THE QUEER CASE OF THE QUEEN'S KNEES: DID THEY BELONG TO NEFERTARI?

THEY have been on display in an Italian museum for decades, but after extensive new analysis, researchers say that a pair of 3,200-year-old limbs could well belong to Queen Nefertari, one of ancient Egypt's most famed beauties (not to be confused with Pharaoh Akhenaten's wife Queen Nefertiti).

To help solve the Mystery of the Queen's Knees, experts from around the world ran a series of tests covering radiocarbon dating, paleopathology (the study of ancient diseases), genetics, chemistry, and Egyptology.

The researchers' findings "strongly speak in favour" of the remains belonging to Queen Nefertari, they report. 

That's not a complete surprise, as they were discovered in her tomb in 1904, but this is the first time we've had actual scientific evidence.

"Nefertari is one of the truly great and important queens of Egypt and plays in the league of Hatshepsut, Nefertiti and Cleopatra," Egyptologist Michael Habicht, from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, told Rossella Lorenzi at Seeker.

The Queen was the first wife of Pharaoh Ramesses II, who reigned from 1279 BCE to 1213 BCE, and her body was laid to rest in the Valley of the Queens in a tomb known as QV66, where these mummified remains were found.

"The most likely scenario is that the mummified knees truly belong to Queen Nefertari," Habicht told Seeker. "We have the fact that the remains were found in her tomb, together with objects naming her alone and no one else."

The results of the research have now been published in PLOS ONE.

The only remaining question is: Where is the Lost Tomb of Antinous?