Smenkhkare: Encyclopedia II - Smenkhkare - Tomb

Smenkhkare - Tomb

In 1907, Arthur Weigall and Theodore Davis discovered a tomb known as "Tomb 55" in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb itself is a mystery, as the door bears the name Tutankhamen, the shrine and sarcophagus indicate that they were designed for Akhenaten's wife Kiya, and a very poorly preserved body that is considered, with about 80% certainty, to be male around 20 years of age. There are some indications that the body shares common traits with Tutankhamen, suggesting a close relative, but the poor degree of preservation makes this difficult to ascertain. Some scholars consider this to be the mummy of Smenkhkare while others are certain that it belongs to Akhenaten because its royal cartouches were deliberately erased from the king's coffin and his royal uraeus was removed.

Although little is known about him/her, Smenkhkare's face may actually be the most well-known of all the Pharaohs: the image often used to illustrate books and exhibitions on Tutankhamun may well be of Smenkhkare. It comes from the middle coffin of Tutankhamun's tomb (pharaohs were buried in a series of 3 coffins, like Russian dolls), and it clearly differs in appearance from the images on the inner and outer coffins. With a number of other artefacts in Tutankhamun's tomb bearing Smenkhkare's name, and with a reconstruction from the mummy in KV55 bearing a strong similarity, it may well be the face of Smenkhkare. Being more attractive than the alternatives (notably in being more mature, less boyish), the image has however been widely adopted in modern times for illustrations of Tutankhamun.^[1]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Tomb", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki