Post by JTEMPost by Katherine GriffisPost by JTEMHawass himself spewed some pretty wild theories,
in the very same interview in which he smeared
Joann Fletcher.
And those would be what?
| [Hawass] explained that, "Nefertiti was involved in the
| assassination of her husband's successor, Smenkhare,
| and was later in conflict with King Horemhab who
| overthrew the monotheistic cult of his predecessor and
| erased all traces of it. Horemhab would never have
| allowed Queen Nefertari to be buried in the Valley of
| Kings," he concluded.
I see, this is the quote from the Al-Ahram Weekly interview of 26 June
- 2 July 2003, Issue No. 644, by Nevine El-Aref. This can be found
online at:
<http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/644/he1.htm>
I should think the conflation of 'Nefertiti' with 'Nefertari' should
have given you a hint that the reporter likely had the quote confused.
This is made even more clear from the next paragraph in which it is
stated:
"...Nefertiti was a high-profile queen, who, incidentally, appeared
nearly twice as often in reliefs as her husband, the king, during the
first five years of his reign. After this she continued to appear in
reliefs, though outshone to some extent by other royal favourites like
Kiya and her own eldest daughter Mereaten [sic]. In the latter years of
the Akhenaten's reign, however, she disappeared from the scene. So
whether or not the mummy is indeed that of the beautiful queen, the
dearth of convincing evidence means this may remain one of Ancient
Egypt's most enthralling and enduring mysteries."
If Nefertiti 'disappeared' in the latter years of Akhenaten's reign,
it's not very likely that she was still around when Horemheb took over
from Ay (who in turn had succeeded Tutankhamun), some 20+ years later.
Hawass, to me, is discussing one of many of the theories that have been
proposed - nothing is known for a fact, after all. I personally don't
believe this one (and I think few Egyptologists do), but it has as much
weight as Fletcher's theory that the body in KV35 is that of Nefertiti
- that is, none.
Post by JTEMSo Joann Fletcher is attacked by Hawass for saying
something as radical as "I think this is Nefertiti's
body," even as Hawass strings together a number of
wild (and oh so unsupported) claims, which he then
pronounces as fact.
<shrugs> Anybody can discuss any theory they want: it's one thing to
claim one thing in an official report and then say something else to
television cameras and call it fact.
Post by JTEMAdmit it, the women was punished for failing to
walk in step with the almighty Hawass.
Your opinion, not fact, and no, I don't happen to agree with it.
Post by JTEMAs for the other excuse for punishing her -- that she
failed to comply with his royal edicts -- that matter
is hardly as one sided as his royal majoesty would
http://makeashorterlink.com/?O26B45CBA
There. I've addressed both the imaginary issue
regarding the quality of her claims AND the
issue surrounding a supposed violation of the
royal edicts.
No, you haven't: you've given one secondhand account of an anecdotal
story (I have read the Buckley account in full first-hand (when it
first appeared on the Guardians Net discussion list), not in a
second-hand fashion as you have here, which is given from (IMO) a
not-so-reliable source), whereas the SCA report she gave, as written,
conflicts with her 'published' theory on Discovery. Even Buckley
acknowledged that the SCA rule requiring SCA approval of 'publications'
was in place from "...the previous year." However, I do understand that
it was not his responsibility to do or know about it as well (as he so
stated). It was Fletcher's, as the head of the expedition team.
Fletcher was aware of the March 2003 SCA rule on publication of 'new
discoveries' when she allowed Discovery to make the announcement in
June _2003_ that Nefertiti had been "found," and hyped as a "new
discovery." She had, IMO, a professional responsibility to make it
clear to Discovery that if she did not mean that as a _factual
statement_, she should have had that statement removed, and awaited SCA
review/approval of her work.
Further, when one publishes in an official report that 'there is a
confusion over the gender of this mummy,' as Dr. Brothwell did in the
SCA report, and then say in the Discovery programme, for a _fact_, mind
you, there was _no doubt_ the mummy was female (when in fact it was
shown by DNA PCR testing as male) then, you have a serious breach of
SCA regulations.
So, you still haven't addressed these issues. Further, as I noted,
until the Discovery programme, Fletcher herself admitted that she did
not divulge the identity she suspected of the KV 35 mummy, even to
professional colleagues. See:
<http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/nefertiti/story/story.html>
or
<http://tinyurl.com/4rwpf>
The SCA could not have failed to have noted this when it compared her
report against her Discovery programme 'publication,' and that she
admitted in an interview, published by Discovery, she had withheld her
conclusions from them, apparently in hopes of giving the Discovery
Channel (who funded her examination, BTW, as per
<http://www.cbc.ca/disclosure/archives/040113_nef/introduction.html>)the
'first crack' at her conclusions.
Further, the report sent by Fletcher's team to the SCA contained only
vague report allusions of identity, which did not conclusively state
the mummy was that of Nefertiti - in fact, the Fletcher science team
could not agree if the gender of the mummy was even female, and based
their "best estimate" on the lack of phallus, deflated breasts, and a
notched sciatic arch (which in this case, was within both male and
female ranges, and thus inconclusive).
To me, I can see why the SCA found her later statements in the
Discovery programme of theory on gender and identification as "fact"
very frustrating, based upon the less definitive and vague allusions
they had in that SCA report. It was for these reasons noted above that
she was suspended from further expedition work in Egypt by the SCA.
In her recently published book, _Search for Nefertiti_, issued Aug. 16,
2004, Dr. Fletcher does not address a _single objection_ to her theory
about the KV 35-Nefertiti identification, as controversial as it was.
Nor, in particular, did she address the DNA report identifying the KV
35 mummy as male, which was issued in January 2004 by the SCA through
the CBC Blockbuster Science program (URL given earlier). This is, to
say the least, extremely odd, assuming that she felt her theory was
valid, and tends to be at odds with usual academic debate when faced
with objections to a theory.
---
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg, MA (Lon)
Member, International Association of Egyptologists
American Research Center in Egypt, SSEA, ASOR
Oriental Institute
Oriental Studies Doctoral Program [Egyptology]
University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom
http://www.griffis-consulting.com