an expert in a rare field, ancient Egyptian hair." "13 years ago, buried among the treasures of the Cairo Museum," "Joann noticed an ancient wig." "With certain specializations you do zoom into quite a close range level, you tend to see things that otherwise tend to get dismissed as trivial." "I'm actually drawn to things which other people may have missed." "A wig is like a fingerprint, leading to the time it was made, and who it was made for." "What we're actually looking at here is basically the Nubian wig, the Nubian hairstyle which generally was only worn by royal women between around 1 400 and 1300 B.C." "Pictorial evidence shows Nefertiti wearing a wig exactly like this one." "Could the wig in the museum be hers?" "It was one of those little light bulb moments when, ding, then you sort of think, "No, it's interesting, but no way,"" "and that probably explains why it's taken 13 years to get to this point because it just seemed so incredible." "In hopes of finding Nefertiti," "Joann has traced down the story behind the wig." "In 1 898, a Frenchman named Victor Loret began excavating a tomb sealed for thousands of years." "Deep underground, he stumbled on a hidden chamber." "Inside, three anonymous mummies." "One seemed mutilated." "Beside it, Loret found a wig." "If the records are right, the mummy still lies in the Valley of the Kings." "A century after Victor Loret, Joann heads for the tomb." "It lies 400 miles south of Cairo, in the burial ground of the pharaohs." "To get there, Joann must cross the Nile, whose annual floods gave Egypt the gift of life." "Egyptian authorities have granted her rare access to the mummy." "For Joann, the journey is nerve-racking." "Oh, I've never felt like this in my life, it's really, it's, it's almost fear, anticipation, excitement." "Tremendous, tremendous excitement." "She passes the Colossi of Memnon, a landmark Nefertiti herself often passed." "We're so close, just over those hills into the Valley of the Kings itself, it's the stuff of action adventure stories, really." "It's the moment Joann's been waiting 13 years for." "She's about to set eyes on the mummy she believes is Queen Nefertiti." "Seven a.m., and already the temperature in the Valley of the Kings soars to 120 degrees." "For five centuries, almost all Egypt's kings were buried here." "The valley is honeycombed with tombs." "Could Joann be about to make one of the greatest discoveries since the tomb of King Tut?" "Nefertiti was one of ancient Egypt's most powerful queens." "Said to be a woman of dazzling beauty, she vanished from history 3,000 years ago." "After 13 years of painstaking research" "Egyptologist Dr. Joann Fletcher believes she's finally found her in the Valley of the Kings." "This is it, Valley of the Kings." "It's just so weird," "I mean, I've been coming here for more than 20 years and today, it, it feels like no other day I've ever been here, at all." "Joann is entering a tomb called KV35." "One of the deepest and most spectacular tombs in the valley, KV35 contains four side chambers." "One of these contains the lost mummy." "The tomb was used by priests to house mummies whose own tombs had been looted." "A deep drainage pit on the way in doubled as a deadly trap for tomb robbers." "One chamber was walled up." "Do the remains of Nefertiti lie inside?" "Here we are, the wall, the burial chamber." "Unreal." "It remains sealed, save for a small breach to periodically check the contents within." "It's so exciting." "Joann is waiting for Dr. Zahi Hawass," "Egypt's leading mummy hunter." "Mummies captures our hearts." "They have secret and magic." "If you, if you say the word mummy, it turn the eyes of every child and every man because mummies has magic." "Hi, hi Dr Hawass." "Hello." "Dr. Hawass' official sanction is essential, and the tomb can't be opened without his say-so." "I still can't believe this is happening." "Time is short, the work agonizingly slow." "The temperature passes 1 00 degrees Fahrenheit, the humidity, 90 percent." "An hour later, and the hole becomes a window." "Three mummies lie within." "Oh my God!" "Oh!" "There they all are." "Unbelievable." "Can you see them?" "Yes, all of them." "Are they beautiful?" "They are." "Here, do you want to come in?" "Oh yes, please." "Okay." "Thanks." "You are not scared?" "Oh no, I, I love mummies, ..." "Are you sure?" "...especially these three." "But the face is very impressive." "The face is so regal, isn't it?" "Isn't it?" "Yeah." "Very proud face." "Though over 3,000 years old, they're in good condition." "It was absolutely amazing." "The, the three bodies were there." "The way they're laid out, they're, they're almost sitting up." "They were looking right at me." "Literally just at the other side of the doorway." "That was a moment I will never, ever forget." "All three mummies are unwrapped." "This is a major problem in identifying them." "Their names would have been written on their bandages." "That's certainly a brilliant mummification job." "The embalmers did an excellent job on this lady, really superb." "One is an old woman, another a young man." "The third, Joann believes, could be Nefertiti." "To guard her theory," "Joann has spent the last 13 years referring to the mummy as "Lady X."" "She hasn't even told Dr. Hawass who she thinks the mummy is." "The three mummies here are still making mystery, and are still making people wonder why they were left here." "No one could identify them, some people tried." "Then everyone has a theory about them." "Can Joann find enough evidence to prove her own theory?" "After inspecting the mummies," "Dr. Hawass leaves Joann to continue her investigation." "Joann has just two hours to identify Lady X as Nefertiti." "She's a real enigma." "Now I'm here literally face to face with this woman." "It is so reminiscent of a very famous piece of sculpture." "I mean purely from a visual point of view, it is a striking, striking similarity." "The long neck is a clue, so is the band mark around the head." "Beneath her high crown, Nefertiti's head was shaved, a precaution against lice, disease, and the Egyptian heat." "It is possible that something rather tight-fitting would have been worn, and because there is no natural hair, because it's been removed, it would have made the, the wearing of a tight-fitting tall crown, for instance," "but certainly this individual had something quite tight worn on the head when she was prepared for her burial, the funerary regalia of royalty." "Another distinct feature appears in some depictions of Nefertiti, double-ear-piercing." "And interestingly enough, the left ear has been pierced, not once but twice." "I'm not aware of any other examples of doubly-pierced ears from pharaonic Egypt." "For Joann, the double ear piercing is compelling evidence." "Damage to the mouth reveals another tantalizing clue." "And then in the middle of all this, all these wonderful clues, you have, perhaps, the most telling thing of all." "You have this terrible malicious damage, that after death someone hated this woman so much, it appears that they wanted to literally smash her face in with some kind of blunt instrument." "It is just quite amazing." "It really is quite extraordinary." "I'm, I'm almost lost for words" "After Nefertiti's death, almost all depictions of her were mutilated." "The damage to the face fits the pattern." "This is somebody inflicting real hatred on this face." "It would be very much in keeping... if, if this woman had attained great power in her life and had," "I don't know, annoyed certain individuals, if you like, a terrible thing to do, to what originally would have been a very beautiful face." "Smashing the face meant a mummy couldn't speak its name to the gods, and enter the afterlife." "Why would anyone commit such sacrilege?" "It's very difficult to see this purely as an act of tomb robbery because jewelry was never placed around the mouth area, and so to smash this feature in, this very specific feature, it's as if they're trying to make a very strong point." "The other mummies hold the final clues." "They could be Nefertiti's in-laws, her husband the pharaoh Akhenaten's brother and mother." "His position between these two women is, I find it very touching." "It's almost as if they're protecting him." "And, the arrangement of the bodies perhaps is in some kind of family group." "For Joann, finding Lady X entombed with members of Nefertiti's close family, is an intriguing clue." "But there's absolutely no mistaking that these are royal mummies, and I firmly believe these are members of Akhenaten's own family, his mother, possibly his elder brother who died young, and his great royal wife and, I believe, successor," "Nefertiti herself." "Joann's time is up." "It was totally, totally amazing, and I will never ever feel that feeling again." "It was just electric, it was just phenomenal." "So, I could have died quite happily then, I think." "The mummies are walled up again." "That's correct." "Sad." "They've gone, they've gone away again." "Joann feels her long years of research have finally paid off, yet her quest is far from over." "To prove her theory to the world, she must examine the mummy again, this time with the latest technology." "But the last team to be granted permission to perform scientific tests on mummies in the Valley of the Kings, did so more than a quarter of a century ago." "While she waits for permission," "Joann embarks on an archaeological odyssey in search of the hidden story of Nefertiti's life." "Egyptologist Dr. Joann Fletcher has inspected the mummy she believes is the legendary Queen Nefertiti." "She's a real enigma." "Joann waits for permission to scientifically examine the mummy." "For now, she picks up the archaeological trail in hopes it leads back to the tomb." "Her quest begins on the west bank of the Nile in the ruins of Malqata." "In this once lavish palace," "Joann thinks Nefertiti may have spent her childhood." "And here, she finds her first clue." "Oh wow!" "That's fantastic." "Wow!" "That's incredible." "Look at that." "That has been in there almost three-and-a-half thousand years as fresh as the day it was painted." "These are the, the actual colors, the actual wall scenes, the decoration that all the Amarna royals would have seen," "Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and, of course, Nefertiti." "At its height, Malqata was the most spectacular palace in ancient Egypt, home of the pharaohs." "Joann thinks Nefertiti grew up in this sprawling compound, 500 consorts and concubines, the vast harem of Amenhotep III, one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs." "Perhaps his chief wife, the formidable Queen Tiye, plucked from this harem a bride for her son." "She would have no doubt had a lot of influence in her son's choice of wife, and I don't think she'd have just selected anybody." "It's quite possible that Nefertiti was sort of handpicked and sort of groomed for this role." "Nefertiti's bond with Queen Tiye might explain why the two mummies were entombed together." "The teenage youth between them, thought to be Queen's Tiye eldest son, Tuthmosis, plays a crucial role in Nefertiti's childhood." "Heir to the throne, Tuthmosis dies young, a twist of fate that places Akhenaten and Nefertiti next in line to rule Egypt." "But from the day they're crowned, tension is growing with the high priests, guardians of Egypt's most important god." "Called the cult of Amun, their power rivals that of the pharaoh himself." "They were the traditional elite, they were conservative, predominantly male, very set in their ways and very, very rich." "Vowing to curb their power, the royal couple take the fight to the heart of the Amun cult's power base, the Temple of Karnak." "Built in the ancient capital of Thebes," "Karnak was probably the most spectacular temple complex the world has known." "The priests' daily rituals of purification helped maintain order in the entire universe, an all-important concept the ancient Egyptians called maat." "Basically, it just meant the right way of doing things, the proper way, truth, justice, freedom, all of these things that we consider positive." "The alternative to it was chaos." "It was fear, danger, death, torture, the heat of the desert." "All of these unpleasant things were its antithesis." "The whole point of the exercise, really, in ancient Egypt, was to maintain maat, to maintain the proper order of things." "The very center of this ordered cosmos lies within the temple itself where, in the midst of a quarter mile long corridor, the god Amun was said to dwell, hidden in darkness." "Joann has come to Karnak to uncover evidence of a conflict that would tear Egypt apart, a clash of ideas in which Nefertiti herself would play a leading role." "Karnak was built up over generations." "By time-honored custom, each pharaoh was expected to dedicate yet more temples to Amun." "Akhenaten and his wife broke with tradition, and plunged Karnak into chaos." "In search of clues," "Joann climbs a secret passage once used by priests." "It leads to the top of a pylon, a traditional gate tower." "It's really, really narrow." "And then I can hear the noise of bats." "This must have been where the priests of Amun came, to get to the very top of the temple where they have their observatories,   and they could chart the stars, the course of the planets," "and work out when exactly to celebrate the sacred rituals that were so important for the running of the country." "Wow!" "Amazing!" "From her vantage, Joann can see the birthplace of a revolution." "In the distance, four gigantic temples once stood." "Within, the royal couple worship the new supreme being, the sun-god, the Aten." "Appointing themselves the Aten's high priest and priestess, the king and queen vow to wrest power from the priests of Amun." "Within a few years, the monuments they built to the Aten have eclipsed the old temples of Karnak." "To the Amun priests, whose gods and rituals are shrouded in darkness, the Aten temples are sacrilege." "The Aten temples no longer remain, but an earthquake revealed their building blocks, hidden for thousands of years inside this vast pylon." "Come in." "Searching for clues to Nefertiti's role in the new sun religion," "Joann gets special permission to view the rarely seen blocks." "Wow!" "This is amazing, absolutely amazing." "The carvings capture a snapshot of a revolution." "You can see here." "Oh wow, yeah, that's wonderful." "As you see here, it's very fantastic images." "This is wonderful." "Nefertiti and again, ...Yes, as you see here." "More and more, she's everywhere!" "Oh, these are fantastic!" "Nefertiti's portrayal is unprecedented." "This really just confirmed that she was a woman of tremendous importance to be shown so frequently in this way." "The images confirm Nefertiti played a key role in building the sun temples to the Aten." "They, they really are much more than just pretty pictures, aren't they?" "And to deface them and to use them as filling, that really does neutralize any force they had." "It takes away all their magical, mystical power." "Garbed in his ceremonial wig, the high priest of Amun saw the sun temples as blasphemy," "and a threat to his power." "Around Regnal Year Five, Akhenaten's been king for five years, and there's an, a very oblique reference in the text which talks about evil words he heard." "There was some kind of plot or a conspiracy, perhaps." "The priests had had enough." "To thwart the conspiracy, the royal couple makes a radical move." "They decide to abandon Thebes, capital of Egypt for hundreds of years." "Inspired by a vision of his sun god, the Aten," "Akhenaten sets off into the desert." "He seeks a place to build a new capital, a haven far from his enemies, and a base for launching a revolution." "A revolution that led to Nefertiti becoming the most powerful woman in the world." "Seeking to found a new city," "Nefertiti's husband sets off into the desert." "The pharaoh Akhenaten vows to abandon the ancient capital of Thebes, and build a new Egypt." "On her quest to recreate Nefertiti's life," "Egyptologist Dr. Joann Fletcher heads for the spot Akhenaten chose." "200 miles north of Thebes, it's now called Amarna." "Akhenaten picked one of the most remote and inhospitable regions in all Egypt." "He actually announces that he decided to found the city in this spot because the Aten, his father, led him to it." "The site looks much as it did when Akhenaten found it more than 3,000 years ago." "Joann can even see the distinctive cliffs that Akhenaten interpreted as an omen that he had found the right place." "They form the same shape as the hieroglyph for horizon." "On certain days of the year, the sun seemed to be reborn between the two mountains," "the perfect spot for a city dedicated to the sun." "With Nefertiti, Akhenaten began planning a city like no other in Egypt's history, a city designed to venerate the sun, even in the layout of roads and the placement of temples." "Thousands of people follow the pharaoh and his wife into the desert." "They have little choice." "Where the pharaoh is, so is the work." "Masons and craftsmen come to build the new city." "Converts come to worship the new god, and opportunists come to exploit the new frontier." "As Amarna nears completion, the king and queen journey from Thebes to their new home." "Built within a few years at lightning speed," "Amarna is one of the first planned settlements in history." "The royal couple arrives to the acclaim of their subjects, soon to number 50,000." "As a sign of the new times, they seem to adopt an informality never before displayed by royalty." "Freed from tradition, the royal couple is poised to create a new Egypt." "The country hovers on the brink of upheaval." "They'd taken away the traditional gods by Year Five, and they'd simply replaced the gods with themselves." "The only way effectively to reach the Aten, to reach the gods, was through the royal family." "You had to worship them, and they would, in turn, pass on your best wishes to the Aten." "In Amarna's ruins, Joann looks for clues to Nefertiti's life." "Ancient art depicts a happy family playing with their daughters." "The loving couple, the queen ever at the king's side." "The art style itself is more natural than ever before." "From Amarna comes the most famous image ever made of Nefertiti." "But how realistic was this bust?" "Joann is seeking the woman behind the image." "In a nobleman's tomb beneath the ruined city, she scrutinizes paintings for clues to Nefertiti's life." "So, here I am entering the first chamber of this wonderfully well carved rock cut tomb." "Some wonderful carvings on here." "It's amazing, really, really amazing." "I got two chariot riders here, one on the left, one on the right, and just checking out the hieroglyphs." "In fact, this I can actually read." "This says, "the great royal wife,"" "so the, the figure on the left must be Nefertiti herself." "Now she was driving her own chariot." "Independent woman, very nice scene." "A scene that would have incensed Egypt's old order." "A queen competing with a king." "Unthinkable." "More proof that Nefertiti wielded power behind the throne." "Unlike most queens in Ancient Egypt, she played a very significant role in the court and, indeed, she and her husband are frequently shown and described as equals." "Some depictions of Nefertiti go even further." "She assumes the duties of the pharaoh himself." "She was depicted in a scene smiting an enemy." "Only kings, kingship can smite enemies not queenship at all." "This is a requirement of a king." "Dr. Fletcher believes Nefertiti paid a terrible price for her independence." "The clues lie in these pictures." "What's this coming right along?" "Registers of, of running men, looks as if they're soldiers, almost." "They're actually holding a whole array of weapons, axes, spears, shields, bows and arrows." "I've never seen this before, a royal couple surrounded by so many military men." "It gives you a very, very kind of sinister air, in fact." "Did the royal art hide unpleasant truths?" "And we know that they had a high military presence there to keep them safe, to keep people in, maybe  as much as to keep people out, but because the king seems to have been relatively unpopular at home," "to say the least, he needed that high military presence so all this idea of a close warm family unit is really a cynical exercise in, in manipulating one's own personal and public image." "Amarna was built on dreams and propaganda, but the one enemy the guards couldn't keep out was truth." "Reality was about to come crashing in for Nefertiti." "From the sands of Egypt, Dr. Joann Fletcher resurrects a legend." "She believes she's found Nefertiti's mummy, hidden in a sealed chamber in the Valley of the Kings." "To restore its identity," "Joann must recreate the lost queen's mysterious life." "Amid the ruins of the capital built by Nefertiti and her husband Akhenaten wall paintings suggest a state of fear." "I've never seen this before, a royal couple surrounded by so many military men." "What really went on during the couple's supposed idyllic reign?" "Though portrayed as a utopia," "Amarna is designed for a darker purpose." "Flanked by cliffs on three sides and the Nile on the fourth," "Amarna is a citadel." "From this bastion, the royal couple unleash a revolution." "First target, the priests of Amun." "To pay for Amarna and settle old scores," "Nefertiti and Akhenaten plunder the temples of Karnak." "Thousands of priests are thrown out of office." "The shock wave reverberates across Egypt." "The traditional heart of each community was the temple." "These were now closed down." "There was mass unemployment and yet, it, it just wasn't done to openly criticize the king." "What began as a utopia turns into a reign of terror." "The old gods are brutally swept aside by the new cult of the Aten." "Having outlawed thousands of years of tradition," "Akhenaten and Nefertiti create a crisis of faith in Egypt." "Akhenaten had taken away peoples' belief system and given them nothing real in return." "And it's also interesting it's at this point when people are not just shown as bowing to the royal family, but face down in the dirt grovelling, and I think this is a really disturbing undercurrent." "Egypt lurches into economic crisis and massive social disorder." "With the army suppressing dissent at home," "Egypt's borders go unguarded." "Tablets found in the sands, addressed to Akhenaten, reveal a country sliding toward catastrophe." "Unrepentant, Akhenaten presses on with the transformation of Egypt, no matter the cost." "We can only imagine what Nefertiti must have thought because she was ever the pragmatist." "I don't think Akhenaten would have even noticed or cared." "He was such a terrible politician." "But Nefertiti, for her, alarm bells must have rung," ""How can we pull this back, how can we retrieve this situation?" "It's all starting to fragment."" "Nefertiti, though, faces a crisis of her own, a rival threatening her position in the royal household." "Nefertiti bore Akhenaten six daughters but a minor wife, named Kiya, gives him what he really wants, a son." "The future king Tutankhamun." "Yet, Kiya's time as the pharaoh's favorite seemed short-lived." "In Year 1 1 of Akhenaten's reign, she disappears from the records." "No one knows why." "Some think she fell victim to a jealous Nefertiti." "You've got this idea of this, this wonderful family unit actually far more devious and dark than was previously imagined." "Joann's investigation is beginning to build a profile of what the real Nefertiti was like." "I think she knew exactly what she was doing and, and how she would achieve her ends." "I see her as a very distant kind of person, a very cold and aloof person, who manipulated everyone around her, in the best way she saw fit." "Nefertiti's ability to manipulate situations to her own advantage, seems to be confirmed a year after Kiya's disappearance." "Her response to the crisis came soon enough." "In Year 12 of Akhenaten's reign, while Egypt totters on the brink of collapse, an extraordinary event takes place in Amarna, a huge public celebration, called a durbar, perhaps planned by Nefertiti herself, to reassure the people that all is well." "The sight that greets the guests is unprecedented." "Nefertiti sits at her husband's side not as a mere queen, but co-regent, his equal." "She is now the most powerful woman on Earth." "But, her moment of triumph is marred by disaster." "Amid the tribute for the royal couple is a deadly gift, plague." "What the disease was, the records don't say, but it must have spread throughout the city and into the heart of the royal palace because it seems to have killed one of Nefertiti's beloved daughters." "In Year 1 4, Nefertiti herself vanishes from the records." "Some Egyptologists believe she died of plague." "Others think she lost power to a male rival called Smenkhare, whose name replaced hers in the records." "This mysterious figure became Akhenaten's co-regent, and succeeded him as Egypt's next pharaoh." "Some believe this skeleton in the Cairo Museum is Smenkhare." "But many Egyptologists now believe Smenkhare was another name for Nefertiti, a theory Joann hopes to confirm." "Could the legendary queen have lived on and ruled Egypt as the pharaoh Smenkhare?" "To prove the theory," "Joann must find evidence that the mummy in KV35 is actually a female pharaoh." "After six months of waiting, she at last has the chance to prove it." "The Egyptian authorities have given her permission to re-enter the tomb." "Back in Britain, one of the world's leading human remains specialists," "Professor Don Brothwell, gathers a team of experts." "One of the first scientists to examine the famous Ice Man," "Brothwell has also investigated mass graves in Kosovo." "His team tests a portable digital x-ray on a mummified body." "The most advanced of its kind in the world, it delivers digital images in seconds that will help to identify the mummy in KV35." "They will also form the basis of a unique experiment undertaken by a team of leading facial reconstruction experts." "They'll use the latest forensic graphics to recreate the face of Lady X." "After 3,000 years, will we gaze on the real face of Nefertiti?" "Egyptologist Dr. Joann Fletcher has returned to the Valley of the Kings." "Six months ago, Joann found what could be the mummy of Nefertiti." "Now, she's back with a team of top British scientists, to try and prove it." "Not for a quarter of a century has a scientific expedition of this size been allowed in the world's most famous graveyard." "It takes 22 porters to carry the delicate equipment down into tomb KV35." "Once again, the wall comes down." "For Joann, it's nerve wracking." "Will the tests help prove the mummy is Nefertiti, or prove her wrong?" "Joann knows she'll have to overcome long-established views held by other experts." "I think we have several problems with the available data." "The difficulty, even of determining conclusively that this is the mummy of a female, is a problem." "She looks like a young lady in the age of 1 5." "Could the mummy be the wrong age and sex?" "It's a question for the scientists." "To prevent bias, they are operating blind, unaware of Joann's theory about the mummy's identity." "Wow, so yeah, I can see them there." "Who wants to come and have a look?" "Absolutely fantastic!" "Oh yes, but the bodies are in very good preservation and very good condition too,   I see." "Dusty, but nevertheless." "Carefully, the team begins unpacking their precious equipment." "Forbidden to perform invasive DNA tests, they rely on the latest x-ray technology." "Let's see, we're leaving it at 55 and 12." "The digital imaging equipment will yield x-rays in seconds." "A specially-designed rig has been built for the examination." "It's tense work." "One tiny slip could shatter the brittle mummies." "Let's see whether, in fact, if it's straining anything important..." "Carefully, radiographer Andrea Bates begins the digital scans." "It's very new technology." "This is using electronics to get a digital image, the same way as digital cameras can get an instant picture." "It goes straight into the computer,   and it can be post-processed, it can be moved around much more easily." "It's much more flexible to, for the viewer than conventional x-ray film." "In the heat and humidity, the equipment seems to be holding up." "X-rays!" "Yes, that's perfect." "Yeah, fine." "The x-rays quickly answer one question the mummy's gender." "It's female." "In terms of its skeletal morphology, it's fairly gracile and, I think, without any doubt it's female." "Halfway, doctor, I think..." "Moving on to the chest, the team gets their first tantalizing clues to the mummy's identity." "Okay!" "That's a good image." "What emerges is full of promise." "Abdominal area, there's the top of the pelvis, look, and the lumbar vertebrae, the lower part of the ribs." "Lots of packing, as you see, and ah, ha, look there." "Now, that's not normal packing." "Yeah, lots of packing." "No, that's not." "That's clearly metallic, isn't it?" "It is." "That looks like..." "That looks like a jewelry element to me." "Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" "Yeah, yeah." "Yeah." "The tiny shapes are beads left behind when tomb robbers ripped jewelry from Lady X's neck." "At once, Joann recognizes their significance." "Can we zoom in those again, because that looks like a little amulet, an ancient Egyptian amulet that they used in jewelry as sort of a Nefer shape." "And these things would be worn in profusion all around the neck." "Nefertiti shares her name with distinctively shaped beads, called Nefer beads, known to have been worn by Amarnan royalty." "It's almost a centimeter long, so we've got a, a royal mummy, quite possibly, almost, well definitely with this profusion of sort of little jewelry elements in amongst the wrappings and in amongst the mummification materials," "so this is a really, really high status individual." "The team has discovered a vital clue to the mummy's identity." "Next, they begin scanning the mummy's head and spine." "Looks good, I think we'll start with that." "Okay!" "Yeah, good detail of the skull and the teeth." "Is this the skull of ancient Egypt's most beautiful woman?" "These images may hold the answer." "Detail is beautiful, isn't it?" "Yeah, it is." "From them, scientists will attempt to forensically reconstruct Lady X's face." "The x-rays also show she still has her brain, a telling clue for mummy chemist Dr. Stephen Buckley." "Traditionally, the brain was removed during mummification, but Nefertiti's immediate predecessors broke with custom and kept their brains intact." "The x-rays provide Buckley another clue, signs of a distinctive embalming fluid." "What's of interest to me are these bits here, these sort of artifacts that are in with the tissue and wrappings." "What, these little white, white blobs?" "That's right, sort of crystal." "White blocks." "Yeah, that's right." "It shows up as a snowflake effect." "The snowflake effect in the x-rays is very characteristic of the 1 8th dynasty, and that combined with the very fine quality of embalming and the brain remaining in-situ confirm the late 1 8th dynasty date for this mummy." "Nefertiti came from the 1 8th dynasty, an encouraging coincidence." "As the day draws on and the tests continue," "Don Brothwell hits a stumbling block." "His assessment is tentative, but potentially devastating." "What can you tell from this?" "The, the wisdom teeth, which, which are immature, not developed and erupted properly, so all in all, it does look as if the individual's young." "Youngish, yeah." "Yeah, late teens to early adult." "Did you say early adult?" "The vertebrae, the spine shows some evidence of this." "Age is notoriously difficult to assess using x-rays, but if Brothwell's first guess is correct, it's the end of the road for Joann." "Nefertiti gave birth to six children." "She can't be a young woman." "Even if she married in childhood, as Egyptian royalty often did, she must have reached her mid-20s by her death." "With two more days to go, could Joann's theory be disproved, and Nefertiti vanish once more?" "In the Valley of the Kings, the investigation in tomb KV35 reaches the halfway mark." "Okay, x-rays!" "Armed with forensic science, the team examines a mummy walled up in a hidden chamber for more than 3,000 years." "Dr. Joann Fletcher believes it's none other than the legendary Queen Nefertiti." "But a shadow of doubt is cast by Don Brothwell, the team's human remains expert." "It's a youngish individual, late teens, to early adult." "You said early adult?" "If true, the mummy dubbed "Lady X," died too young to be Nefertiti." "Joann won't know for sure, until the whole body is x-ray'd." "ready?" "That's good." "You've got just the top of the iliac crest, so with a bit of luck, you could more or less get all of the pelvis in there." "Okay, are you ready?" "X-rays!" "After several nail-biting hours, a more encouraging picture slowly emerges." "We're in the thoracic area." "There's the top of the pelvis." "So it started..." "Here, here are the lumbars, and there's the lower part of the ribs The middle of the body, yeah." "As the x-rays moved down the body and more details emerged, the radiographers decided that no, this is probably somebody considerably older than this." "The long bones had fused, the detail around the pelvis area indicated somebody of greater maturity." "So, we were looking at someone aged at least 25, possibly as old as 30." "The aging information is fairly good." "I could narrow it a wee bit, and suggest that maybe it's not quite up to 30, but I wouldn't want to say, extend it to 35." "So far, so good." "A royal mummy about the right age." "The whole thing was a total roller coaster." "It was a man, it was a woman, it was a young girl, it was an older woman, it was very, very stressful." "So, let's start with the, an estimate of the." "Yeah, desiccation." "But there's another enigma." "How did she die?" "I just noticed there is a small cut there." "Yes, there is." "You can see it from this angle, really clearly." "Yeah, what we thought was ragged damage is straight." "It's not, is it?" "Yeah." "But it, it follows on into that superficial..." "Yeah, it does." "...mark there, so that is, in fact, a sharp blade, so it's a cut." "So it would have come down from what, this angle?" "From this angle." "So, behind from the left?" "Joann assumed the damage to the face was caused centuries after the mummy's burial." "Don disagrees." "The big question is how dry the bodies were." "In other words, whether it could have happened not so many months after mummification." "Yeah." "Joann begins a close examination of the body." "She's joined by Dr. El Magani, a mummy conservationist from the Cairo Museum." "They probe for more clues." "What do you think that is Dr. Samia?" "It's a cut." "It's a cut?" "Yeah." "Maybe a wound?" "Maybe, maybe." "Across the rib cage, they notice a 12-centimeter gash." "It could be, so if, if she was..." "Yes...." "putting her arm up, maybe, or something, and that would give access to the side wouldn't it?" "Yes, on this side." "The wounds raise disturbing questions about the mummy's fate." "The next revelation suggests Lady X was more than a queen." "It lies in the wrappings, torn from the body by tomb robbers." "Look at, this really is royal." "Yeah, isn't it?" "Beautiful royal linen." "Gorgeous, we can't find." "Only for the kings." "Only for the kings, exactly." "This is wonderful." "What's, what's that?" "What's under there?" "The fingers, there is some fingers here." "Something under there." "But this, this could be the missing arm Oh, I don't believe it!" "This is fantastic." "Could I...exciting." "Oh look at the dust rising up." "I don't believe this." "This is the arm that's been missing for nearly a hundred years." "It's an extraordinary find." "A hundred years ago, the mummy was found with a bent right arm." "Sometime later, it was replaced with a straight arm." "Oh fantastic!" "It was seen in the 1900's and then no one's seen it since, and it's the right arm, just like the original report said, and it's clutching a scepter, but definitely a woman's hand." "Yeah." "And henna, again, an you see on the fingernail, henna?" "Henna?" "So that is tremendously exciting." "Can I see if it?" "Yes, yes." "Oh, this is, this is the crowning moment, it really is, if this is this lady's hand." "Oh, wow, look." "Yeah." "Yeah, in this position." "That is superb!" "And this one that doesn't seem to fit, if, if that was returned to its rightful owner, and we can imagine how this lady, like this, with the scepter..." "Yeah." "Oh this is fantastic, Dr. Samia, this is really fantastic!" "The new-found limb is a crucial piece of evidence." "A bent right arm was the symbol of a pharaoh." "The discovery supports the theory that Nefertiti outlived her husband, and took the throne herself, a pharaoh in her own right." "We only find this in the art of kings who are buried with the right arm, or both arms like this." "Queens have the left, kings have that, or that, and that really does speak volumes because if this right arm does belong to the younger woman, then it is evidence that she wielded incredible powers in her life." "Does the bent right arm belong to Lady X?" "The team undertakes a series of x-rays to find out." "X-rays." "We can see the break there." "It's a beautifully defined kind of break, isn't it?" "And I wonder whether that, we'll have to do a careful comparison." "We'll have to do a very careful comparison." "Yeah, does it correspond to the body?" "So it's not only a question of looking at bone density and so forth, but also the way that the arms, both arms, were mummified." "And the question is whether they are they similar to the, to the left arm on the body." "No one can say until the x-rays are meticulously analyzed." "Confirmation must wait until the team returns to Britain." "The expedition's time is up." "Joann may never again get this close to the mummy." "I've established in my own mind, certainly, that this is a royal woman of the late 1 8th dynasty, potentially a female pharaoh." "She's quite incredible, and I certainly think she could well be the great Queen Nefertiti." "Science has solved some of the mysteries surrounding Lady X, but others persist." "Were the terrible wounds to her face and body accidental, or premeditated?" "The scientific team returns to Britain to find out." "Joann heads back to Amarna to solve another riddle, whether Nefertiti succeeded Akhenaten as the pharaoh Smenkhare." "To prove it, Joann needs evidence Nefertiti outlived her husband." "Akhenaten died in Year 1 7 of his reign." "His cause of death remains unknown." "What matters more is who buried him." "His tomb lies four miles from Amarna, facing the rising sun." "I believe it would have been she who led the funerary rituals, the funerary rites as Akhenaten's chosen successor and heir." "Certainly, as his co-regent, she would have fulfilled the criteria, she would have been the, the, the proper choice." "As her husband's heir, only Nefertiti could have conducted the sacred "opening of the mouth"" "ritual that gave him immortality." "Wow!" "This is amazing." "It's a really, really steep rock cut corridor going down and down into the rock." "And this is where Akhenaten's funeral procession would have gone, presumably led by Queen Nefertiti herself." "Probably the young Tutankhamun would have been there." "It's absolutely fantastic, right in the footsteps of Nefertiti." "According to history, Nefertiti should already have been buried in this section of the tomb." "Joann finds evidence to the contrary." "This is supposed to be the tomb of Queen Nefertiti, but this is completely, completely unfinished." "It's in a very, very rough state." "The ceilings, the walls, the pillars, they're all very rough." "I don't just, I just don't buy it for a minute." "I don't think she was buried here at all." "But Akhenaten was." "Oh wow!" "So this is Akhenaten's burial chamber?" "His tomb was definitely finished." "And this slab in front of me would have been where his sarcophagus was, with his mummified body inside it." "It's almost certain she would have stood absolutely where I'm standing now, conducting the funeral rites of a dead husband." "More proof Nefertiti was alive when Akhenaten was buried appears on his sarcophagus, in the Cairo Museum." "She's standing at each corner of the sarcophagus with her arms out, in a protective pose." "She's obviously been selected to replace the traditional goddesses." "She's there in a protective capacity." "Only she can protect the soul of the king in the afterlife." "The queen became a goddess, pharaoh in her own right." "But her husband's death signaled the end of the revolution." "The empire teetered on the verge of collapse." "To save Egypt," "Nefertiti would turn her back on everything she held dear, even her god." "Egyptologist Dr. Joann Fletcher has led a team to x-ray the mummy she believes is Nefertiti." "Now, the data will be used to recreate the mummy's face." "A specialist unit based at Nottingham University, England, has been selected for the task." "They are pioneers in computerized facial reconstruction, more used to working on unidentified murder victims than 3,000-year-old mummies." "When we do any sort of forensic work, we always work as blind as we can." "We work with the data we are given, and nothing more, which may affect ourjudgment on that particular case." "The first hurdle, turning x-rays into a three-dimensional computer model of the mummy's skull." "It's time-consuming work and requires mapping thousands of points." "Once complete, markers are placed on the 3-D skull to indicate skin depth." "The head is now ready for the complicated task of adding muscle and flesh." "In Egypt, Dr. Joann Fletcher tracks down a final mystery." "She's convinced Nefertiti wasn't buried in Amarna." "But how did she end up 200 miles away in the Valley of the Kings?" "After her husband's death," "Nefertiti inherits a kingdom in the process of complete breakdown." "Joann believes Nefertiti quickly takes charge." "First, she takes steps to protect herself and her dynasty." "To secure her rule and that of her heirs," "Joann thinks Nefertiti marries her daughter, Ankhesenamun, to her stepson, the future King Tut." "What happens next goes unrecorded, but Joann believes she may have the answer." "If this individual was Nefertiti ruling as sole pharaoh, she would have had to have sort of undergone a policy of damage limitation." "What could she do with the empire?" "It was falling to pieces." "She had to start trying to  win back Egypt's empire abroad, consolidate things at home, which she couldn't do from the middle of nowhere, at Amarna." "Joann thinks Nefertiti left Amarna and traveled to Thebes with her husband's body." "The new religion he and Nefertiti started was dead." "He would be reburied according to the old ways, a gesture to pacify her old enemies, the priests of Amun." "Joann believes Nefertiti reopened the temple of Karnak and reinstated the Amun priests," "a diplomatic coup that turned former enemies into unlikely allies." "The old god Amun held sway over Egypt once more." "She would have gone back to Thebes, trying to, presumably, reach some kind of understanding with the traditional clergy, maybe reopen the temples." "The temples were the key to all this." "She can reopen the temple, she can take back the hearts and minds of the people, and if this meant coming to some sort of understanding  with her former enemies, then this is what she would do." "Clues to Nefertiti's determination still survive at Karnak." "Statues depict Tutankhamun and his wife," "Ankhesenamun, as traditional gods." "Perhaps Nefertiti ordered them instructed in the old ways." "For her dynasty to survive, order had to be restored, whatever the cost." "But the chaos Nefertiti and her husband wrought was not easily forgotten, or forgiven." "Joann thinks Nefertiti reigned in Thebes until her death a year or so later." "How she died, we can only guess." "Was it foul play?" "Could the Amun priests have murdered her?" "Was she in any way mysteriously bumped off by people with a vested interest in getting rid of all trace of the Amarna Dynasty?" "We don't exactly know what happened to Nefertiti, because all we have is a, is a mention of a three-year reign of Akhenaten's successor, but what happened then  is like so much else in the Amarna period," "very much shrouded in mystery." "A mystery that may be on the verge of being solved." "I just noticed there is a small cut there." "Yes, there is." "During the examination in the tomb, the team made a dramatic discovery, signs of foul play." "What do you think that is, Dr. Samia?" "It's a cut." "It's a cut?" "The theory is tested by Professor Don Brothwell, the team's human remains expert." "Just like a mummy, this is." "Substituting pig carcasses for human bodies, he tries to simulate the damage to Lady X." "He begins by duplicating the wounds on a fresh pig, whose flesh is similar to a human's." "Well that's not penetrating as deep as the ax, by any means." "Brothwell repeats the test on a vacuum dried pig." "Almost all moisture has been removed from the body, a process that imitates mummification." "That went deep." "It certainly did." "Brothwell replicates the wounds, carefully noting the differences." "There are some impressive differences." "What is absolutely certain is that the cut into her chest is only seen in the fresh pig, whereas in the case of the dried pig, in fact, we couldn't get a knife to penetrate through at all," "so that's, argues very strongly that the body was fairly fresh." "On the, the snout area in the fresh pig, the, both machete and the ax produce injuries which are remark, far more similar, I think, to the injury we have on the young woman mummy." "This could be a murder." "My guess is that these were received about the time of death or after death." "In fact, she would not have survived." "When the facial wound was delivered remains uncertain, but the wound to the ribs was almost certainly dealt before death." "Certainly, Nefertiti and Akhenaten made plenty of enemies in their life." "Certainly, they whipped up enough hatred amongst the, the traditionalists of Egypt, to have warranted a "sticky end," shall we say." "As to whether it's evidence for murder I really wouldn't like to say because again, it is such speculation." "I think all we can say is it's very interesting." "Whether Nefertiti was murdered, we may never know." "But if Lady X is Nefertiti, someone went to a lot of trouble to erase her identity." "Joann believes they even ripped off the bent arm, symbol of her power as pharaoh." "But is she right?" "Chemist Dr. Stephen Buckley has pieced together the puzzle." "After analyzing the straight right arm placed beside Lady X's body, he concludes it's not hers." "It clearly doesn't fit, it's too long, about two centimeters too long." "Also the use the embalming materials is quite different compared to the left arm of Lady X that's, is still attached to the body, so clearly this cannot belong." "Does the bent right arm found by Joann belong to Lady X?" "The proportions of the bones is about the right sort of robustness, if you like, and also the coloration on the forearm is, is similar to that on the left forearm of Lady X that's, is still attached." "Joann believes the work of the scientists has helped identify a female pharaoh." "For her, it can be only one woman." "The completely shaven head." "The double pierced ears." "The fact that we know from the bone measurements that the right arm was originally in this position." "The age could be someone as old as 30. in my mind, the idea that this individual is indeed Nefertiti." "Some experts remain skeptical." "They think final identification will require future developments in DNA testing." "DNA is not accurate for the mummies." "Scientists will do DNA today." "They still say that we need more years to do more, to improve DNA method, that's why I will wait." "A few years down the line, I think we'll be in a much better position to say whether this is or is not Nefertiti." "We're not at that point yet." "I think this identification of the third mummy to be" "Queen Nefertiti, it's speculation." "But Joann remains convinced she's made the discovery of a lifetime." "And with her team, assembled the best case now possible." "All we're putting together is a body of evidence that is very, very strong, nothing more, nothing less, and we, we stand by that because we say this could well be Nefertiti herself." "Her quest to identify the lost mummy nears an end." "The final clue waits to be examined, one that could convince skeptics Lady X is Nefertiti." "Her reconstructed face." "Will the mummy look like the famous bust of Nefertiti?" "Egyptologist Dr. Joann Fletcher believes she's finally tracked down the lost Queen Nefertiti." "Armed with x-rays of the mummy known as Lady X, a team of computer specialists recreates her face." "On a 3-D model of her skull, they graft muscle and flesh." "The technique has major advantages over old-fashioned clay reconstruction." "If I did a reconstruction in clay from a skull, and then a little later I did another one," "I'd get a slightly different face." "But, with a computer, if we have the same skull and the same data, we get the same face." "Once complete, the face is handed to a graphic artist for the finishing touches." "Could the mummy's face really be that of Nefertiti?" "70 days after Nefertiti's death, her mummification is complete." "The royal embalmers cast spells and perform rituals to help preserve the body for all eternity." "She's now ready to meet her god." "She led an extraordinary life." "Child bride, queen, living goddess and pharaoh," "heretic." "A revolutionary who tried to transform Egypt and failed, plunging her country into a maelstrom that may have led to her death." "Joann believes Nefertiti was buried in the Valley of the Kings, her funeral procession led by her stepson King Tut, and her daughter Ankhesenamun, the new heirs to her throne." "Little did the children suspect their mother's mortal remains would be violated." "The unforgiving priests of Amun, the men Nefertiti and her husband tried to destroy, exacted a terrible retribution." "In Karnak, the monuments she helped build were defaced, torn down, and trampled into dust." "The great sun temples vanished." "Amarna was dismantled block by block." "Joann believes she's traced Nefertiti's story back to Thebes and the burial ground of the pharaohs, to tomb KV35, where a desecrated body was abandoned and walled up with her relatives, never meant to be found." "They've been anonymous for 3,000 years they've been misidentified." "And so at the very least, what we've done is placed them in the correct space and time." "They are members of the late 1 8th dynasty royal family." "Of that I have no doubt." "And, if this is indeed Nefertiti, then it would be wonderful to think that we've  given back a name which was taken away from her with such malice, so very long ago." "For Joann, the investigation in Egypt is over." "She returns to England to see if the last piece of the puzzle falls into place." "Awaiting her is the final question:" "will the face of Lady X resemble the artworks of Nefertiti?" "The reconstructed face is almost complete." "A computer graphic artist adds features believed to be close to those of the ancient Egyptians." "What will the finished face look like?" "Joann's about to find out." "Hello!" "The team gathers for the unveiling." "He's the expert." "Hi Joann." "How are you?" "How are you?" "Hello." "It's the moment of revelation." "Go on in." "Brilliant." "Thank you." "Slowly, the process of creating Lady's X face unfolds before her." "Oh, it's incredible, that's absolutely incredible." "Oh, it's, it's amazing." "She's, she looks such a kind of charismatic figure, very strong, very capable, but, but perfect." "She was such a beautiful face." "Next, Nefertiti's characteristic crown and earrings are added." "Will life imitate art?" "And you can really see what it is the art is trying to put across because if this is indeed the face of Nefertiti, then, it encapsulates so many of the features that you see in the art." "Gazing upon what she believes to be Nefertiti is a deeply symbolic moment for Joann." "Yeah, that's, that's amazing." "The likeness is uncanny." "After her 13-year quest," "Joann believes she's restored the mummy's identity, and given Nefertiti back her name." "Having restored their potential identity is sort of giving them access back into the afterlife." "You are restoring their name." "To speak the name of the dead is to make them live again, that's what the ancients believed, and in some ways, that's what I believe too." "After more than 3,000 years, the curse on Nefertiti has been lifted." "The Egyptian Book of the Dead describes the trials of a lost soul." "For when a soul recovers its name, it is once again made whole." "It can speak to the gods and be restored to its rightful place in the afterlife." "Returning to the land it once knew, it can complete the soul's last journey to eternity." "Hail to you, o gods, for now I know my name." "Whatever evil speech I made, whatever evil deed I did, let the Aten himself rise up to defend me." "For now at last I, Nefertiti, shall enter eternity!"