Queen Tiye Wisdom

The mummy of Queen Tiye

For a long while Queen Tiye’s mummy was simply known as The Elder Lady. She was found beside a Younger Lady and a teenage boy within a cache of Amenhotep II’s tomb. The Younger Lady turned out to be the daughter of the Elder Lady, and also the mother of King Tutankhamun.

Due to extensive research, including testing hair follicles and DNA testing, The Elder Lady was certified as Queen Tiye, Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten.
Tiye’s mummy showcased the same DNA results as the mummy of her mother Thuya, mtDNA haplogroup K. The mummy of Yuya, Tiye’s father, held the Y-DNA haplogroup G2a, and mtDNA haplogroup K.

Lock of Tiye's hair
© National Geographic

Additionally, and rather poetically, the identity of Tiye's mummy was even more certified due to Tutankhamun being buried with a nest of tiny ushabti figures and sarcophagi; one in particular containing a lock of his grandmothers' hair, which turned out to be an absolute match for the hair of the Elder Lady, now certainly known as Queen Tiye herself.
As of yet, the younger teenage boy’s identity has not been discovered. However, considering he was
buried between the two women it is very likely that he is the son of Tiye and Amenhotep III, Prince Thutmose, who was the original heir to the throne before Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), but sadly died as a youth. His "sidelock of youth" is still present upon his mummy.

Tiye’s mummy tells us she died between the age of 40 and 50. This was determined by intricate study and analysis of her bones and teeth. Interestingly, the CT-scans of Tiye’s mummy revealed something that we would not have been able to fathom before the progress of the sciences: Tiye’s mummy has missing wisdom teeth!

 “All of the wisdom teeth are missing except the right maxillary one, which shows a fractured root. There is a space for the other three missing wisdom teeth in the jaws, which denotes that they were present at one time during life.” (Hawass, Saleem, D’Auria, 2018)

Could this mean the Egyptians removed wisdom teeth as we do today? The idea that three wisdom teeth are missing, yet the gum cavity remains, showcasing the teeth did once exist there, tells us that they were in fact removed. Only one root remains of a wisdom tooth, a fractured root, which obviously could have caused the Queen pain in her life time. This finding is very important when regarding Ancient Egyptian health and dental care. In my view, the absence of Tiye’s wisdom teeth is something that should not be overlooked.

 

Bibliography:

Hawass, Z.A., Saleem, S.N. and D'Auria, S. (2018) Scanning the pharaohs: CT imaging of the New Kingdom Royal Mummies. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.