It is one of Egypt's enduring mysteries. What happened to Nefertiti and her husband, Akhenaten — the radical king, and likely father of King Tut? In a dark and mysterious tomb located in the Valley of the Kings, there is a small chamber with two mummies without sarcophagi or wrappings. At times, both have been identified as Queen Nefertiti by scholars, filmmakers and historians. But the evidence has been circumstantial at best.

Now, for the first time, National Geographic Channel (NGC) and Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, use a CT scan machine that can go inside these two mummies to get scientific evidence that will establish whether either could be Nefertiti — and if not, who they may be. On Monday, July 16 [2007], at 9 p.m. ET/PT, NGC presents a one-hour special, "Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty," that documents the high-tech forensic investigation conducted by an international team dedicated to resolving the fate of the famed queen.

Some ancient Egyptian history reads like a soap opera. In the city of Amarna, there lived Egypt's most famous royal spouse, Nefertiti, and her beloved husband, Akhenaten, the pharaoh. They were revolutionary leaders, reinventing Egyptian religion and building a new capital city to honour the sun god. Also present at this time were Akhenaten's secondary wife, Kiya, who many scholars believe was the mother of King Tut, as well as Akhenaten's mother, the powerful Queen Tiye. It was a tangled set of relationships that would result in the birth of the legendary King Tut and the eventual disappearance of all the other key players. What happened to members of Tut's royal family, the lost dynasty of Amarna? ...

Don't forget that the Hatshepsut programme is also on Discovery Channel the night before. No news on non-US showing dates.

National Geographic Channel Goes in Search of Nefertiti and Instead May Have Solved the Mystery of King Tut's Father, National Geographic Channel via PRNewswire, USA, July 10, 2007.

Previously:

CT-scans of Egyptian Mummies from the Valley of the Kings, July 11, 2007.

Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified KV55 Mummy, July 11, 2007.

Using a portable CT-scan machine donated to the Supreme Council of Antiquities by the National Geographic Society and Siemens, Inc., Dr. Zahi Hawass and a team of radiologists and technicians (part of the larger Egyptian Mummy Project) have performed new studies on three controversial ancient cadavers from the Valley of the Kings. The first of these is a disarticulated skeleton, believed by some to be the “heretic” pharaoh Akhenaten, from a cache of Amarna-period (mid-14th century BC) material ( KV 55,); and the other two are anonymous mummies found in a side chamber of KV 35, the New Kingdom tomb of Amenhotep II (c. 1454-1419 BC), which was used as a cache for New Kingdom royal bodies in the 21st Dynasty (c. 1081-931 BC). One of this latter pair of mummies has been in the news a great deal of late, as she has been identified as Akhenaten’s wife, the beautiful Nefertiti; the other is thought by some scholars to be Queen Tiye, Akhenaten’s mother. These new scans have revealed that many of the ideas being promoted about them are in fact unfounded, and that further research is needed before conclusions can be reached concerning their identities.

The results of the recent CT-scan show clearly that it is still too early to unequivocally identify the KV 55 skeleton... The most interesting finding is that the spine, which is slightly scoliotic, shows significant degenerative changes, suggesting an age of over 60. This is a significant new finding that needs further investigation; Dr. Hawass believes that a decision cannot be reliably made as to whether the body is that of Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, or someone else entirely...

Dr. Hawass reiterates that other points made in support of the identification of the Younger Lady [from KV35] as Nefertiti can be refuted without referring to the CT-scans... Dr. Hawass concludes that there is no convincing reason to identify the Younger Lady as Nefertiti...

Dr. Hawass reports that the results of the recent CT-scan [of the Elder Lady from KV35] neither confirm nor deny [the suggested] identification [as Queen Tiye]...

CT-scans of Egyptian Mummies from the Valley of the Kings, Zahi Hawass, The Plateau, Guardian's Egypt, July 10, 2007.

Previously:

Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified KV55 Mummy, July 11, 2007.

I have also just spotted that there is a second additional article regarding the CT scanning of the supposed mummy of Queen Hatshepsut.

Identifying Hatshepsut’s Mummy

The effort to identify the mummy of queen Hatshepsut began last year, when Dr. Hawass scientifically examined four unidentified New Kingdom royal female mummies. Three of them were stored in the Egyptian Museum’s third floor and the fourth was inside Tomb KV60 in the Valley of the Kings...

Identifying Hatshepsut’s Mummy, Zahi Hawass, The Plateau, Guardian's Egypt, July 02, 2007.

Egyptologists have uncovered new evidence that bolsters the controversial theory that a mysterious mummy is the corpse of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, husband of Nefertiti and, some experts believe, the father of King Tut.

The mummy's identity has generated fierce debate ever since its discovery in 1907 in tomb KV 55, located less than 100 feet (30 metres) from King Tutankhamun's then hidden burial chamber.

So an international team of researchers led by Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, used a CT scanner to peer inside the body and those of several other Valley of the Kings mummies...

The scan revealed a number of striking physical similarities between the mystery mummy and the body of Tut, including a distinctive egg-shaped skull...

"[This] means we can say now the mummy in KV 55, based on this evidence, and based on the age, and based on the inscriptions written in the coffin, that this could be the mummy of Akhenaten," Hawass told the National Geographic Channel.

But the mummy could also be one of several other people — including another mysterious member of Tut's family — Hawass cautioned...

"The [Younger Lady] mummy that everyone thought is Nefertiti, it is not Nefertiti," he told the National Geographic Channel. "We gave the proof for that."

The Elder Lady may be the powerful Queen Tiye, Akhenaten's mother, while the Younger Lady might possibly be his secondary wife Kiya — the likely mother of King Tutankhamun — the researchers say...

See the National Geographic photo gallery link below.

Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified Mummy, Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, July 10, 2007.

Photo Gallery: Who Was King Tut's Father?, Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News, District of Columbia, USA, July 10, 2007.

cf. Mystery of Tut's Father: New Clues on Unidentified Mummy, Kazinform, Kazakhstan, July 11, 2007.

cf. National Geographic Channel Goes in Search of Nefertiti and Instead May Have Solved the Mystery of King Tut's Father , Elites TV, USA, July 11, 2007.